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A Good Read A Good Listen and a Good Drink, David Strange

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It’s a simple yet sublime pleasure, and just thinking about it can make you feel a little calmer, a little more content. Imagine: You bring out one of the good rocks glasses (or your favorite mug or a special occasion tea cup) and pour a couple fingers of amber liquid (or something dark and strong or just some whole milk). You drop the needle on the jazz platter (or pull up a blues album on your mp3 player or dig out that mixtape from college). Ensconcing yourself in the coziest seat in the house, you crack the spine on a classic (or find your place in that sci-fi paperback or pull up a biography on your e-book reader). And then, you go away for a while. Ah, bliss.

In this series, some of NTSIB’s friends share beloved albums, books and drinks to recommend or inspire.

David Strange spent many years as a session musician and playing guitar in Courtney Love’s band, while writing his own songs in secret. In January, he’s turning five of them loose upon the world, in the form of a self-titled EP. It is, truly, a dazzling cornucopia of sounds and concepts. It’s a little bit of heavy thudding drums and guitar wizardry, a little bit of electronic wubblebubble, a little bit of Elvis Costello-style grim-pop, a little weird, and a lot awesome. I got through all five songs and immediately wanted to know what else he was building in there.

Mean World is the first single, and the tip of the iceberg:

David Strange - Mean World (Official Video)

And now, I will turn the floor over to him, to tell us about a good read, a good listen, and a good drink:

Photo by Charlotte Kemp Muhl

Photo by Charlotte Kemp Muhl

A Good Read

Delta of Venus by Anais Nin. Broke and destitute sometime in the 1940’s Anais Nin and Henry Miller anonymously began writing erotica for an unnamed ‘collector’ in exchange for the sum of about a dollar per page. Good money for smut in those pre-internet free porn website days. They didn’t take it exactly seriously at the time so it’s a little unclear as to how involved Miller was compared to Nin nor did they intend for mass publication of the work which didn’t appear until the 1970’s when Nin finally permitted it.

The ‘collector’ insisted that they leave poetic and literary language aside as much as possible to focus solely on the graphic, sexual and descriptive nature of the vignettes. Despite these instructions and limitations the artistic juices of her . . . inkwell . . . manage to soak through the page. Best read in bed with a pal . . .

A Good Listen

Magma‘s debut, Magma* from 1970. Originally a double LP this album is the manifestation of band leader Christian Vander’s disturbed futuristic vision of humanity’s spiritual and ecological demise. It’s a concept album about a group of humans who flee the doomed earth to settle on a distant planet called Kobaïa. Apparently, this migration is copacetic until a second group of human refugees arrive causing trouble with the original Kobaïan settlers. The album indeed sounds like the soundtrack to this universal theme. At times it’s like a psychedelic version of Coltrane on Broadway if Broadway was a space station. Other times it sounds like the ritual chants of a North African Satanic sex cult having a funk orgy. There’s a sprinkle of Fantasia and flavors of interstellar battle hymns.

Close your eyes while you listen to this and holograms of an epic, interplanetary swordfight on the moon will appear in your mind. Oh, and Vander invented his own language called Kobaïan which is used for most of the vocals on the album. So, I guess it appeals on a lyrical level equally to listeners on earth as well as elsewhere.

*Magma was later reissued as Kobaïa and can be found on iTunes under this title.

Magma - Epok I - Kobaia

A Good Drink

Scorpion Langkau. I found this in the Sarawak state of Borneo, East Malaysia. It’s a traditional drink of the Iban people who are known to be some of the last practicing headhunters of the 20th century. Langkau is distilled from a milky-white rice wine called Tuak and served in a large medicinal jar with a steel ladle and dead scorpion at the bottom. You can find it at Ruai Bar on the outskirts of Kuching. Your body goes numb when you drink this, starting with your teeth. Definitely have it first if you plan on getting any of the traditional bamboo and mallet tattoos that are prevalent among the Iban.

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Father John Misty, Bored In the USA

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Father John Misty (Josh Tillman), formerly of Fleet Foxes, started his solo career two years ago with Fear Fun. With it he positioned himself as a kind of post-modern Hunter S. Thompson, writing a doomed love story while high on mushrooms, self-loathing and irony. He publicly mocked critics who panned it, and audiences at his shows were often left wondering whether they were in on the joke, or just the punchline.

I liked it – I still do – but I also once described it as “Pavarotti singing nursery rhymes.”

Now, after a period of reflection and reconstruction – he put out a perfume, came unscrewed, got married, and pulled himself together, more or less in that order – he’s back with his second record, to be called I Love You, Honeybear, due out in February 2015.

Exterior signs suggest his puckish nature is undimmed at the core; the link text for his tour schedule is “I’m Coming to Your Town/Bring Your iPhone” and his Twitter reads like horse_ebooks:

Bored In the USA is the first single, and as the title suggests, is intended to echo Springsteen’s Born In the USA while also updating it for the modern era. The version below is from his appearance on Letterman, and so has a laugh track, which is accidental but nonetheless perfect.

http://youtu.be/hIFrG_6fySg

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Video: Dinner Belles, The River and the Willow

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This is the video for The River and the Willow, the title song from the latest release by the Dinner Belles of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The barn in the background doubles as their practice space and sometimes also their living space. The song is delightful, but really what I liked about this video is how cozy it feels, like you’re sitting on a porch (or, okay, river bank) with them.

DINNER BELLES – The River and the Willow from Southern Souls on Vimeo.

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Video: El Xicano, La Grande Pauro

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And now, all the way from Italy, international man of mystery El Xicano, with a deceptively idyllic video for “La Grande Paura” (The Great Fear), the first and most mellow tune from his self-titled but as yet unreleased EP.

Even on sunny days at the beach, there are flickers of darker things . . .

EL XICANO - La Grande Paura

(I’ve watched this video three times and I’m still not sure if that sunny beach is just random found home video footage, or footage from Jonestown. So there’s an extra layer of creepy-crawly uncertainty.)

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Video Premiere: City of Women, Beaufriend

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Good afternoon, NTSIBBers. I hope you all are enjoying your Halloween and/or Friday afternoon. In the spirit of Halloween, we have a very special treat today: the new video from City of Women, for Beaufriend.

It’s a challenge: the first and second times I watched it, I mostly came away confused. So I sent the band some questions.

NTSIB: 1) What is the story you are telling here? and 2) The parts I found most – disquieting, I guess – are the lady dancing for the kid and the man with the bullwhip chasing the girls around. Why did you include those scenes and what are they intended to contribute to the narrative?

M. Nero Nava (vocals, rhythm guitar, video director): This video (like our band name) is an homage to Fellini’s 8 1/2. The song (Beaufriend) and the film share a theme–finding inspiration in our messy lives.

We directly parody and parrot scenes from the movie. The man with the harem (or rogues gallery of women) is also the little boy who was fascinated with the woman on the beach. She’s his first fascination. She also chases his older self in the harem/dream/fantasy sequence.

In a nutshell we have a character who has long been infatuated with with infatuation. Since an early age, when at a desolate beach he was alone with this woman. It rules his life. It’s his mate, his girlfriend/wife. It’s not so much about having several women as some source of inspiration (he even encounters a friend who has two women in his bed). It’s about wanting, and longing, and using those feelings as a source of inspiration. They carry him. Those feelings ultimately will revolt. Since they are unfulfilling. When he realizes this, that it’s all a play. He also realizes that he is alone on that beach… I don’t know. That’s my abstraction from Fellini’s movie in partnership with my song.

“Beaufriend” – City Of Women from VIV G on Vimeo.

Editors note: Fellini links, for context and contrast: 8 1/2 (original trailer), 8 1/2 (movie).

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Video: It’s Almost Halloween, Panic! At the Disco

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Panic! At The Disco: It's Almost Halloween

Posting it this year and every year because:

1) I looooooove it –

2) they made it themselves, apparently using change they found under couch cushions on the bus –

3) It was the last thing they did – the last vaguely happy thing they did – before they split in half –

4) Spencer Smith playing the tambourine and/or awkwardly fall-spinning in circles while wearing a wolf mask: never not funny –

5) I miss Spencer Smith, a lot –

6) If you watch all of Panic’s pre-split “official” videos in order of creation, you can see a band gradually coming apart at the seams. Northern Downpour is beautiful and unbearably sad for this reason. It’s Almost Halloween is just them having dumb fun in the woods.

7) Ryan Ross wearing diva sunglasses with a mummy costume: also never not funny –

8) I miss Ryan Ross and his infectious pop hooks a lot, too –

9) Their boy-band-style dancing is hilarious year round –

10) I don’t grudge current!Panic! At the Disco any of their ongoing success, and in many ways the split was the best thing possible for all concerned, but: I miss those four goofballs being all together, sometimes.

(reasons lifted and modified from a post on my personal Tumblr)

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Video: Kan Wakan, Are We Saying Goodbye

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This is the video for Are We Saying Goodbye by Kan Wakan, from their new record, Moving On, and it is – unexpectedly powerful, I think, is the word I’m looking for. A visual meditation on all the ways you can love somebody, both who they are and who they pretend to be and what other people make them into (but you know it isn’t real, and hate it, but still love them) and the point where that person and all of their faces is on their way out of your life.

Are We Saying Goodbye

For more music, check out their Soundcloud page.

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Mixtape Time Capsules: Driving Mix, c. 1992

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A mix-tape, whatever its intended purpose, is also always a time capsule. A record of a person, a place, a set of feelings, a time that felt like forever, and then wasn’t.

Last week I opened a box and a little piece of the ’90s fell out: the first driving mix-tape I ever made. There’s no date on it, but I’m pretty sure it’s from the spring of 1992, since that is approximately when I would have gotten my license. Fun trivia fact: I learned to drive on the Beltway. In a Chevette.

Anyway it is a hilarious cultural trainwreck and I kind of love it, not least because a mix that starts with Dwight Yoakam, dips heavily into, among other things, Rocky Horror Picture Show, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Elvis Costello in the middle, and ends with Ashokan Farewell probably does still sum me up as a person reasonably well.

Also, I have a terrible pop music problem and every time I listen to Five Seconds of Summer’s She Looks So Perfect I start laughing when they get to I got a mix tape straight out of ’94 because, dudes, I was there, I remember, and most of that, so not romantic.

Warning: may cause cultural whiplash.

Side I

Dwight Yoakam, I Sang Dixie – NICE OPENING SALVO, Seventeen. What, had you listened to Guitars, Cadillacs and Turn It On, Turn It Up, Turn Me Loose too many times?
 

Dwight Yoakam - I Sang Dixie

 
Bruce Springsteen, Human Touch – Clearly I started making this mix when I was in a bad mood. Let’s face it, that was probably just my default mode, because: seventeen.
 
Bruce Springsteen - Human Touch

 
Elvis Costello, Veronica – This is what I mean by “not romantic”: a New Wave pop song about Alzheimers!
 
Veronica - Elvis Costello 1989 New Wave Pop Hit

 
Def Leppard, Pour Some Sugar On Me – I got to hear this live a couple of summers ago, and you know what: those riffs have aged like fine, fine wine. They belled out over the sea at Jones Beach and I rose and swayed gently, grinning like an idiot and doing my best not to air drum.
 
DEF LEPPARD - "Pour Some Sugar On Me" (Official Music Video)

 
Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack, Science Fiction Double Feature Picture Show – I was a sheltered suburban child and I am at a loss to explain how I even knew about this movie. P.S. Thank you, whoever introduced me to the dark side.
 
Rocky Horror Picture Show Science Fiction/Double Feature

 
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Kings Road – Tom Petty was my first show (in 1989) and in many ways my first fandom, which I was in pretty much alone, because I had no-one to discuss him with in the ’90s, because my friends were more into Robert Smith. He just put out another record this year – Hypnotic Eye – and you know what it is BANGIN’ and he puts bands 3/4ths his age to shame. I also had mixes that were just Tom Petty songs, drawn from all of his records c. 1992, which I also used as driving mixes. That was what we had to do in the dark ages before iPod shuffle, y’all. Trivia about this song: There’s a street in Los Angeles called “Kings Road” and every time I crossed at that corner this song started playing in my head.
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Kings Road

 
John Mellencamp, Again Tonight – I appear to be feeling better! Yay!
 
John Mellencamp - Again Tonight

 
Blondie, The Tide is High – Ah yes, here we are, the Songs For Dumb Boys section: part 1. Dear Seventeen: It wasn’t worth it, but I appreciate your determination anyway.
 
http://youtu.be/Bv_mQIZHeHs
 
Elvis Costello, Miss MacBeth – This is actually a demo version, not the one from the record, because that I couldn’t find that one. But you get the general idea. It’s missing some of the depth and punch and all y’all should go and buy Spike so you can properly appreciate this song about the ways becoming an old maid can twist a person. It’s one of those tunes that falls into the “sometimes you read good stories, other times, the book reads you” category. Then, this was a cautionary tale; now, it still is, I guess, but I feel a certain amount of sympathy for Miss MacBeth and her daily love songs and corrosive rage.
 
http://youtu.be/O4s7y7if5ZM
 
BoDeans, Good Things – This one kind of lightens the mood, and kind of . . . doesn’t. Mostly I love that the person who uploaded this video went with 4+ minutes of dash cam somewhere broad, green and flat, because this is a driving mix, after all.
 
BoDeans Good Things

 
BoDeans, Paradise – I am not sure why I went all Two for Tuesday on BoDeans here, other than I really loved all of the songs Black and White and couldn’t choose just one.
 
BoDeans - "Paradise" - 11/4/11 - Radio Woodstock 100.1

 
Jimmy Buffett, Great Filling Station Hold-Up – Songs for Getting The Fuck Out Of Here, part 1: this is a silly song about dumb criminals, but also reflected my burning desire to graduate from high school and get out of town.
 
Jimmy Buffett-The Great Filling Station Holdup

 

Side II

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Thing About You – Songs For Dumb Boys, part 2a. I’m still not much for mystery, not going to lie.
 

Tom Petty- A Thing About You (Live)

 
Bon Jovi, Bad Medicine – You might be a lite-country-playing grown-up now, Jon Bon Jovi, but I remember when you had big riffs and ridiculous hair and acid washed jeans, and I loved you best. More or less. I suppose it would be more accurate to say I loved you best in a four way tie with Axl Rose, James Hetfield, and Tommy Lee.
 
Bon Jovi - Bad Medicine

 
Rocky Horror Picture Show soundtrack, Over At The Frankenstein Place – In this case the light in the darkness was the possibility of college, where I might meet other weirdos like me. (Spoiler alert: I did.)
 
Rocky Horror Picture Show - Over At The Frankenstein Place

 
Elvis Costello, This Town – This Town is a very satisfying thing to hiss under your breath while driving back from the grocery store, is all I can say.
 
This Town by Elvis Costello

 
J. Geils Band, Centrefold – The family of a deceased alumna gave my high school a jukebox for the cafeteria, because she had loved music, and we used it to play this song every single day for a solid year. I think they took it away not long thereafter.
 
J. Geils Band - Centerfold

 
John Mellencamp, Crazy Ones Songs for Dumb Boys, part 2b. They weren’t actually crazy, it just felt that way, at the time.
 
http://youtu.be/lYtF2ThS8IQ
 
Richard Marx, Angelia – Any ’90s mix that does not include at least one Richard Marx song is historically inaccurate because between this one and Right Here Waiting he was everywhere.
 
http://youtu.be/UR1MlRSJ-e8
 
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, You and I Will Meet Again – I know exactly which boy this was in reference to, and, listening to the song again, I realized: we did. Almost twenty years later, almost exactly as the lyrics said: in a far-off place (Penn Station), I recognized his face. We stopped to chat for a minute, and then he vanished back into the commuting crowd.
 
You And I Will Meet Again - Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers

 
Tesla, Lodi – Tesla – I saw them live recently (kind of) too, and, you guys, it was awesome. This is more on the theme of How The Hell Do I Get Out Of This Town?
 
Tesla - Lodi [Live]

 
The Forester Sisters, Mama’s Never Seen Those Eyes – One of the mysteries of old tapes: where did I get these songs from? Most of them I know I bought the tape. This one I really have no idea. I can’t imagine it was still on the radio, so I must have. Also, this is a whole lot of wishful thinking. Someday, Seventeen, someday. I promise.
 
Forester Sisters Mamas Never Seen Those Eyes

 
Alice Cooper, I’m Your Gun – Holy awkward transitions, Batman! I am baffled that I didn’t select Poison or House of Fire, here, but, oh well. The ways of Seventeen are cloudy and mysterious, I suppose.
 
Alice Cooper - I'm Your Gun (from Alice Cooper: Trashes The World)

 
Gerardo, Rico Suave – I actually bought his tape; it was pretty good. But this was the song that was inescapable. Did you know: Gerardo is at least partially responsible for Enrique Iglesias being signed to Interscope! Apparently he’s a youth pastor now.
 
GERARDO - Rico Suave HD

 
Ken Burns’ The Civil War soundtrack, Jay Ungar and Molly Mason, Ashokan Farewell – Again: good lord, THAT is a transition. I don’t think I ever watched the mini-series, I just listened to the soundtrack. A lot. Ashokan Farewell also ended up on the graduation mixes I made.
 
Folk Alley Sessions: Jay Ungar & Molly Mason Family Band, "Ashokan Farewell"