Interview with Khate

Khate Gausman is an electronics/noise/circuit-bending artist based in Virginia. A few weeks ago, we did an email interview for a magazine piece I'm writing about her (hopefully I'll be done with it is week - fingers crossed!). I'm posting it all here, pretty much unedited. because there's no way I'll be able to squeeze all this info into a several-hundred word story.

Enjoy! Buy her records! If you're unsure whether you'll like her records, download/sample a few of the many great mp3s on her site!

What sparked your interest in circuit-bending related tunes? Was there a sort of "eureka" moment? Is there anyone who you would count as an influence?

Back in '98 I bought a CD & book set called "Gravikords, Whirlies and Pyrophones", which features work by Reed Ghazala. Flash forward two years, when I find a Speak & Spell in a thrift store and think "wait, can't I do that circuit-bending thing on that?" Curiosity soon became an obsession. I come from a visual art background and only started making noises in the late 90's, so the idea of constructing a unique sonic sculpture was a very happy marriage of old interests with new.

Your two latest albums - Composition of a Recorded Mass and Parts -- seem different from your previous work in the sense that each seems to hew to a certain sonic idea. i.e. the former is less solid and sort of shadowy and amorphous, but the latter is full of quick jolts and sharp edges (to these ears, anyway). Meanwhile the older CDs struck me more as collections of odds and ends, potpurri style. Was this intentional? Do you find yourself increasingly wanting each album to
stick to a particular mood? (or am I totally off base, here?)

You're correct --- recent albums adhere a bit more to a sonic theme, but for reasons as practical as aesthetic. Within the last year I've accrued a backlog of material that has only recently been mastered; with more tracks to pick from, it's easier to arrange them by theme. I don't mind the potpourri approach to album mixing, and will probably release some like that in the future. It's simply that the most recent work has sounded better grouped with neighboring themes, and I have enough of it to do so.

I notice that Composition (and a few tracks on other records) incorporates samples from the Conet Project (radio recordings of people talking in code, forgive me if I'm getting the name wrong). Is there a particular significance to the inclusion of those samples in your work?
There's something hypnotic, alien, and totemic about that stuff and it fits >in well with your music.

[I like to use them because they are hypnotic, alien, and totemic --- waitaminnit, quit preempting my good answers. :P] I was familiar with spy number stations before I'd heard of the Conet Project; most of samples come from SW enthusiasts' websites. My dad was into shortwave for a while when I was growing up. I can't help but think I was influenced by hearing the foreign voices and disturbing interference on Friday nights as I labored on artwork in the next room. I've always been fascinated by codes and ciphers and mysterious communiques, so the idea of a code I could inject into audio artwork delighted me.

what, exactly, does circuit bending entail, and what do your tools and materials consist of?

In a nutshell, circuit-bending involves opening up some sound-making or -altering device (toys, keyboards, guitar pedals, etc.) and re-wiring it to create sounds the manufacturer never intended. The results can be controlled effects or random glitching. Part of the allure --- for me, anyways --- is also modding or re-housing the case, so the instrument becomes not only a unique source of strange sounds but a work of art unto itself.

the article mentions that circuit bending is a pasttime both you and your partner share. Do you two ever collaborate on projects? Does he make records as well? What's the dynamic like when both of you are teasing noise from sound chips at the same time?

Wayne indeed does his own musical thing; we met at a gig in Richmond, VA we were both on the bill for. He goes by FERALCATSCAN, and we often collaborate making noise as well as circuit-bent artifacts. It can be nice having another bender in the house, in order to get a second opinion on design or technical challenges. The biggest hurdle we have while bending is occasionally wanting to throw the other's toy out the window, having heard "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" or somesuch 673 consecutive times during an afternoon of searching for good bends and mods.

Do you consider what you do experimental electronic sound, noise, or some other genre classification?

I use "noise" casually because it's easy to say and only 5 characters to type. Albums like Circadian, though, I don't find particularly "noisy" in the genre sense of the word. I like to dabble all over the electronic spectrum from strange rap remixes to glitch techno to dark ambient to noise. It's tough to pigeon-hole myself.

Tell me about how you came to be involved with the Women Take Back The Noise compilation. Have you been featured on any other comps?

Ninah, the incredible force behind WTBTN, invited me to be on the comp. I sent some tracks, two of which got selected. I was fortunate to see the compilation in progress when I was in California last year. One thousand circuit boards waiting on cookie sheets to be hot-glued into boxsets is an impressive sight, indeed. I've had tracks on Dark Assembly I & II, which were Virginia-based goth/industrial comps, as well as a handful of noise comps released in DIY (and now OOP) fashion.

How do you make a living outside of music, and where has your artistic career taken you thus far? (in an earlier email, you mentioned doing a BBC interview) What have some of the highlights of this experience been for you?

By day, I'm an a/v tech for a public library. We set up conference room equipment, fix the circulating tapes and discs that the patrons abuse, and run lights and sound for events in our 268-seat theatre. I've always enjoyed working for libraries, and this combines my bibliophilia with plugging in cables. It's a good gig.

A definite highlight was being asked to give a talk at UC Santa Cruz last year. They have an MFA program in Digital Arts and New Media, and asked me to speak about circuit-bending at their colloquium last year. Meeting the folks who came to the talk was well worth the trip alone. Thank goodness this was before the "liquids can explode" TSA regulations; it was enough fun at the time flying to California with circuit-bent devices in my carry-on.

Tell me a bit about Field Report, and the contest you held in relation to it.

2006 was a very productive year, track-wise, so I had quite a bit of stuff that could be released after the winter mastering season. I was in a visual art doldrum, and decided to loosen my DIY reigns for a change. The album was made available for mp3 download, and folks were encouraged to come with their own album covers. The selected artist would win a Khate-for-life subscription (free albums in perpetuity). I thought the contest would free me from agonizing in an OCD fashion about artwork for a new release, but instead I just chewed my lip over selecting others' artwork. After picking through some fine submissions, I went with David Waldman's excellent photography.

Field Report is probably the most "live" full-length album. There's alot of straight-to-tape sessions with minimal computer editing on it. If you're curious what an average Saturday night in my house sounds like, there you go.

Do you have a favorite of any of your records?

Here's where I'm supposed to say "they're my children, I love them all equally!" But truth be told: if I'm feeling down on my work, I listen to "Ononharoia" to trick myself into thinking, "eh, I'm not so bad."

What are some of your favorite mainstream artists/albums? Have you ever considered sampling from any of them?

Honestly, I don't listen to a heckuva lot of recent mainstream (if by that, you mean "can be heard on antennae radio in a car"). When I lived in NY and managed a used CD store, I was a bit more in touch with genres outside the ones I favor. Now, the closest I come would be occasionally enjoying the local rap/hiphop station. So, I have done remixes of Busta Rhymes and Missy Elliot, and sample lots of old school like Public Enemy, Slick Rick, Big Daddy Kane. With the exception of PE (who seem to be sample-friendly), these tracks tend to get released for friends only, as I'm afraid of lawsuits I cannot afford. Shame, as I think they're pretty interesting.

How's your D.I.Y. process working out, i.e. recording and releasing everything yourself working out? Is it a course you prefer to recording for a label, or have you ever considered signing somewhere?

If I knew I could get signed to nature's perfect label, where I'd maintain complete creative control, keep CDs affordable for fans, and it was run by honest folks, then I'd probably sign. I'd like the added publicity a label could generate, but I'm so terribly wary of getting embroiled in some sort of contractual hell. Being DIY also means keeping costs low, and I'd rather have 100 people buying a CD for $5 than 33 fans buying them at $15.

You mentioned teaching circuit bending in the newspaper article. Do you have a lot of students, or a number that's surprising to you?

I've done two workshops in Richmond at noise festivals, and was pleasantly surprised at the the turnout. When we knew the Daily Press article was going to run, we set up a meeting place for Williamsburg, and got about a dozen attendees. For a podunk town such as that, I was again happily surprised. A handful have followed up and we regularly have folks over to teach them the arcane arts of bending.

How does your songwriting process operate?

Sometimes I play the instruments; sometimes, the instruments play me. With certain bent instruments, it's often seemingly up to chance what they will spit out. In those instances, I record gobs of material and then edit it down into interesting and digestible chunks. Other times, I'll have a theme in mind and either use the reliable bent instruments or my straightforward gear. Most often, it's a combination of the two, layered upon each other and "iced" with field recordings and samples.

Seasons and weather play a big role in what I work on. If I start a track and don't finish it within the season, it will usually get shelved until the following year because I simply can't get into it once the weather changes.

When and why did you decide to change your first name to "Khate"?

I got the name from Wildy Petoud's short story "Accident D'Amour", a truly horrifying bit of splatterpunk. At the time I was making angry, stompy industrial music and needed a nom de synthesizer, so putting the "hate" in "Kate" made sense. It stuck, though I drifted into less angry genres. The only place it actually says "Khate" in paperwork is at the auto repair shop, because I have vanity plates on my car and they just assumed that was how it's spelled.

What's next for you? I know Field Report is out soon and you mentioned playing a show in NYC with Z'ev. How was that experience, and what sort of reception did you receive? Do you think you'll play out live >more in the future?

Opening for Z'EV in Rochester was a fantastic experience, even though it involved driving through a foot of snow in April the next day. The incoming nor'easter kept the audience small, but everyone involved was very enthused. I would like to play out more, but the area I live in doesn't have much in the way of venues which cater to the experimental set.

I notice that every track list on your CDs is shadowed by a comment on
each track title. Why do this? Is it a means of sharing a bit of literal, lingual self, since these songs are for the most part "instrumental" in form?

Yes, since there aren't lyrics (aside from the odd sample) for my songs, I like to give little hints in these footnotes. I try to make them vague enough that the track is still open to interpretation and the impressions of the listener, but perhaps points towards the direction I was feeling at the time of creation. Plus, I've always enjoyed descriptive, illustrative liner notes in general; why do classical albums have them, and yet far more mysterious electronic albums do not? At best one seems to get a name-dropping list of thank yous. I used to include thank-you's, but I'm afraid of leaving someone out, and the "you know who you are" is a cop-out. Best to simply thank the listener.

You work in a library, right? You ever find that your day job influences your music, and if so, how?

While I work for a library, it's as an AV tech. Our department fixes abused media, sets up equipment for conference rooms, and runs lights and sound for our 268 seat theatre. If nothing else, running sound for our concert series has certainly given me a great deal of empathy for soundguys*, and so I try to make my live rig as soundguy-friendly as possible. It may take me an hour to plug in the miles of cable, but once I'm ready to go, all the soundguy has to do is make me loud. I'd be the last person on earth to be some diva whose monitor check takes longer than the house check. Running sound for a variety of genres has also enhanced my mixing and production chops; if I ever decide to incorporate, say, a hammered dulcimer, at least I know how to mic it.

*I call myself a soundguy; while it may seem obvious coming from a woman, let me be plain: no sexism is meant, I just like the term, regardless of gender.

You said you had a fine-arts background; did you go to school for
arts, or was this a personal pursuit?

A bit of both. I've been drawing as long as I can remember, focused on art during my primary school education, and started off in college as an art major. I switched to studying psychology during college, and then found a happy marriage of the two in art therapy and got a master's degree in that.

My visual art pursuits have taken a backseat to the noise-making in the past few years, album covers and custom-painted bent instruments not withstanding. In recent months I've been trying to get my art mojo back, though. I've been keeping a sketchbook and just spent the July 4th holiday working on some found object sculpture (an alien Virgin Mary shrine made from an overhauled Barbie; a circuit-board dragonfly with wings cut from the acetate matrices found inside PC keyboards).

How was the track "Imaginary Numbers" crafted?

Like many tracks on FR, it's got a very "live" feel and technique to it.
It employs the Vinyl Translator a great deal, a circuit-bent turntable that runs forwards and backwards from about 10 to 50 rpm. It's very fun to play and gets trotted out to live gigs regularly. The working title for the track was "The Office" because it heavily uses an 80's record of office sound effects --- lots of clunky teletext and now-antiquated copy machines.

The spoken samples reflect my love of number theory. I'm no math genius, yet number theory intrigues me greatly; it tantalizes and confuses my brain at the same time, like hearing a Catholic mass in Latin. I sense the power and the mystery even though I don't fully grasp it. Imaginary numbers are among those mysteries, so this became something of a hymn to them.

Does Field Report, in your mind, have an overall/overarching
theme? It reminds me of Composition in a way but it's sort
of...darker, more enthropic (even with the samples).

FR was arranged more as a potpourri album, an assortment of odds and ends that hadn't fit well on previous releases. They didn't play well with others, so they're forced to play with each other. It's an orphanage of an album. The chaotic and darker feel probably stems more from my general mindset in the late summer and fall of '06, when most of the tracks were composed, than a conscious effort to group tracks thematically.

The title was picked after selected the winning album cover artwork. It fit the feel of Pighood's lovely cover photo "Hose Nazi in the Wheat", as well as the nature of the track selection. Might not fit together, might not be pretty, but here's what's out there. Just reporting in, sir.

Hot, Poppin'

1. Congratulations to Amal, for finishing up that Drexel U. Ph.D in Math yesterday (while seriously pregnant)! She called me up after her thesis/dissertation oral arguments stuff. Color Voguing to Danzig totally proud. We're also, belatedly, proud of Cecilia, who handled her own rarified Ph.D business (thesis: something about globalization, discipline: related to philosophy) like a month ago or something and graduated a couple weekends back. Yeah! HELL yeah!

2. "According to Monique, "over 100,000" people voted on which song 50 Cent should perform tonight. That's not actually a particularly impressive number. In any case, "Amusement Park" wins. A bunch of girls dangle upside-down on streamers at the back of the stage. For some reason, 50 declines to rap the first verse of the song, lip-syncing the chorus and then wandering around in the crowd muttering to himself instead. It's a really weird moment; even Yayo seems confused. 50's parting words: "Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Vitamin Water. It doesn't even matter anymore." Someone needs to tell 50 that there's a fine line between greatness and insanity." That's from Status Ain't Hood's rundown of the BET Awards, which doesn't even require additional comment from me beyond "50 Cent ain't a businessman, he's a business, man."

3. R.I.P. Chris Benoit, aka "the rabid wolverine." (The irony, indeed.) Shit is fucked up in pro wrestling.

This Wednesday in Nodin

Nodin, to Gravity: “Soon enough I shall elude thine acursed grasp and defy thine domineering tyranny to stand – to stand proud and tall! – riumphant at long last, finally impervious to the cruel duress under which you would imprison me while denying me mobility that is my destiny as a sentient being, verily, etc.”

Gravity, in response: “...”

#999 Prodigy “Stop Fronting” [Koch, 2007]

There are so many other songs I could write about at this point in this intermittent series of blurbs that are equally great, and many of them are actually better than this one. (Bad Religion, Smiths, Pavement, etc. – you’re up next. I promise!) Plus it isn’t like hip-hop isn’t full of songs about nothing. Most of Cam’ron’s songs – despite being inventive, amusing, and appallingly predatory in equal measure – are totally meaningless! Pharrell’s entire solo album is an expensive exercise in emptiness (it also sucks, “Number One” nonwithstanding). I don’t know when Prodigy’s H.N.I.C. 2 comes out; I don’t even know anything about his previous solo records or the Mobb Deep back catalogue. I bought Return of the Mac solely on the recommendation of this guy, and I haven’t regretted it. “Stop Fronting” is drawn from that album, and it’s hands down one of my favorite singles (if we understand “single” as any song, not necessarily one that gets radio play) of this year. Not only is it a song about – basically – nothing, it’s the first of its kind for me, new to these ears: a song about driving around the city listening to one’s own forthcoming (eventually) album, convinced that one is on the verge of world domination, catigating one’s rivals as useless, laying out what one will be doing later in the year career-wise, suggesting that the possibility exists that one will be enjoying X-rated sexual relations with one’s rivals’ significant others. And – superficially, anyway – that’s it.

The rhymes are mostly pretty workmanlike, which squares with the rest of Return. I get the sense that Prodigy saved the best stuff for H.N.I.C. 2; Return is supposed to be the “mix tape” setting that unreleased album up or something. Alchemist’s blaxploitation production undergrids the whole thing, and it’s gorgeous and sweeping and grand; it almost seems to be going to waste. Prodigy sounds angry/paranoid/sinister/weary enough in tone that I can almost forgive his lack of lyrical invention, even though it means Return won’t make my Top Ten (or even Top Twenty) Albums list this year. Why does “Stop Fronting” implore me to return to it over and over again? Why not “Bang On ‘Em” or “7th Heaven”? Maybe it’s because on this song he just comes off invunerable and self-assured, as though everything he’s saying is pure fact; it’s like he doesn’t even have to say this stuff, it’s all universally self-evident. (T.I.’s “What You Know” worked a similar angle and shone.) “Ain’t shit changed but the diamonds got bigger/Watch mucho frio, something like a blizzard/It’s summertime, it’s hot/And you ain’t got no freon/I’m in the Bentley drop, to me you’re a peon/You got neon lights, underneath your Nissan/I got LeAnn Rimes, passing me the weed, son.” Prodigy probably isn’t smoking marijuana with LeAnn Rimes or driving a Bentley, but that’s still one of the finest I’m-better-than-you couplets I’ve come across lately, in part because of the timeless lameness of anyone tricking out cars (luxury or otherwise) with neon lights and in part because Prodigy delivers it as if he isn’t even interested, as if he just came up with that string of lines while waiting for the light to change and decided it was better than what he’d planned to say about guns or getting revenge or whatever (see: the rest of Return). The subtext: his next album is just loaded with commentary of this mint/caliber, so check for it. The tapestry of faux horns and strings, meanwhile, glows and pulses and threatens to fade out behind him; it’s as if he’s cruising through a fog-flooded city that’s slightly unreal, the streetlights indistinct bright globs, the surroundings possibly dangerous but probably not. There is, then, a blatant artificiality to the production (and the whole enterprise) that winks at the listener, that says “The situations portrayed here do not represent real life for either DJ or rapper, and we know that you know that we know this, but isn’t it fun for all of us to pretend that we have this sort of power and prestige, to escape the mundane truth – you know, that we are simply musicians entertaining you, while you’re a bored office drone whose day we’ve maybe made just a bit more exciting?” I won’t quote it, but the chorus re-inforces this idea. Later, he refers to himself as “the God MC” for no reason whatsoever – perhaps to mess with Jay-Z, perhaps just because – later hinting that he’s got a vault of amazing rhymes and urging his label to “put my shit out now, put that other shit down,” knowing full well that this command probably won’t effect progress though it sets up a rhyme that reiterates that this is simply a mix tape. Later still: tour plans! He will be touring with “50 and Em” as part of Mobb Deep. This is an interesting comment for several reasons. First, while “50 and Em” are industry titans, they’re also (a) old news even for those who don’t care about rap at large and (b) significantly more popular and wealthier than Prodigy. So he’s performing with dudes whose careers peaked long ago but in all likelihood opening for them; openers are traditionally up-and-comers. So Prodigy is in effect ascending, moving on up to the big time; it’s been a decade plus ride but there are rungs left to climb. He’s using them as stepping-stones. “Stop Fronting” concludes with a bit of perfunctory beat hiccuping about taking your girlfriend home (you = hater, adversary, etc.) that isn’t as clever as Prodigy thinks it is but fits for outro purposes and as a means of breaking the song’s hypnotic drag-spell – the verses are stutters, clipped and abrupt and pointed, so the illusion is given that like the song has reached its logical conclusion, even if more could be said, really. Alchemist’s sleepy, Xanax-y production trails off into the night, the action or lack thereoff drifting on without us towards some blurry distant climax – and we’re left wanting more. Something, anything? The three-minute mark hasn’t even been breached; this is the final track on the record. Dude, what happened? Did my non-existant girlfriend who I’ve set up with the highest-quality jewelry and designer clothes and who is a frequenter of chic nightspots go home with you, Prodigy? Are they putting your shit out now? Did they put that other shit down? Did Em pop pain pills on tour? Was there an intervention? Did your pre-show ryder include a gross of 50’s celebrated vitamin water? Why isn’t this track titled “Stop Frontin’” when that’s how you pronounce it? (Is grammar that important to you? If so, shouldn’t “Bang on ‘Em” be titled “Bang on Them”?) I want to know these things, but no matter how many times I listen to “Stop Fronting,” I remain as removed from the answers as I was the first time. That’s one of the keys to a great song, though: always leave ‘em wanting more.

Things I Learned Watching "Ocean's Thirteen"

-No Topher Grace cameo!

-No sulky Julia Roberts! No catty Catherine Zeta-Jones! No turkey ala-king!

-What does it mean that Grace’s absence disappointed me more than the absences of Roberts and Zeta-Jones?

-A lot of film critics took a perverse delight in panning this movie outright, panning it up to a point, or breezing through no-stakes reviews with what they probably imagined was the broadsheet equivalent of director Steven Soderbergh’s devil-may-care tone here. The New Yorker’s David Denby – whom I quite like, even when we don’t see eye-to-eye – didn’t even deign to give Ocean’s Thirteen an indepth review, instead tacking a one-paragraph flourish onto the back of a longish standard multi-flick thinkpiece. I sort of disagree with his estimation, but then I sort of don’t, and his closing sentence might be my favorite line of the, like, 30 writeups I read because I’m a loser: “Soderbergh ends the movie with a few jokes, which is casual and neat but leaves you wondering whether the practice of making enormous movies about nothing isn’t a little mad.”

-Baddie to restless/relentless police detective Al Pacino in Heat: “I could get killed for tellin’ you this shit!” Pacino, snapping gum and chewing scenery, to baddie: “You could get killed walkin’ your doggie!” God, Heat’s such an awesome movie, even 11 years later. Even though it totally could’ve lost maybe 50 minutes. Dear rappers: please make movies based around Heat instead of Scarface. Seriously, I saw Scarface maybe once and never want to see it again. It's like paint drying while Pacino tries, desperately, to be hispanic. Lame!

-Pacino’s the bad guy in this case. He’s Willie Bank. His casino’s called The Bank. He’s looking to make mad bank. Bank bank bank! That’s fun to say in place of swear words. “Holy bank!” “Bank you!” “Bank this bankety-bank, man! Bank it!” More seriously, I know this franchise is high-profile and I like Pacino as much as anybody, but why they didn’t get Christopher Walken for this role is beyond me. He’d have brought more to the whole asshole villian thing. Or Sean Bean. No, not Sean Bean. Sean Bean’s such a ubiquitos bad guy actor that he wouldn’t have even registered amidst all the glamour and high-voltage starpower on display here. Plus, I don’t know that he’s a bankable enough quantity. (Ouch.)

-Casey Affleck’s fake-as-all-fuck Mexican moustache steals the movie in an uncredited role. (Or was that Scott Caan’s moustache? I don’t know. Does it matter?) I’m not going to explain why Caan and Affleck go to Mexico, what result they instigate, or what it has to do with the plot because it’s so ridiculous and random that I don’t wanna ruin it for you.

-Yeah, about the plot. Read a couple reviews before you see this movie or nothing that happens will make any sense whatsoever. Rest assured that you will still have a fun time even though it’s a foregone conclusion how all this will end.

-The whiney guy who plays computer whiz Livingston Dell is the same dude from those Budweiser “Why Ask Why” television commericals from back in the day, right? Just asking.

-At this point, you may be getting the impression that I didn’t enjoy this movie; you’re wrong. I just like making dumb jokes.

-Matt Damon gets to pretend to be a vintage Bond villian. The guy who plays Saul gets to pretend to be Q pretending to be a British hotel critic. While driving to work this morning I remembered a scene from one of those early 007 movies where Sean Connery is informed, by M, that one of his fellow agents was killed in the field, and he responds by saying “We shared the same bootmaker.” I have no idea what that means in the context of this ongoing non-review of Ocean’s Thirteen.

-Alecia probably got sick of me making comments about how delicate and gravity-defying and earthquake non-impervious and building-code impossible Bank’s towering, cgi-generated casino/hotel/resort looks. It’s like a crimson and gold glass’n’steel Twisler or something.

-All those random shots of the Night Fox – you’ll remember him as the super-duper burgler extraordinare/nemesis from Ocean’s Twelve – do add up to something eventually.

-Bernie Mac doesn’t get enough screen time to talk about his nails or skin moisturizers.

-Whatever language Shaobo Qin speaks – Chinese? – is now understood by every member of the gang, even though he doesn’t speak any English. It’s a testament to the cast and the director that this linguistic incongruity gag is actually funny the third time around.

-Ocean’s Thirteen was a great deal of fun, though a subsequent sequel is unnecessary. The same could be said, in fact, about Ocean’s Twelve. Why try to top the Ocean’s Eleven’s perfect crime caper? The answer is: because they could. That nothing other than honor/friendship is at stake here is acceptable and besides the point, because these movies exist for their own sakes. The attraction lies in watching cogs in a heist-machine operate and succeed even though we as viewers might not understand exactly how the whole thing works until we’ve seen the movie(s) four or five times. This series could run forever, but should it? I mean, I’ve been trying to imagine what an Ocean’s Fourteen would look like all weekend and I’m just seeing George Clooney laying in a suave coma as the other principles live their lives all over the world for three hours. Ultimately, of course, we’d learn that the gang was surrepticiously bankrupting Halliburton via an elaborate plan Clooney communicated to Brad Pitt via telepathy. And I’d go see it anyway, and so would you. And when it ran on cable week after week we’d tune in everytime we stumbled upon it, without fail, and we wouldn’t consider this a waste of time. That’s what I’d call the mother of all (mod) cons.

YouTube if You Dare

Nothing of note to say, really, except that my cousin Kandace - who lives in Boston, I think, who knows, she doesn't keep in touch - has some goofy videos up at, well, you know. See her lobby to be America's Next Top Model! See her play a game with her friends! Somewhere, Madonna is pouting. No shame, no shame!

Thanks to our mutual cousin, Kevin, for bringing these curios to my attention. Kevin can rest assured that I'll be posting here about his wedding DVD before summer's end.

"Political Song for Paris Hilton to Sing"

My Darling Paris,

Excelsior! Bon jour! It is with great satisfaction that I, at long last, ship this parcel to you. Find enclosed a few CDs, a lyric sheet, some notes, a glitter-drenched poster collage tribute to your effortless fabulousness, and a manila return SASE in the event that the song I’ve written to launch your pop career into the stratosphere isn’t quite to your liking. Thought about fashioning a shiv and sending that along, too, but by the time you read this you’ll be outta the clink, in all likelihood. Maybe next time. So anyway, you live in a burned-out, boarded-up bowling alley in Malibu? Not very chic, but oh-so shabby, right? I guess the only intruders you’ve gotta deal with there are crack heads and rats. You’re probably wondering how I found your address. Well, funny story, well, not really funny ha-ha, but I’m prefacing with “funny story” because I don’t want to sound like a stalker – do I? I’m not! Your management company never returned any of the e-mails I sent or the voicemails I left while on helium, but it’s cool, turns out I know someone who knows someone who’s tight with your dealer, heh heh, so here we are.

Chorus:

1-800 CIA, union rep’s all on your case
Call me Matt Damon cuz my word is Bourne
I’m all outta flour, let’s go to Safeway
Del Monte on sale, I’m bout some creamed corn
REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED

Might be time to trade in the Nissan
Five-star black-op renditions, Darfur safari vacay
My online psych prof’s nicknamed “Brie” Sean
Gird thine loins for tomorrow’s front page:
REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED

Verse:

Last night I dreamed I was Aeon Flux, sulking with Iranian sheiks in a Kenta burka
Last night I dreamed I could walk again, woke up screaming in a drainage ditch
I don’t know why I’m in a catatonic trance, slumped right in a stalled-out Prius
At a stoplight in central Los Angeles while strangers kick my tires
It’s as though nothing bears any consequence
It’s as though I’m imprisoned in dry, abandoned bong

Verse 2:

Repeat Verse 1 in Spanish.

Chorus.

Verse 3:

Repeat Verse 1 in Czech.

Chorus.

Verse 4:

Repeat Verse 1 in a halting Appalachian dialect.

Chorus.

(1) In the video, you should be slathered in all-natural honey and covered in swan feathers. You should also be wearing an onyx and white-gold tiara. I’m thinking David LaChappelle to direct? Or a gibbon? Or Wesley Willis, even though he’s dead.
(2) Also, we’ll need a rapper. Have you met Lil Wayne? Dude’s put out 125 mix tapes this year so far, never seems to sleep, and is apparently down for whatever. I know this because on a whim I sent the teen pop, zydeco, and bluegrass mixes of this song to his Bust.com email addy – along with a zip file of Lightning Bolt’s Wonderful Rainbow – and a month later I got a freestyle tape from the guy where he’s freestyling about hobbits and unicorns and shit. I mean, he’s rhyming about buying coke from Shrek and hunting gnomes and Emerald City detainees testifying before Judge Wapner! Apparently our collabo – I Can’t Feel MySpace – has been downloaded 2,899 times, so even though you’ve yet to put your inimitable stamp on the track, it’s already blazin' hot on the streets! Or Idolator.com. Same thing.
(3) My mom blasts this tune in her minivan on the regular and tells people in other cars that I wrote it! Which is embarrassing but maybe kind of telling because my mom hates pop music that doesn’t involve Michael Jackson. Do you think Michael Jackson would be willing to guest on a crunk remix? Think you could bring him onboard for what might be the pop event of the decade? Mom and I have a bet going; she thinks you can’t! But if you can she’ll forgive the $13,524 in back rent that I owe her. So no pressure.
(4) Back to the video. I was thinking that a white pigeon could be procured and trained to follow you around from start to end –through the exploding cacti and the cascading Skittles and the Mama Sunshine Singers dance revue and the part where you drive to Bill Bateman’s and order some wings but the waitress brings you a plate heaped with baby skulls – sort of like a benign falcon or something, perched on your shoulder most of the time but flapping around crazily whenever the Casio SK-1 keyboard hook-whine kicks in on the choruses. Anyway, when the video concludes with you selling yourself on the street in a D.C. slum, the pigeon transforms into Sanjaya! Wearing a hot pink baby tee emblazoned with the words “No Homo”! I think he’d be game; I think he’d be down.
(5) The first verse should be delivered totally straight, totally sincere, and from there each successive verse should be increasingly flippant and ambiguous. Maybe you mean it, maybe you don’t, and if you don’t, who could blame you? When my mom sings along to it you’d think she was shopping for apricots or something. Usually she’s just washing the dishes, though. Or brushing our daschund, Lars.

Yours truly,
Blaine Vancouver

Animal Collective
Blitzen Trapper “Sci-Fi Kid”
Brother Reade "Let's Go"
Allan M. Brandt The Cigarette Century
Christine Harold Ourspace
Khate “Swamp Bridge”
Haruki Murakami After Dark
Through the Sparks Lazarus Beach
The Mary Timony Band (Static and PNT)
Rafael Toral
Von Sudenfed Tromatic Reflexxions
Wilco Sky Blue Sky

Also: Dom Passantino pontificating on Marilyn Manson's continued irrelevance. Zing!

This Month in Nodin

(don't let that cute smile fool you -- set this guy down and look away for just a moment and he'll have already crawled halfway to Rhode Island before you've realized it!)

Snapshot from a soiree I couldn’t make/wasn’t at

L to R: Matt Kory, Bill Denton

(Billiam: thanks for sending the photo. Matty: congrats on your nuptials! Thom: beware of Heather “Ronald McDonald” Noble!)

News Blotta

I'm seriously starting to think that there's no bloody way I could ever be a reporter again, even if I truly wanted to be one, for reasons spread all over this site. Editorial job slots are getting axed like mad everywhere; it's really scary. What this probably means in part is that the freelance writing market's on its way to becoming more oversaturated than it already is.

Iraqi-born performance artist makes interesting points with paintball-related installation (all of which, as you'll see, is an understatement).

"Verse for Seasons"*

Mothballed mauraders hymn "Ave Mumia"
(the refrain's a swollen alabaster drone)

Sparrows shy South in a lopsided V
Bacchant at the very promise of

Soft, yperite rose
She's no albino poinsetta

From fragments and symbols
We'll assemble the Lord.

*This poem was written, in my handwriting, on a piece of tattered paper (that I found in my cubicle last month) sometime prior to this blog's inception. I don't remember what I was on about with this but I like it.

"Deep" Thoughts

So the other weekend, on one of those extended pre-race preludes that NASCAR is famous for, there was a segment where various drivers and on-air commentators (and NFL stars) were shown playing in some charity golf tournament. The cause, I think, was autism, and so there were shots of these guys yukking it up and swinging at tees and posing with happy autistic kids for one of those panoramic photos in front of a long banner commemorating the occasion. Anyway, on to the reason I’m bringing this up at all: “Feel the Pain,” Dinosaur Jr.’s 1994 sorta-hit single, was among the selected mood music. Appropriate, given that the video for that song (which I saw like twice, once upon a time) depicted the members of the band – at that point it’d have been J. Mascis, Murph, and Mike Johnson, I think – goofily putting and fetching all over some city. If one is able to overlook Mascis’ typically disengaged sarcasm, the titular chorus – paired with that upbeat, chippy guitar motif – does an adequate job of conveying the sympathy/empathy of sports celebs for the somewhat disabled. (I guess. Hmmm. I mean, the full chorus is “I feel the pain of everyone, and then I feel nothing.” If memory serves, the producers edited the second clause out. Man, I sure hope they did. Darryl Waltrip seems like a totally nice guy, you know? I have every confidence that he did indeed care, that he did feel something.) I can’t remember what the other songs used in the video montage were, but none of them were this surprising to me or they’d come to mind, right? There must have been some vintage Hootie and the Blowfish in there somewhere, though, because those dudes were totally into golf and even had a couple golf-related videos out back when people gave a toss about them, back before Darius Rucker was reduced to suiting up as a lavender-rhinestone cowboy for conceptually WTF Burger King commercials. But I’m digressing, needlessly: the race was rained out and postponed for yesterday; I have no idea who actually won. Do you think Jimmie Johnson would listen to a copy of Where You Been? if I sent one to him? Doubtful. I hope that idiot didn’t win a-frickin’-gain.*

*This meandering, plotless, and ultimately unsatisfying post is dedicated to Charles “Chuckleberry” Thornton, a long-lost college classmate of mine who had this sort of meaninglessness- masquerading-as-profundity down to an exact science. Here’s to you, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan.

Apologies, and the Venting of Spleen.

To Brandon Soderberg: my bad. I was kinda flippant and dismissive in my last post, when I wrote: “I’d rag on the punctuation and pacing shortcomings but the thing is a blog, after all.” As a proofreader and a writer, I’m overly sensitive to authorial flows, structures, and breaks; also, I don’t visit enough blogs to be totally comfortable with that loose, informal style so many bloggers adopt. It would have been more accurate to say that your writing comes across as conversationally oriented, as if you were hanging out at somebody’s house talking about Devin the Dude’s ouvere, Kanye West’s new single, or what have you. This can be distracting and frustrating for me, because you obviously are a really knowledgable and insightful guy with wide-open ears, and I look forward to seeing what you’re addressing on any given day – but I get tripped up what I’d characterize as a slightly crimped narrative flow. This is my hang-up, not yours, and hopefully this whole apology – which is genuine – hasn’t come off sneering or mean or anything, as it wasn’t intended as such. Incidentally, the piece on the post-mortem mix CD for your late friend Mike was fascinating; the whole idea of putting together something like that in memorium, but also as a means of capturing the emotions emerging from the focal-point event and its aftermath. This is a whole different level of arrangement from what I’ve done, personally, with my compilations, where I’m seeking to capture a mood (or a series of them) while simulaneously sharing music that’s caught my ear; what you did there was to re-tell a tragic story. So I’m wondering if for my next mix I want to go that route - to comb through the shelves and assemble a sort of ode to my son, an ode to friendship, or a breakdown of the last nine difficult months of my life – instead of going with my present tracklist, which will blow minds but doesn’t necessarily say anything.

To Alecia, for downloading a file-sharing program several weeks ago, downloading scads of music files, and in the process inadventantly spyware-infecting the living fuck out of our laptop. The bug-purging pro’s fee is very reasonable, but having to pay it is still an inconvenience; I didn’t know what I was getting into, but if I’d bothered to do a little research we might have avoided this disaster. (Side note: Instead of filing suit against grandmas and college students and toddlers for downloading and dramatizing illegally-obtained mp3 busts in ads, why doesn’t the RIAA simply play up the fact that downloading with mass-user sharing programs is a lot like having as much unprotected sex as one can with as many partners as possible? Imagine the possible metaphorical devices that could be deployed: downloading as Russian Roulette, as drag racing, as drug consumption.)

To the readers of this blog: I don’t update anywhere near as often as I actually intend to. Life’s exhausting, and there’s so much to tackle on any given day (weekday or weekend) that when my lunch hour rolls around I often find myself eating and mindlessly web surfing instead of sharing what’s happening with me or fleshing out my non-publication ideas/opinions and posting ‘em here. Naturally, I can’t promise that the situation will improve in the immediate future; these messages will probably dwindle as complications arise, and ironically, when things improve. I’m getting more and more job interview opportunities (score!) so it seems likely that before long someone will hire me away from SAIC, and I’ll move up to Selinsgrove, PA for good! I’ll be able to spend way more time with Alecia and Nodin and break out of the “living in two states without really living anywhere” rut I’ve been stuck in since last autumn; that will mean, though, that these posts will be a bit scarcer as I adjust to the life I’ve wanted to live and scale down my level of writing/email communication accordingly. As always, thank you all for your ongoing support and advice – you’re awesome!

TOTALLY UNRELATED RANT, ADDRESSED TO A POWERFUL, CHI-TOWN BASED MINOR LABEL THAT WILL REMAIN NAMELESS: It’s all fine and dandy not to send out promos for the long, long, loooooooong awaited fourth album from one of your marquee acts. (Seven years is an eternity, no matter how you slice it.) The singer/guitarist is something of a rapscallion, an iconoclast, an indie-rock hero who led two prior 80s “punk” bands and who has amassed a list of production (sorry, “recording”) credits as long as my arm – both aboveground and below. Album number one was dope; album number two was less so; album number three was a bad joke. Promotion is expensive, yes; so much of what’s shipped out winds up leaked to the internet or in second-hand CD bins that major labels are loathe to play the newspaper/magazine/website hook-up game, and who can blame them? Big-time minors are wising up and sending stuff only to people they know will write it up; small-time minors haven’t followed suit yet because they’re establishing themselves. Despite the fact that any number of great albums randomly arrived in my mailbox without me knowing they were coming – musicians I never would have heard otherwise – I applaud this paradigm shift because it means that musicians and labels and PR people are wasting less money in the long run. It means that there’s a greater likelyhood that employees can keep their jobs, bands can get paid on time, and killer albums can keep dropping. But I’m getting away from this one label and this one band, who are the focus of this rant. Why didn’t you guys just say “we aren’t doing promo for this record” instead of teasing reviewers with a “lower industry discount rate” before turning around and informing us that said rate was almost a slap in the face - $9.79 – and then mentioning that we’re also expected to pay like $5.00 in priority shipping fees? (for a total of almost $15.00) What was the purpose of that, other than to be outright dickish to the people who continue to believe in a band that’s been squandering its potential and faithfully attend its sporadic shows? Why not just say “buy it in the store, morons”? This whole fiasco was likely the aforemention iconoclast’s brainchild, and while the younger, “punk rock” me is amused, the present-day me? Not so much.

An interesting Stay Free-related interview, full of background.

ITEM!

ITEM! Nodin isn’t quite crawling yet, but he’s begun to sort of propel or launch himself forward while in a crawling position by using his arms. It looks painful, but he’s rough and tough (even if I refuse to acknowledge this and am oft terrified that he’s gonna hurt himself when his rolling adventures bring him into proximity with picture frames, low shelving, or the hard underbelly of a futon). Who’s the infant? Nodin’s the infant, champ.

ITEM! We can’t stop coming up with and tossing out ludicrous Nodin-related nicknames: Node, Nodiego, Nodi, Nodstradamus, Nodiclaus, the Nodester, Nodimunga, Robonode, Nodeopolous, and so forth. Somewhere, Rob Schnieder is filming Deuce Bigalow 3. Probably.

ITEM! On Lil Wayne’s “Cops is Watching” – which is getting mad play on my iPod this month – when he raspily raps “Ya ninjas ain’t loyal!/Ya ninja’s ain’t loyal!” I keep wishing he were actually saying “lawyers” instead of loyal. (Note: Wayne isn’t really saying “ninjas,” which would be pretty funny, as it would imply that his hypothetical criminal rivals are affiliated with the Yakuza.)

ITEM! Bushco cronies be fallin’ like dominoes – Gonzales’ one assistant resigned, Wolfowitz’s on the verge of being forced out at the World Bank. Plus this is effed up, though the NPR story on it was more chilling. Could Rove and Cheney be far behind? Unlikely, but hope springs eternal, etc.

ITEM! Lou Reed’s a cock. Whoops – that isn’t really news!

ITEM! Voguing to Danzig gets to become an uncle this year – not once, but twice! Congrats and best wishes to Sanjeevani and Amal, who are both due this summer/autumn!

ITEM! Music editors Voguing to Danzig is on solid terms with continue to ignore review pitch after bloody review pitch – oh, wait, again, not news in the traditional sense. Nevermind!

ITEM! Anti-New Times/Village Voice Media pricks-in-anonymity lay off Lando when threatened with legal action. The internet sure makes it super easy to rabidly attack people one doesn’t know under a psuedonym, doesn’t it? Disgruntled scaredly-cat haters – sonned!

ITEM! Brandon Soderberg’s hip-hop fixated blog is helping fill the gaping hole left by my company’s totally bogus blocking of http://www.ilxor.com/ recently. I’d rag on the punctuation and pacing shortcomings but the thing is a blog, after all.

ITEM! Links to new Voguing to Danzig-penned nonsense: Air Conditioning, Blonde Redhead, Cloud Cult, Ben Dolnick, El-P, Grails, Nine Inch Nails, Page France, Per Petterson, and Silver Daggers (BCP, PNT)!

ITEM! I’ve got stuff in the current MAGNET and Devil in the Woods magazines, on the slanted shelves of super-ginormous bookstores everywhere, so go buy them! Or maybe just go skim them before putting ‘em back and going home.

This Month in Nodin

Wha?

Explained here.

Addendum to "Singles Going Steady"

It did run, after all, and here's the link:

Singles Going Steady: Blitzen Trapper, Cornelius, Avey Tare & Kria Brekken

Also: it's heartening to see that Stay Free is still up-and-running, in magazine and blog form. I hadn't thought about ex-Matador Records staffer Carrie McLaren's anti-advertising zine in years until last night, when I was reading Christine Harold's Ourspace for a review and came across a reference to it. An impromptu raid and trundle through my stash of old dead tree media turned up....not a damned thing! No Stay Frees in the whole batch, not even the issue where the cover was parodying Volkswagon's late 1990s rainbow-flower-petal-circle of Bugs (or Beetles, I can never remember which exactly), replacing the cars with handguns.

Also: read Matthew Perpetua’s takedown of the “deluxe edition” of B’Day.

No Drought?

So rapper Lil Wayne’s new free-to-the-internet mixtape – Da Drought 3 – is supposed to be totally amazing, as Wayne free-associates daffily and quasi-illegally over other people’s tracks (Ciara's "Promise," Clipse’s “Grindin,” Gnarls Barkley’s “Crazy,” etc.) for the length of two cdrs; Julianne Shepherd has a considered examination of the anti-release here, Nick Sylvester an equally interesting followup counter-commentary here. So I guess my question is: if a dynamite free mixtape crashes the internet and no-one can hear it, does it make a sound? I ask this question because I wasted a stoopid ungodly amount of time over the past weekend trying to download and burn this behemoth, with zero success. A number of sketchy sites loaded with porn links, xxx ads, and pop-ups were hosting the album (not to mention getting yours truly paranoid about a spyware infection) but some sort of decoding/torrenting BS was necessary in every case and I couldn’t suss it out; then the file-sharing service I consulted had most of the tracks, but apparently they were corrupted and my burner was all nuh-uh. Ideally, Da Drought 3 could be hosted on a legit server traditionally (ala http://www.archive.org/) where the curious could simply click’n’download one song at a time – but seeing as this whole enterprise (like most of the 1,543,000 mixtapes floating around online and offered for sale on urban street corners) ain’t exactly above board, I can definitely appreciate the importance of guerilla/insurgent style dissemination tactics. But dang, I wanna hear this thing.

What You Need to Know This Month to Avoid Ostracism (with me, anyway, or something)

The phrase “good look” - or its variant “it’s a good look” - has been creeping up everywhere lately as a sort of summary exclamation point in blogs and conversations (i.e. John McCain’s blowing his Repub prez. nom. deal by trying to cater to everyone: “It’s not a good look”); personally, I sorta blame Beyonce’s “Upgrade U” for everybody from scenester crits to my mom throwing it around with impunity. The buck stops here, folks: I am hereby declaring a moritorium on this use of this elitist, arrogant word-construction. Using it makes you sound like a fucking America’s Next Top Model judge, Simon Cowell, or Anna Wintour. So cease and desist! Feel me? -2,000 VOGUES

For Your Consideration...

"featuring Kurt Russell as....Stuntman Mike"

For giggles...this amusing Paul Simms piece from a recent issue of the New Yorker

For soundtracking an aimless stroll around the neighborhood you grew up in on a balmy spring eve...this free, "earth-toned" Madlib DJ set, circa 2001

Dig in, dig it!

“Note’s on a Slant”

because I’m jotting too quickly – blue ballpoint
on a lemon paper square – impressions
of fragments of concepts, for
Later use, maybe not – on the way out, to:
Run errands
Waste fossil fuels
Curse traffic while gumming it up worse, making it shiner, more leviathan-like

Exploit “detente,” “expiration”; and what does “Grand Guliol” even mean,
anyway? It figures into so many disparate critiques of late,
anymore – gotta horn in on that action – and supposedly

Kazuo Ishiguro’s brilliant though I never heard of dude til this week;
Borrowed books unread: the Sontag, the Brautigan, pieces of the
one I should be assembling.

Frozen dinners circa Valentine's encrusted in ice crystals,
Corpse-battery forever mausoleumed in pocket-watch crypt,
Tires breaking down on the Neon, mechanic sez

And it’s actually true, per Everett’s Nirvana book:
Mary Lou Lord could’ve been Kurt’s everything, given a window,
a fighting chance

And it’s time, soon, to buy two Mother’s Day, one Father’s Day, a
Birthday, cards for more than a quarter of what it costs
Rachael Ray to feed her face daily in one fabulous American metropolis or another

And the Load Records mailing is a day late,
it’s suddenly too
humid for windbreakers;Yeltsin and Vonnegut roll dice in the afterlife --

It’s all minutiae, it’s all monument, it’s scratchings and dust I’ll have misplaced
Sometime between now and whenever they’d come in handiest.

Singles, Not Going Steady?

Since it's looking as though what would have been my first non-Pazz & Jop Village Voice submission might not actually see publication - I submitted it to the music editor and never heard back - here tis, in its entirety. It's totally silly and irreverent, but I want it to appear somewhere, even if only 3-5 people, consequently, will actually read it. Onward and upward!

“Singles Going Steady”

By Raymond Cummings

Blitzen Trapper "Wild Mountain Nation" (from Wild Mountain Nation, self-released)

Like a three-stick Juicy Fruit cud-chew on a sunshiny, cloudless afternoon in the Rockies. These self-sufficient, self-perpetuating Oregonians issue a good-natured cattle call inviting urbanites and suburbanites to drop out of society without getting all McVeigh militia or hippie commune – upfront, anyway. Carefree “ooooo-oooos” and adlibbed “yeahs” sweeten the pot; fulsome, deep-fried, squealing guitar leads lace up them hiking Timbs; drums that mimic tramping up a slope seal the deal. Onward, then, to REI, and to the trail! And all this talk about wolves and eagles hints that Wolfmother, Wolf Eyes, the Eagles of Death Metal, and AIDS Wolf can tag along, too – bonus! Stoked!

Cornelius "Breezin'" (from Sensuous, Everloving Records)

Like cracking the foil on a fresh pack of Orbit while chilling on a Tron set. Are those accentuated finger snaps or compressed handclaps erupting in the crisp, busy mix? Don’t know, don’t much care: whatever it really is, it’s just a stark ingredient in Keigo Oyamada’s dynamic, conveyor-belt future-pop. Electronic drums, prim keyb hooks, handfuls of glistening magic dust, and laidback, over processed Oyamada vox (in his native Japanese) co-operatively exist in the same realm while obeying totally separate orbits, working together in concert and against each other at the same time. Conflicted? No. Jaunty! Yep!

Avey Tare and Kria Brekken "Sasong" (from Pullhair Rubeye, Paw Tracks Records)

Like April Fools’ Day gag chewing gum that turns your mouth wet-black. When the bro-sis Fiery Furnaces shellac backmasked shaggy-doggerel onto prog-pop tuneage, it’s wackily risque; when the hubby-wife duo Tare (Animal Collective) and Brekken (ex-Mum) go so far as to DJ-reverse their entire freak-folk unified debut, it’s straight-up unforgivable. Quickie “Sasong” is emblematic of Pullhair Rubeye’s vortexual mindsuck: what may have once been synth and/or guitar hills-qua-valleys has morphed into nightmarish pitch-shifts as Alvin, Simon, and Theodore trip hard on brown LSD and gossip, conspiratively, all at the same damned time. Behold, the bent echo in Timothy Leary’s rotting skull: dreadful, dread-inducing!

Late April Ink-Wastes (physical and digital alike)

MIMS, Music is My Savior
Massacre of the Umbilical Cord/Control, Split
Blitzen Trapper, "Jesus on the Mainline"
Lightning Bolt
Fall Out Boy, Infinity on High
The Twilight Sad, Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters
Everett True, Nirvana: The Biography

Sad, but True

Do you love magazines? Do you want your heart broken into millions of pieces? Then read this blog on a regular basis (don't waste your time with the character-assassination going on here).

April Fool's Goldilocks

Susan Sontag, At the Same Time
korn, Unplugged
Sebadoh reunion
Panther, Secret Lawns

Blenny, Blenny, Blo-Blenny

Viviparous Blenny
a twentythreebooks contemporary arts journal*

Fall 2007, Volume I

Theme: Synchronicity

Synchronicity is not merely serendipity, it is defined as meaningful coincidences. Synchronicities are acausal, that is, not able to be reduced to a cause-and-effect explanation. They are always personal events. They are boundary events that often occur at periods of major life transitions. And they necessarily reflect a deeper, more holistic reality.

*If you submit work that doesn’t directly address the theme, please explain why you’ve chosen the piece to represent the theme.

Submissions guidelines:
¨ 3–4 poems
¨ 5–7 pages of prose (fiction, nonfiction, creative nonfiction, commentary, interviews, reviews, etc.)
¨ Black and white photographs (.tiff, .gif, .jpg; low-res for submission)
¨ Black and white artwork or drawings (low-res scanned image file)
¨ Comics

You may also submit your work on CD to the address below (be sure to mark “CD, do not scan” on the outside of envelope).

Send written work as an attachment to blennysubmissions@twentythreebooks.com

or snail mail to:

Viviparous Blenny
c/o Douglas Mowbray, Managing Editor
2910 Erie Avenue
Baltimore, Maryland 21234

Be sure to include an SASE and cover letter (including a brief bio) for a reply to your submission. If you would like your work returned, please include proper postage and envelope.

Submissions due: July 23

Issue on sale: Fall 2007

Payment is 1 free contributor’s copy.

(*I'm an assistant editor of this journal. Please submit!)

Things I've Learned From Seven Months of Fatherhood

You may have noticed that I haven't posted a whole lot about being a parent here in the last several weeks. That's insane, because Nodin - and issues relating to Nodin - are frequently on my mind. Blame the writing schedule, a sense of hopelessness about some aspects of life, stress at my job, whatever, but maybe I simply needed some time to allow the realities of my new role to sink in and become solid before being able to write about parenthood with any sense of objectivity and clarity. Hopefully, my experiences will prove instructive or, at the very least, amusing; this is only the beginning of my posts on this theme.

(Alecia, if you're reading, feel free to chime in in the comments section.)

1. Free weights - 5 lbs., 10 lbs., 15 lbs. - are fairly cheap and can be found at just about any decent department store you care to name. If you don't already own a pair, score some and start working out now. Or if push-ups are your thing, or chin-lifts, or whatever upper-body, arm-muscle building exercise form you favor, look, just start doing that stuff right now if you're all "Ooooo, I wanna have a baby!" Because babies are heavy, or, more accurately, they become heavier the longer you hold them. It's possible that you've held other people's babies before for a few minutes at a time, and, really, those babies didn't seem too heavy, how hard can it be? When you become a parent, there will inevitably be times when you will be cradling an infant for an hour or significantly longer as you try to coax him/her to sleep or into a state of relaxation or calm. And your biceps, your wrists, your very bones will ache in ways that will amaze you. The nerves in your arms will do weird, uncomfortable things for a little while. Or maybe that's just me and I’m a total weakling.

2. A large, colorful bib, reversed = a cape! And this provides an excellent opportunity/excuse to run around the house with your tot held aloft, pretending that s/he is a super hero, provided s/he has not just eaten.

3. There will be crying fits, tears, migrane-inducing screams, and oceans of drool, and they won’t just be coming from you. In restaurants, you probably bristle when the small children of strangers freak out for whatever reason and your dining ambiance is slashed like a tire. Parenthood will up your capacity for sympathy considerably. You will exchange knowing, sad, but valiantly proud, smiles with people you’ll never know well of all races, genders, and ethnicities in solidarity; you will suddenly understand your own folks a bit better; big-ass splotchy stains on your clothes won’t faze you.

4. Going to the liquor store then getting blasted loses its previous attraction when you realize that in all likelihood your little one will rouse you up at 2 a.m.

5. It’s tempting to read to baby at a very early age, especially when you’ve got a stack of children’s books to choose from. But infants are restless, and the tot sitting calmly in your lap while you page through Goodnight, Moon or whatever, enunciating carefully and playing with the tone of your voice in an attempt to imbue the story with some sense of drama is likely a wasted effort. Nodin usually gets bored quickly and tries to grab the book from me or swat it out of my hands when he isn’t scratching excitedly at my arms. Adult talk and baby talk alike seem to be the best means of familiarizing him with the nuances of language right now.

6. Diaper-duty? Not so awful, particularly if you’ve owned a dog and have plenty of wipes on hand. Level of difficulty increases when diaherria strikes or the “exploding-diaper” stage begins – where Nodin is right now, owing to all of the jarred fruit baby food he eats at this point – when changing-table time also must become lukewarm bath time and the hand-sanitizer flows like wine.

7. You will be clawed at, spit upon, pooped upon, peed upon, smacked, head-butted, momentarily deafened, foresaken temporarity for a bleeping and/or flashing toy, much more besides – and you will somehow love and savor every minute of it.

# 1,000: Hole “Doll Parts” [DGC, 1994]

Live Through This still gives me weird tingles and chills In Utero couldn’t and still can’t rival, but, to paraphrase Stephen King’s cryptic conversational refrain in those Dark Tower books, the world has moved on, and so have I. Kurt Cobain wasn’t even dead of suicide yet that spring and I was already mainlining This cassette like grade-A smack all day, everyday, on public transportation buses and en route to Hallmen performances and in my bedroom; after his body was found it seemed that solace and answers might be found there and C.Lo’s Grunge-Lite Sad-Mad-Sadtime Dramarama ground on and on in my oh-so-perishable knockoff Walkmen as one season yielded to the next and then, all of a sudden, it was time to start mailing off college applications. The fix was in, and Hole’s tragic, primal magic had faded to a dim, ghostly glow. The attentive reader will notice that I’ve yet to write a single word about “Doll Parts.” I’ve spun the song maybe five or seven times today, and an entryway into talking about it in any meaningful fashion has yet to reveal itself; I considered maybe switching to a different dynamite tune from This. “I Think That I Would Die”? “Rock Star”? “Plump”? Or maybe I could extrapolate on the liner photos or something. The truth may be that I’m burnt out on the artifacts of this particular alt-rock conflagration, on the albums and the articles and the books and the chin-stroking parsing of it all, if not on the person Courtney Love is -- or believes herself to be -- today. America’s Sweetheart was fantastically slick, trashy, and fuck-all-y’all, and I’ll be first in line to review the Billy Corgan-enabled How Dirty Girls Get Clean whenever it comes out (smart money sez it’ll show up just in time for the Democratic presidential primaries – how cosmicly appropriate). The intermittent hit parade project I’ve embarked on here is intended as a never-ending tribute to songs that’ve struck my sweet spot and left a dent; perhaps the question is whether the obsessions of 17-year old me rank with those of 30-year old me? Because when I listen to “Doll Parts” in 2007, the quiet-quiet-quiet-raging-at-the-end and the “Someday yooooooou will ache like I ache” resonate because in 1994 I truly believed that I was as worthless and miserable as Love probably really felt while in the studio recording with Eric, Patty, and Kristen. We both survived and we’re both still here, but it was pretty touch-and-go for a while there.

"Nodin's Late-Winter/Early-Spring Teething Ring" CDR

1. Axolotl “Pneuma”
2. Jimi Hendrix “The Star-Spangled Banner”
3. The Howling Hex “Be the Last To Stay in a Haunted House”
4. Beck “New Round”
5. Helium “Devil’s Tear”
6. Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti “Interesting Results”
7. Panda Bear “Carrots”
8. Bardo Pond “Cry Baby Cry”
9. Fur “Devil to the Lamb”
10. Tegan and Sara “Walking with the Ghost”
11. Blast Off Country Style “Cutie Pie”
12. Lady Sovereign “Public Warning”
13. Talib Kweli and DJ Hi-Tek “Name of the Game”
14. Pavement “You Are A Light”
15. Arbouretum “Sleep of Shiloom”
16. The Amps “Bragging Party”

"Jason Priestly and I"

And so it was that Jason Priestly and I found ourselves hiding out in the smoke-swirled, gilded bowels of a well-appointed, exclusive gentlemen’s club somewhere in the deep South, knocking back watered-down shots of brandy gratis, engaging in another one of our free-ranging conversational Wimbeldons, and giddily marveling at our continued good fortune. Only mere moments before, you see, Jason Priestly and I, besieged by salivating hordes of chattering, prepubescent Japanese touristas, understimulated area paparazzi, and exiled Chechnian separatists, were hurtling together down aves and boulevards and side streets and alleys knocking people over and tripping over lap dogs and swearing inaudibly and causing automobile collisions and laughing wildly at the improbability of this whole situation, all the while scanning the homes and shops and churches and assorted edifaces for some sort of refuge, some precious pocket of calm.

After rounding one corner or another, we ducked into a rambling, grandiose mansion and found ourselves panting and sweating in an air-conditioned cedar foyer, confronted by a tuxedo’d, gloved seqouia of a doorman who regarded us with a mixture of undisguised suspicion and seething contempt. After denying our request for admission, this chic, coiffed Goliath icily explained that we were in a member’s-only club, that he doubted we were members, and that even if we actually were members, our present attire failed to conform to the standards of the place. This was understandable. After all, on that sultry afternoon Jason Priestly was the spitting image of the cover of Prick’s epymonous album cover while I was dressed like George Washington – or perhaps, more accurately, the idealization of George Washington embedded in the collective American psyche -- my elaborate period costume replete with a heavy, powdered white wig and non-prescription monocle. Our predicament was compounded both by our inability to feign thick Southern drawls and by the fact that I am a Negro. Drawing instinctively on his prodigious dramatic talents as one of the most able actors of his generation – or any generation, really -- Jason Priestly naturalistically plied our immovable antagonist with all manner of fantastic, fabulist’s falsehoods: he was Jack Bauer, I a fellow covert operative, and we had intelligence suggesting that a terrorist was being harbored here, in a basement S&M den; we were the hired entertainment for a private party inside; we were lost out-of-towners who needed directions to the nearest Waffle House; we were on a mission from God, the particulars of which we were forbidden to divulge; we were in the employ of NBC, decoys for Dateline’s upcoming “To Catch A Racist Cracker” special; he was the victim of the local cable-access version of Punk’d. Our adversary was visibly umimpressed by these tales, but overhearing – and tickled by -- the exchange, a bejowled, soused, fleshy local banker, a Mr. E. B. Doctorow, tickled by the spectacle, intervined, invited us in, and put us on his tab, on the condition that we visit his daughter who was recovering from cancer treatments at a nearby hospital. Mr. Doctorow, mistaking my companion for James Van Der Beek, drunkenly explained that Dawson’s Creek was the girl’s favorite television show and that our assistance in raising her spirits would be greatly appreciated. We promised, taking down directions to the hospital, and Mr. Doctorow sourly remarked on the Republican Party’s travails of late using explicit language I won’t duplicate here. Seizing the moment, we nodded our ascent and engaged our benefactor in some related small talk, until Jason Priestly shook his head and said, “That President Bush, he sure gets himself in some messes.”

“He sure does,” Doctorow sighed, seconds before failing to sip his twentieth mint-julep of the day, instead spilling it all over his face and lapels.

As we were led to our table, I turned to him and whispered conspiratively, “Jason Priestly, you so crazy,” and his eyes crinkled as he chuckled that amiable Brandon Walsh chuckle, and I chuckled along with him as I realized that I was friends with this man, this upper-class, vaguely famous white man, with whom I had very little in common. We bumped fists and fumbled to formulate fake gang signs intended to display a fraternal solidarity.

Over a lunch of fried prawns and scallions that cost as much as a week’s pay for me, we debated Selma Blair versus Renee Zellwegger, with me vigorously defending the former and Jason Priestly sticking up for the latter; we discussed a Joan Didion memoir we’d both recently read; we compared notes on ongoing projects and worries – my writer’s block and what I was doing to break through it, his deep concerns about the rampant individualizing of culture, Richard Grieco’s career path and how being named “Richard Geico” may have been of greater benefit for him, stock-car racing’s bruised malcontents. As we palavered I was reminded of those scenes in Thank You For Smoking where Robert Duvall and Aaron Eckhart are talking over drinks in a private Southern club, and how all of the waiters were, like me, men of color, wearing gloves, and perpetually delivering drinks; then later in the film, after Duvall’s character has passed away and he’s in his coffin, one of those waiters comes up and sets a drink on his coffin. I allow this train of thought to trail off, because I’m not sure what use it is or even if I feel like entering the conversation at the present moment; Jason Priestly is babbling, animated, about fisticuffs with members of Pavement and Corvettes and awards-ceremony giftbags stuffed with expensive gee-gaws, but in my mind I am somewhere else, otherwise engaged – scaling a wall, sending a text message, looping a fancy knot, falling asleep on satin sheets as an episode of Beverly Hills 90210 rolls its end credits, fades to pixelated black.

Nodin in Action

Also: sitcoms, so easy a caveman could do 'em.

Hypertext from the Underground, Pre-Spring Edition

Hausckha, "La Dillentante"
Cassette, Beautiful California
The Arcade Fire, Neon Bible
Axolotl, Memory Theatre
Panda Bear, Person Pitch
OK GO
Pauline Oliveros, Lion'e Eye/Lion's Tale

No caption, just...wow.

Stranded in Baltimore for the weekend...

...because I didn't take the day off today and truck up to Selinsgrove upon waking up this morning, prior to the beginning of a massive (and totally unexpected by me) snowstorm. I had my reasons, but in the grand scheme of things they weren't really good ones. This photo is a few weeks old but it's an example of the kinds of sights I'm not gonna get to see over the next two days. This weekend: shredding and throwing away old crap, scrubbing the tub, cleaning the car, etc. in Owings Mills. Wishing with all my heart that I was with Alecia and Nodin. Wishing I wasn't such a bloody slave to the grind(s).

"Can you hear me now?"

Here’s to you, Mr. Invisible-9feetx9feet-Square-Tracing-Eternally-Whilst-Holding-Cellular-Telephonic-Court-In-The-Path-En-Route-To-The-Bathrooms-Coffee-Snack-Machines-and-Kitchenette-Area-Guy. Anybody else would sit down or venture out back beyond the smokers’ area, in order to be able to conduct a conversation with a modicum of privacy and quiet. But you, you with your ever-present, full-to-the-brim coffee mug and all-encompassing self-absorbtion, looking for all the world like an emaciated Richard Dreyfuss circa Down and Out in Beverly Hills, apparently know better than the rest of us. And so, morning after everlovin’ morning at the frequently travelled intersection you’ve unofficially commandeered for your perverted constitutionals, you trace that Godforsaken nonexistent square – sometimes it’s more of a rectangle, I guess – consumed by the voice on the other end, oblivious to anybody trying to pass by, on occasion coming to a full stop in your limited travels at for no apparent reason, head angled down in complete concentration. So we salute you, Mr. Invisible-9feetx9feet-Square-Tracing-Eternally-Whilst-Holding-Cellular-Telephone-Court-In-The-Path-En-Route-To-The-Bathrooms-Coffee-Snack-Machines-and-Kitchenette-Area-Guy: wholescale indifference to one’s co-workers is a difficult talent to perfect, but it appears that in this area you’re a veritable ninja master. -20 VOGUES

"Rites Of"

Notice scales modal, spruces humming softly:
The world again ablaze with greens, Coleman grills.

No down jackets required, bees beggar audiences
Expectancy settles down like thick pollen sheets
on car hoods
on thawing fears
on patios
on hibernating ambitions

Of course no-one's in the proper frame of mind to
buy into short-sleeves and ballgames and the
supposedly attendent merry attitudes until department stores
are pushing back-to-school supplies and leaves
are resignedly crunching to dust underfoot and
melancholy is quietly staging its annual palace coup --

So fuck it. Let's
get ironical
crack wise
hydroplane away on slippery tangents:

Soy lattes spilt, "Soy Bomb" boom, Soy Cuba
Me-Ma's soy boyz rolling two deep in vintage Grananimals

"I'll see your narrow, Victorian alleyways
and raise you a daunting sprawl of foreboding backroads:
how you like me now?"

#1,001: Clipse “Dirty Money” [Re-Up/Zomba/Star Trak, 2006]

Would you believe I just caught the Wheel of Fortune reference the other day? Bizarre. Don’t watch Desperate Housewives, dudes, but yeah, okay, and the monsoon of luxury fashion brands registers as yet more connective for tighter-than-Fort Knox rhymes I envy way more than the shopping-sprees-with-drug-cash amorality that’s (maybe) supposed to be the point here. Do they mean it, or are they camping? Doesn’t matter; what does (more than the painstaking craft Clipse practice) is the insistent, iridescent synth hook that repeats over and over throughout this song. I keep imagining Pharrell Williams stumbling upon it totally by accident, freaking out over how hot it is, then rushing out to buy some vintage Michael Jackson shades and a Nehru jacket, then coming back and knocking out that series of so-cold, so-sharp notes again and again while pretending to moonwalk until he can’t hold out anymore and so he two-ways Malice and Pusha T at 3 a.m. and says, guys, sorry, but you gotta hear this shit right now.

Ripping off the Riffraff? Yeah, yeah...

1. Metacritic houses links to a decent number of reviews from major magazines and newspapers, though alt-weeklies are slighted and, really, whoever runs the site should think about expanding its reach a bit. Here are a pair of examples of, just, really incisive and fascinating writing that I didn't even know existed until I started randomly plugging in books and records that've been on my mind lately: possibly the most thoughtful and considered Bret Easton Ellis piece I've come across this decade and an extremely writerly and well-crafted Jay-Z takedown. Dang. 89 VOGUES

2. So, Needlegun. Noise or genre-averse crusaders? I don't rightly know, but I can't stop trying to figure these Baltimore dudes out, and I don't see myself giving up anytime in the immediate future - even after my Signal-to-Noise review's done and turned in. And their Myspace page makes me smile everytime I read it. 95 VOGUES

3. Driving it “like you stole it” through a crowded office park: not cool, not cool. You’re not Jimmie Johnson, you probably didn’t steal it, and in all likelyhood you’re a complete and utter jackass. Striking a pedestrian may equal ten points and broadsiding another car three, but all the non-transferable points in the world mean exactly zilch when you’re doing hard time because you were living it up in a delusional fantasy world where you mistook every last stretch of asphalt for the Autobahn. -57 VOGUES

"And now it's time to......PLAY THE FUUUUUED!!!!"

From the mouth of a not-yet-born-baby...

...comes this! :)

Arbouretum, Rites of Uncovering

Got another Pazz & Jop comment in this year!

"Looks like somebody missed Snack Time."

I'm trying to figure out why this series of McDonald's ads is irking me so much. You know the ones. Somebody does something mindbendingly stupid - trying to dig an escape tunnel via a wall in an office building, using a pool cue to make a golf shot, whatever - then this dude who looks very, very, very, VERY vaguely like Eddie Murphy back when he thought he could be a huge pop star raises his eyebrows, smugly says "Looks like somebody missed Snack Time," then bites into one of those Mickey D's chicken-lettuce-pita wraps as if to indicate that he's way above everyone else who choses not to shell out for some overpriced piece of fast-food toxic waste at any time that isn't breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Dude, if you're so brilliant, why are you hanging out with these fools? Why haven't you taken over the world already? Why haven't you formed a Snack Time cult and/or pyramid scheme with books and seminars and Snack Time Kool-Aid? Why do I even care about this? Why did I post that photo? When I did I turn into Joe MacLeod?

Babblin' Monday

Nick Sylvester, once again making me confront how much I suck at music writing. Thanks, dude.

Alecia and I were watching the Grammies last night and, you know, I didn't see the whole thing, but I saw the "coming later, performances from etc." pre-we're-going-to-commercial announcements a thousand times, so I knew that the Red Hot Chili Peppers would hit the stage at some point. The Red Hot Chili Peppers? The Red Hot Chili Peppers are the recording industry's rock heavies in 2007? A sad, sad state of affairs, and the only conclusion I can draw there is that dudes must have sold like a kajillion copies of the 2-disc set Stadium Arcadium or something, which means - given Soundscan's effed up logic - they actually sold 2 kajillion copies and whoever put this show together figured they'd be the biggest draw for the slice of the audience who dig on the rockin' and the rollin'. The rest of rock's vanguard on hand to rep their set: John Mayer and a reunited Police? Yeah, I know.

Nothing else to really say about the show, except John Legend's a total dork, Corinne Bailey Rae can only get massively more popular than she is now, Prince is magnificent even when he's just announcing an award or introducing Beyonce, and as much as I support the Dixie Chicks, Natalie Maines' award-acceptance is just this side of demented (but wait, I think everybody there's drinking through the whole thing, right? That'd explain a heck of a lot.).

Of Montreal/Deerhoof
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Love is a Mixtape

"Gotta admit, dude, that is pre-t-t-y sweet."

You know?

"I don't have much of an appetite right now, thanks."

The funny thing is, I thought Pretty Ricky were a fiction, invented for a Walgreen's commercial a couple years ago, and I also thought Pretty Ricky was one dude. Wrong!

American Idol revue
Clipse, Hell Hath No Fury
Bracken, We Know About the Need

I'm just realizing that I never offered an invite to random spammers, which was rude. Spammers, I welcome you to my blog, and encourage you to post meaningless drivel capped off with web links in the comments section. I urge you to continually waste your time doing this, because (a) only like five people read this thing, and each of them probably only do so once a month, and (b) all of them have the sense to not click on the links you post. Take off your coat! Have a drink! Try the crepes.

Fleeting Fictions, Pt. II

The beach in Rio where you lay, kvetching and lazing with George Hamilton and an unnamed shipping magnate, is sweltering to an extent you haven’t experienced up to now, your line of vision full of sand and tawny, tanned women wandering by, flesh overflowing from barely-there swimsuits and young native men ferrying complicated cocktails to sunburned, bejeweled Westerners like yourself. The sky is unsettling in its darkness, blood red, brooding, the sun melting into a molten sea, and when you interrupt the ongoing conversation – something about the ins and outs of buying stock in a chain of semi-legal, “barely-legal” brothels – to make mention of this, George flashes that famous, blinding smile and, dripping sweat and lizard-like charm together, his neck swimming with slim gold chains, asks, appros of nothing, “Did you know that Castro whomped Bill Shatner at handball earlier today?” And everyone snickers and a round of high-fives is exchanged but you aren’t quite sure why. The omniscient, scuba gear-clad cameraperson is succumbing to the poison barbs of a Portuguese man-o-war underwater several meters out, but this is something you simply aren’t aware of, could never know. The glow of Tiki torches begin to dot the darkening shoreline, fire pits explode as if in sequence, conga lines congeal though there is no music to mandate this, and your thoughts drift to a party invitation (bold italic, blood-red Book Antiqua script on thick, bone-white imported-from-Iceland paper, encased in a jade-colored, handmade tulle envelope, particulars in quotes to imply something “more” than the customary cocktails, gossip, appetizers, high-stakes poker games, in-reverse screenings of David Fincher blockbusters), dinner reservations (a massacred, visceral melange of calamari, crab meat, and caviar soaked in hot pepper oil, served with a miniature butcher knife stained with what appears to be gore), the empty glass you’re cradling protectively (there is a large, limp slug at the bottom of the glass – pickled and obviously dead, weird Bolivian highball, new to you but after a couple Coronas you’re game for anything though you weren’t feeling daring enough to try the oversized martini with a feeble scorpion floating in it) – but you imagine that it’s actually still alive and observing you, passing silent judgment). And then out of nowhere your chest tightens, and you clutch at your heart, the sudden pain robbing you of your ability to speak. George and his friend have vanished, split, vacated, no-one else notices as your eyes bulge, the glass – and the slug – fall into your lap, and your face contorts grotesquely—

Another reminder of how out of musical touch I am

Here's the Jackin' Pop/Idolator poll results, here/s my ballot, and below are where my album pics placed:

12. Sonic Youth - Rather Ripped (565 points in 57 votes)
280. Wolf Eyes - Human Animal (27 points in 3 votes)
308. Bardo Pond - Ticket Crystals (24 points in 2 votes)
411. v/a - Women Take Back the Noise (20 points in 2 votes)
491. Taylor Deupree - Northern (15 points in 2 votes)
705. Axolotl - Way Blank (10 points in 1 votes)
921. Sightings - End Times (10 points in 1 votes)
964. The Magik Markers - A Panegyric to the Things I Do Not Understand (10 points in 1 votes)
977. The Yellow Swans - Psychic Secession (10 points in 1 votes)
1005. v/a - Less Self Is More Self: A Benefit Compilation for Tarantula Hill (10 points in 1 votes)
(Also, I can’t believe anyone seriously considered voting for MC Lars, but apparently somebody did! Yick.)

On a totally different subject: hotel management teams of the world, don't slack or eff with my best friend or you'll get the customer-comment horns.

Now, Voguing to Danzig doesn't run an online shop, but if we did, we'd be pimping Omar Shapli's new poetry book (from Doug's new publishing imprint) and the new Apes in the Aviary CD (featuring Thom Hawkins).

Winter Solstace Triumverate of Death, Complete!