Hang You From The Heavens

In eighth and ninth grade I was an un ashamed rockist and retroist and somehow in the last four years I have shed that. I have shed that to the point of hating rockism and retroism. I have shed that to the point of almost being embarassed to be listeing to the white stripes because they are to a certain extent rockists. They are also retroists but not in the "it was all better then there is no hope for today" way more in the "I hate everything around me" way so thats ok. And I'm wondering how I got to this point and I think I can link the start of it to one song. Jackie used to keep it in high rotation my sophmore year its called "I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair". My least favorite song in existance. Not the worst song but my least favorite. I was emidiatly repelled by it and wasn't exactly sure why. since then I have been finding reasons, reasons that were always there I just didn't have the words to say them exactly.

The first one that hit me right away was that punk rockers did not have flowers in their hair. The ovious one. Punk rocks stated goal was to get rid of all hippie music and all hippies. Flowers were out. It was probably a good way to get your ass kicked in '77. Took another week or two before I came up with the second. Its a myth. What the song is descibing never happoned and wishing for something that never happoned seemed pretty bleak to me.

A bit of time passed between me writing the last paragraph and starting this one. Because of that I can't say I'm sure what I was planing to write next. So I'll just get to the gist of it.

A few weeks ago I saw Pete Townshend interviewed on some Who documentry. He mentioned something about haveing been young people making music for young people and how that doesn't really happon anymore or something like that. My head went imediatly to 'Shouldn't you be dead?'. In referance, of course, to one of the best lines Mr. Townshend ever wrote "I hope I die before I get old". I have found myslef incredably hostile twords anyone who looks on the past as better. And I have become almost disgusted at all things sixtys and seventys.

The first reason is this: There is some philosophy (or maybe its just in fight club?) that talks about Kill your parents, Kill your idols, Kill your teacher. They don't mean actualy kill, but instead let go of, or think of in descrase in your mind. Because as long as you hold them above you you are stifled below them. Some times I hear this with Kill your god and Kill yourself (meaning your ego) in the place of the second two but you get the point. I killed my idolization of my parents I don't know how long ago. A hundred years. I killed my god in the last year and a half as documented on this blog. And I never had a teacher or mentor to look up too. The sixtys and seventys were my idols. And I couldn't be free wile holding on to them. Why is it that Radiohead still makes good music wile Oasis hasn't since, say, 1996? Didn't the two bands form at the same time? Its because Oasis holds the mid nindys in such high regard and wants to be back there, Radiohead just wants to get to tomorrow. Oasis has that idol hovering above them. Pete Townshend has the mid sixtys.

The other stems from a line in a minor threat song. "you better be happy with what you got, you'll never get anymore." in referance to a five foot four guy who starts fights because of his insecuritys with his hight. Its something adults tell you since you were four. Funny how I never got it until I herd it from Ian McKaye's mouth. Being five foot four I'm sure sucks. I haven't measured myself in about a year but I think I clock in around 5'8" and that sucks as well. But I am going to be this way for the rest of my life so I sure as hell better start thinking its the best anyway. I will never be six feet tall. I will never spend one fucking second of my life in the sixtys. Hell, I was alive in the nindys but I will never see one second of it ever ever again. I don't really believe it was better as no one I really respect has ever said it was, but even if it was better it means fuck all and you best start believing this is the best. because there is too little fucking time to spend it worrying about missing out on the best. So I don't fucking care. This is the best time to be alive of all time. There was never a better moment in history before right this fucking second. and in a few years when we rule the world its going to be even better.

you think i love you but it aint true

Jóga

Saturday was amazing. Just because of the music I got. I'm in a daze. There seems to be this perception these days that the time of great movements in music is over. If nothing else these records prove them wrong. They should be held aloft next to all the classics. Hell, Los Campesinos! alone are threatening to change my life.

Yesterday I think I made the best mix tape I have ever created. Click the links, check it out.


Side A link
Side B link


Side A

1. Jóga - Björk
2. Rhode Kill - The Velvet Teen
3. Penny Dreadfuls - Avey Tare and Panda Bear
4. Airbag - Radiohead
5. Woke Up Alone - Ryland Bouchard
6. Yellocake - Kaki King
7. Silence - Portishead

Side B

1. No Pussy Blues - Grinderman
2. Race: In - Battles
3. Sarcofago Live - The Mountain Goats
4. Seductive Barry - Pulp
5. Dark Center of the Universe - Modest Mouse
6. We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed - Los Campesinos!


is where I want to be

We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed

Jackie posted This Is Just To Say on her blog a little wile ago and goddamn I havn't herd that poem in a wile the first time I herd it was in elementary school and it was just a cute thing and I've read some double you see double you recently because of his connections with the beats and letters of incoragement back and forth with Allen Ginsburg in the back of the eddition on Howl I took out from the library a couple months ago but some how I haden't come across that poem again and I read Jackie's post and its amazing and I didn't know what to say sure its cute still and very funny that he would wright that sure but just so crisp so so I don't know I suck at words to explain art all I say is 'I don't Know' all the time but that poem blew me away so sweet so cold so sweet so

This morning I had about two hours to kill before zero hour for busking and its not enough time to watch a movie and the only book I had out from the library was poetry and I was a bit burt out on poetry cause I've been working my way through Dylan Thomas and... whatever anyway I downloaded the most resent podcast of This American Life because Jackie has talked about it a lot and I read a peice about it in the AV Club and I wanted to check it out and at the end there is the poem again and it again was compleatly sublime and then a bunch of parodys after some of which were also so so brillient this is just to say and I guess thats where Jackie herd it too

Basicly I just miss Jackie. So much. Adrian for some reason I can talk to on the phone and thats ok and I don't miss him and all my other friends are, you know, all my other friends. I would go to hell and back for them but right now I have so much art I don't have time to miss them I guess. Too much to do. But with Jackie talking on the phone sucks. It doesn't suck, I mean I enjoy talking to her, but its not enough because it doesn't for some reason stop me from missing here. I'm so glad she's working at the Cafe again on saturdays because that was my day to come in to sit around and sip tea there.

The fourth paragraph goes like this: I don't usualy write things about events and plans I have with people outside of the ones that read this blog. Which is to say that this is not a diary, its a place for me to record and work through my thoughts. But...

The first thing I am doing when I get home, after eating a burrito, is calling Diana and telling her that she is comming on a date with me at Cafeina the next morning. Because breakfast there on a sunny day is the ideal first date in my mind. And also because I know its now become final that she is not going to New York for college next year which she is upset about but if I can't be with her in a more permanant time period at least I can be with her for just the summer and I don't think I could stand being in the same state with her and being seperate. I am writing this here so if Jackie is working that day (I kind of hope shes not, sory) she isn't just finding out about this. If she were just finding out about it she would get all excited for me and make me turn bright red and I don't want that to happen right then. 

The next day or so I'll go back to Cafeina and ask if they're hiring. 

i hope my heart goes first

Perfume-V

Most of the Mountain Goat's recorded output (and almost everything for the first decade of their existence) is recorded on a standard department store boom box. The point was immediacy, a song was conceived, it was recorded, it never was recorded again. If it wasn't recorded it was forgotten in a few days. I was kind of inspired. I ran the mic from a hand held mini cassette recorder through my standard cassette deck and recorded an acoustic noise version of the Mountain Goats "No Children" (even though thats one of their songs that isn't actually recorded on the boom box) and then I pressed record again and in one take improvised a guitar part, vocal melody, and lyrics to a song. Because I don't know what note I'm going to sing next the vocals are a bit wavery and it probably could be done a bit better if I re-recorded it but I think that would take away the intensity. Anyway, click the links below to hear them.

No Children

Song 1

P.S. Allen Ginsburg is a BEAST

and it makes me feel ok, I don't feel ok

What Jail Is Like

I just had an epiphany. Sort of. Well, it was an sudden break through but about something almost completely inconsequential.

About nine months ago me and Chris Jones had a conversation about bands' fan bases. It came up when he got on Radiohead's case by dissing their fans. ("seriousness is not the same as intelligence no matter what virginal Radiohead fans say") and I said, yeah, I love Radiohead but I don't like most Radiohead fans I meet. The ones twenty five and older tend to be pissed off about kid a, which I don't understand at all. Was kid a really that unsettling? Its seems like a fairly normal album to me. Albeit a good one. The ones younger then twenty five are either hipsters or mainstream music listeners who I have no idea what they're doing around Radiohead or, yes, the virginal ultra-serious type. Of course there are always people I meet who likeRadiohead and are cool but generally I would bet against it. If we were to take guesses on weather I would get along with someone or not based purely on they're list of favorite bands, seeing Radiohead would not be a good sign to me. 

So me and CJ started thinking, what would be a good sign? A band who's fan base was cool more often then not. I couldn't think of anything. Chris mentioned the Velvet Underground and I guess that's pretty accurate. In the months in between then and now this question has stuck in the back of my mind and I've pulled a few others out. Cap'n Jazz, Owls, Dirty Projectors, its a little bit hard for me to imagine too many idiots like these bands but still all of these still didn't quite do it for me and so the question still hung around the back of my mind. 

Today I came up with a solution. Nirvana. Perhaps it was just in Albany but Nirvana is stuck in a weird place. They were so intensely popular with the generation directly preceding us and they strike a chord with almost every middle schooler to the extent that they become the epitome of uncool to the casual fan. As per the intense fan, they're hard enough that the indie pop crowd sees it as testosterone fueled bull shit and they're soft enough that the metal and punk crowd sees everything post-Bleach as commercialized sentimental crap. Which leaves the only people who would openly declare a love for Nirvana as being ones who didn't care about all that crap, and who could see Nirvana's unquestionable brilliance, and who didn't mind being considered the definition of uncool by all parties involved. I guess it also leaves the middle school crowd... and those still have not broken free of the middle school state of mind... but still. Its hard for me to imagine anyone over 15 with a unapologetic love for Nirvana being someone I couldn't respect. 

You see? This is an epiphany to me these days. Its fucking meaningless.

lonely? maybe. or maybe not it all depends

Favorite Thing

my favorite cd player broke in december. the one I use now has a weeker preamp. my headphones have lower then standard sensitivity. I like siting on the floor of my apartment listening to music because its the only way I can turn it up until my ears hurt.

bar nothing

No Pussy Blues

yesterday, or maybe the day before, or maybe the day before that. It could have been anytime really... I couldn't sleep but I was really trying but I had this song lyric that shot into my head and I opened my eyes to find they had ajusted enough so I could see what I was writing just by the pail light that came from the street lamps coming in through the crack between the end of my curtain and the end of the window. and in a daze I stumble for a pen and my notebook and I scribble it down and then I stop dead. The light glansing off the edge of the paper and spilling on to my hand as if it was water was... it was the most beautiful thing I've seen in a long time. and I just sit there. and I look at it. and I look and my camera it just out of arms reach. and it has no film in it anyway. and there was not enough light to begin with. and if I used the flash it would ruin it all. so that meant the moment I moved my hand or my body this would be gone. I will be the only one who ever sees this. and the once I moved I would never see it again. and I liked that somehow. and I sat there for a half hour staring at the edge of the paper and my hand holding it. and then I got up to get a glass of water. and no one will ever see that again.

that I must above all things love myself/that I must above all things love myself/that I must above all things love myself