orbis quintus

I’m a little bit freaked out. It seems that Louise is in the process of acquiring Belle & Sebastian tickets. Being in Cardiff has everything to do with Louise, and little to do with music, but aside from Tom Waits, the second thing that we figured out was Belle & Sebastian. That may seem trite to many of you folks, but i swear that it’s not. It’s about a lot more than shared bands and a few emails. Maybe i’ll have a chance to explain sometime. Anyway, it’s not about that… it’s about seeing a band that i never had any hint that i might see. I don’t see that many bands play live, and now i’m going to see one that just not merely one i like, but have a weird affection for. That hasn’t happened since… oh…. Nick Cave. There’s a chance that we won’t get the tickets, but this is a strange turn of events. Louise seems to be making this surreal as a time that i’ve had in years.

I’ve been listening to the Kinks for three days now, just Face to Face and Something Else actually, but have been left in a total loss to say anything coherent. “Ah, that Davis sure is a songwriter. He’s great at social commentary,” would just be looking through the lenses of what i’ve read already. It’s hard not to notice how personal his music is, especially when one compares it to the the contemporary pop bands of the period. So what? As much as anything else, when i walk away from the music, i’m left with the nonsense lyrics, like, “Wicky Whack Whacky Woo” or “Ba ba Ba Ba-Ba-Ba”. I just like the way it sounds.. gentle, lazy…. it would seem absurd to say that the Kinks were unchallenging, but these are two of my favorite albums from the ’60s, and i often feel that i can comfortably ignore them, and here them as background music, in a good way. Despite my familiarity with the band, i confess that i probably have a way to go before actually understanding the Kinks. (“What is there to understand?” I dunno, but i sense it’sin there, tucked inside the chord or a quavering voice.)

There’s always stuff that i manage to neglect through sheer ignorance. For once it’s not music, but a website. After the link to Feed, which i knew nothing of, i found Plastic, which apparently everyone else has known about for ages, as i’ve seen it on the links for many people’s pages, and thought, “What a lousy name for a site.” (i’m not crazy about plastic.) What’s there to say about the site? Nothing. What’s to say about my laziness and cluelessness? Plenty. Salon i stumbled on way after its peak, as it never seemed worth investigating as it reminded me of hairdressers. It’s symptomatic of the narrowmindedness that i can sink into, as well as the ruts that i dig in visiting certain sites online. I hope this explains why i’m suddenly going links crazy….

(if anyone who reads this page and has a page and wants a link, please email me. All ruts must end.)

Neumu. I’m having trouble reading some of the fonts so far, and the colors are a bit too Fall Catalogue Gap for me, but Addicted to Noise is one of the few things that i can ever claim as knowing about at the time, as it seemed to be one of the only sites one the web as far as i was concerned. I’m a little surprised by the whole thing. John Darnielle is writing for them! Yeah, yeah, the Mountain Goats make me cringe, but when Darnielle wrote for Puncture (which i cannot find in shops anymore) i liked his writing, because i often disagreed with it. There’s hope. I have more hope for the relaunch of Freaky Trigger at this point though, or some of the other “new” personal sites that i’m stumbling across by sheer accident.

Paul O’Neill continues to be a shit. How corrupt can a Secretary of Treasury be? When the media asks whether his stock in the aluminum company that he used to be the CEO of (Alcoa) could be a conflict of interest, he arrogantly sniffs that he didn’t realize that this would be a problem, and will get rid of it immediately. Instead, he does nothing, and has profited $10 million in the value of that stock. Who cares if he sells it now? He already rode the stock to a peak based off of policies that he’s involved in. This is the same jackass who wants to do away with taxes for corporations, in case anyone forgot.

I wish that i could spare the money to pop over to Gothenburg to join the Swedes in a mass-mooning of Bush next week

Via Boing Boing. I was hoping for some Dean Kamen news (inventor of Ginger,) but ran across this instead, old comic book covers by his dad Jack Kamen. At least now there’s the discussion board on Amazon, and this page to keep track of news articles.

Now Spin reviews the David Candy album too. Quick! Everyone go buy it so that i can buy it used.

The criminally stupid tax cut is now law. “The surplus is the people’s money,” Bush said, “and we ought to trust them with that money.” Oh yeah? well, the government is OF the people, FOR the people, and BY the people, you monkey-faced, shit-for-brains plutocrat. I’m your boss. You ought to be fired. Don’t hand me back a check, like some jackass CEO who downsizes his company, laying off the actual people who built the company and putting its future at risk, trying to raise the stock value to get his kickback.

I’m getting worried about Salon. This article on Axl Rose sounds like a weblog rant, as bad as anything i’ve tossed off when the caffiene wore off halfway through a paragraph. Where did he think he was going with this?Is Axl ever going to put out that Chinese Democracy album? Are the Neptunes going to produce it?

Yeah,, i know actor’s opinions count for shit, but it still tickles me that John Cusack is so pissed off. As foul mouthed and reactionary as he is, it seems that we have something in common.

The world always needs more visionaries. I hate thinking about business, but if NASA is just going to piddle about sending unmanned probes to Pluto, this Robert Bigelow is where it’s at. It’s cool that he’s curious without being someone slapped alert by true weirdness thrown in his lap.

According to Weekly World News and Bushed! the venerated Bat Boy has developed a crush on Jenna Bush. Allegedly, the Secret Service has shoot- to-kill orders. I think she’s safe, because if Bat Boy was vampiric, her blood alcohol level would be too high for any nourishment.

John Hartford has died. I’m sincerely bummed out about this. I kept putting off going to see him for fifteen year or more, and he died. Concerts at Mud Island, Round Rock…. i missed them all, and now i shall never get to see him dancing on the plywood while playing a fiddle.

In making the another mixtape, it began to annoy me on how conservative i am with new bands. A friend is making me a CD of You Am I & Redd Kross, and i’m damned excited. After the E6 comp, it turned into new stuff that i think is aces, but then i started going back to the same bands, partly because i’ve lost my mp3 collection, and partly because i couldn’t be bothered with another new band when this other hand that i already have a song from has another fun song to squeeze into the mix. (Yes, i’ve given up on standard tape mix conventions, only sticking with the rule that two songs by the same band cannot be side by side.) It was indulgent, and i managed to bore myself with some of the current music that gets my neurons crackling and adrenaline surging… Clinic, SFA, Dismemberment Plan, Beta Band… what the hell was wrong with me? Aside from coming down from four hours of sleep and a pot & half of coffee?

What do i want to hear? Never mind the obvious new releases by the old-standbys that dominate the tops of the stacks of CDs littering the floor of my bedroom (and it’s probably going to be necessary to get boxes to bring all of these to Damien to keep for the next several months.) what’s the new bands never heard before that might be an awesome find for two or three songs and will be forgotten in favor of the comps that they wind up on? Let’s see…

Clientele. Nope. I still have not heard them. It seems that they might be necessary for quiet, rainy morning painting latex onto model houses. (i’ll explain that some other time.) All of the influences referenced are impeccable and the people extoling their virtues rarely steer me wrong.

Teflon Monkey. He wrote me once, and said that he loved Julian Cope too, and saw him at Swansea. The reviews point towards Nick Drake, who i have not turned against despite the backlash since VW’s coopting Pink Moon, and it would be interesting to see what kind of music would wind up on Placid Casual in any case..

The Makers. I don’t care how derivative or trashy that they are supposed to be. They seem spectacularly sleazy, in a Let’s Pretend way. I enjoy Brian Jonestown Massacre and the Dandy Warhols in my repressed manner, so a band willing to get even more over-the-top would be a blast of rank, damp air. (oh, & is that a good thing?)

Radio Birdman. Fuck it. Why just new bands? An Australian band taking cues from the Stooges and MC5 has to have points, and they must have a cult devoted to their honor for a reason…. but then again, there’s Hawkwind cultists out there too.

Neu! I want to play too. I want to be a Krautrocking motherfucker who says, “Ah! But have you heard Neu?!”

Pearls Before Swine. no, i haven’t heard them… such are the confessions that i must lay on the table. I have no clue whether it’s visionary psychedelic-folk or dreadful hippie dross… but what the hell… i love the Incredible String Band.

Cornelius. I’m trying to be topical with that Tim Burton remake of Planet of the Apes, but failing, as Cornelius is like so 1997. No matter, he seems wacky.

The Nerves. I already mentioned them recently in my power-pop fixation. I’m fairly certain that i will get to hear them one day soon, as curiosity is killing, just so long as that curiosity doesn’t involve seeing a photo of them. I have a feeling that might kill the curiosity.

shit, this didn’t work as i thought, as i have a mental block. This is as bad as walking into a record shop without a list. and honestly, it was probably a stupid idea, considering that most “new” stuff i only find out is cool after i missed out on it for two or three years.

By the way, i was being overly dramatic. After the buzz fizzled, SFA’s Mwng was a perfect comedown, and it was easy to work back into a frenzy with Os Mutantes. And i don’t understand either Welsh or Portuguese.

Jeff from People Talk Too Loud wrote to give me a text only link to the site. Dandy!

Ah, but the great point is that the Neptunes are probably not in their right minds. I do empathize with Dan’s sentiment, but as someone with no cred himself, it feels nice to have more company. Hail to the Great Satan Oasis. Well, that sounded good, and made me laugh, but now i have myself nauseated… callow mook Gallaghers…

And speaking of mooks, there’s a review of Fargo Rock City in the Village Voice. I think that i enjoyed it more than the reviewer did, as it seems he was looking for deeper meaning, like when Klosterman confessed to alcoholism, something i barely remember almost two months later. However, i do remember another confession about a bank error that he took advantage off, only to get caught. The alcoholism fit the tone to me, but not the bank error, but in the long run, i like the incongruity of the book. Perhaps i’m guilty of not taking a confession of alcoholism seriously. It’s almost easy to take for granted that anyone that fixated upon ’80s glam metal has a few problems. If i was him, i would have had to take up alcoholism to write such a book. In fact, i might take up alcoholism anyway, since it seems that many book reviews on new authors seem to have obligatory references to Dave Eggers. While the Chuck Eddy fingerprints are all over Klosterman’s psyche, i doubt whether Eggers is as monolithic an influence on contemporary literature. Fuck it. Radiohead’s going to save rock, too, aren’t they? Maybe Eggersa can write the liner notes for Amnesiac if they are not too hype. Cross-promotion. Hype, hype, hype…

The Guardian pointing out how the battle lines of the Union and the Confederacy are being drawn again. Shit. i don’t want to see those bumperstickers about the South rising again being proved correct.

Four different secret projects that could explain chemtrails. I had been leaning towards the fourth, secret innoculation of the public against covert biological weapons (it’s less crazy than it sounds,) but in the past few days, i’ve been leaning towards weather control, as a lot of the reports that i’ve been reading took place where there’s been fronts moving in this week. It actually rained here in the past few days, after an extensive drought that had no end in sight. There’s a lot of other weird weather patterns going on, like the superstorm that centered on Chicago for an unnaturally long time. Two sites explaining more about chemtrails are Chemtrail Central and Contrail Connection.