Tequila: the beginning of a journey

I think it was only about a year ago that I discovered that I liked tequila (Wiki) a lot. Well, ok, let's be honest. It wasn't just that; but that I like it much, much more than whisky, which was until this point my late-night like-to-pretend-I'm-a-classy-fucker drink. In fact, it's worse than even that. I think I'm in love.

I love the lush bouquet of tequila, and the complex, aromatic, almost botanical notes that drift across your tongue as you hold a mouthful. I like the lack of bite'n'burn as it hits your throat, and the lack of acidity as it traverses your gullet. I adore the absence of any of the cloying saccharin of whisky; instead the delightful promise of sweetness on the nose is delivered in a measured, flat, dry way just like the best Martini. I actually love that it is brewed from a specially grown, tended, and harvested cactus in the arid desert-heat of Mexico, instead of from mashed-up bird seed in some god-awful rainy bog in Scotland.

Up until this point, my conception of tequila was some shitty drink which you consumed with the direct aim of getting wasted. And that in order to be able to actually just accept the stuff in your mouth, you needed salt and lemon juice. And you gagged when you swallowed it. And sometimes you climbed up on the bar and let someone pour it down your throat. And you invariably drank far too much of it and did stupid things and got yourself into compromising situations (Tequila Suicide here). And let's not for a minute pretend that that is not still true of low-cost muck like Jose Cuervo*.

Occasionally you meet somebody who changes your life; sometimes you have sex with them, sometimes you don't, sometimes you spend years wishing you had, or hadn't, or whatever. Sometimes you just talk to them for an hour or two. Most recently it was the Turkish guy who kept laughing uproariously and saying "You New Zealanders, you're crazy! You invaded my country! What were you thinking?" over and over.

But I digress. It was Carlo the Mexican who set me on the righteous path of true tequila appreciation. One drunken night he suddenly turned to me and with a grin said something along the lines of "you New Zealanders, you don't know anything about tequila". He produced a bottle of Herradura (mythology), furnished me with a measure, and that was me. Done. Sold to the gentleman trying not to spill his Negroni, trying not to slide off The Sifter's chaise lounge.


We will continue my Tequila Odyssey soon.


* and the exact same could be said of a poor-quality blended Scotch like Clan MacGregor, or Grants.

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NP: Sleep - Dopesmoker (allmusic)

Crikey

Following the Crocodile Hunter's bizarre death at the, erm, barb (?) of a stingray, I sincerely hope that the management of Westfield Queensgate don't see fit to 'disestablish' their Steve Irwin ride out of some kind of misplaced sense of honour or taste.


Surely that would be somewhat out of character.

And it's really quite a lovely, and surely now iconic, little piece.

NP: Talking Heads - Remain in Light (allmusic)

CBGBs

Further tidbit of the day.

From Rockphiles.com, this just in: CBGBs moving to Las Vegas, lock, stock, and er.. urinals.

Wikipedia entry for CBGBs here.

NP: Swans - Children of God (allmusic)

Meat and two veg

Tidbit of the day.

From E Nagar, this just in: Red Bull contains Beef. Or, to be more accurate, Red Bull contains an ingredient predominately extracted from the bile ducts of bulls.

Friday farce: Death and the Maiden

Call me a romantic, call me an idealist, call me a goddamed fool; but as far as I am concened Graeme Downes (left) and The Verlaines' music is - and should remain - sacrosanct. Which makes it all the more bewildering when considering how we got to the point where skate-pop-punk-dorko meatheads Elemeno P (right) ended up recording a cover of The Verlaines' seminal 1983 single Death and the Maiden.

I'm possibly a little over-sensitive about this one - this song bears a lot of meaning to me personally - so I'll leave you to make up your own minds about it. (Not to mention that Downes must surely have given consent - and in doing so tacit approval - for the attempt).

Elemeno P - Death and the Maiden [from Trouble in Paradise] (1.93 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

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Click on the picture of Dr. Downes for a link to Too Much Beauty in One Fell Sweep: The Verlaines' tortured songwriting genius Graeme Downes, a feature by Dave Fisher which was originally published in Filler Magazine, July 1999.

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"God," writes a friend, "you really need a new blog post. It's really disturbing seeing that fucken guy's picture everytime I go to your blog."

Yeah, sorry for the lack of posting this week; I've been sick as a motherfucken dog. Hopefully you'll forgive me when you hear that coming up on Drinks-After-Work, we will be featuring (1.) insightful discusion of two recent movies; (2.) debate on the pros and cons of two particular coffee-based cocktails; and (3.) the first in an ongoing series of articles (hopefully) illuminating the world of tequila-drinkin'.

Tim Devine's Disney Photo Blog

Tim Devine's Disney Photo Blog is a photo blog devoted to Disney Theme Parks, featuring the rides, characters, buildings, and that wonderful feeling you get when you visit the parks.

Tim is in the Law Enforcement / Security business, and notes that it is his goal to provide us [his readers] with the best Disney Memories on the 'net.

On a related note, they sure love ol' Walt Disney over on Stormfront.org, the "White Pride World Wide" site. Boy do they love him.

Heavens blaze forth the death of princes

On Saturday night, I chugged along to see Wellington's own world-famous doom-metal outfit Black Boned Angel (at Scottish mailorder outlet Volcanic Tongue; Salient review) at a little venue in Newtown called Uproar.

Here is a little animation of "lead guitarist"* Campbell Kneale playing his guitar during the show. It runs at about 4x speed (yes, that does mean he was "thrashing" really really really slowly).

The venue is actually underground, in a local grindcore band's practice space. It has a 'stud' of about 6'5" and is the coolest practice space I've ever seen. The entire place is thoroughly soundproofed with mattresses, old couches, egg-trays and the works, all painted black and stapled or otherwise affixed to the wall; very professional.

My ears are still ringing, though.

*a little joke: as in he leads, and James (right) follows.

(click to enlarge images)

Waterworks

This is what Aro Street Park is looking like at the moment. The work to join the new Aro Street drain with the large Te Aro branch-culvert, that was laid up to the park almost a year ago now, is almost complete. On Saturday it was really freakin exciting - after a heavy fall of rain over the previous 24 hours or so, the water was fair gushing down the (temporarily) exposed culvert. You can see the water in the second picture - that's the white stuff at the bottom of the pic.

Having this all wrapped up is good for two reasons. First of all, Aro Street will no longer flood every time there's sufficient rain to overwhelm its (now former) 100+yr old brick stormwater system. This was novel, and kinda cute for a while, but soon became completely tedious.

Secondly, having the park torn up to buggery once again will provide the pedestrian commuters of Aro Valley - once again - with the opportunity to NOT cut across the grass every day on the way to and from work, thereby carving a great big track - which turns into a huge bog in wet weather - through the park and ruining it for everyone else.

In order to remind these people that other residents would appreciate it if they DIDN'T act like a bunch of selfish arseholes, I'm thinking of taking some direct action and posting a pair of small signs in the park. Problem is, I've come up blank when trying to settle on the ideal wording. This is what I've come up with so far:

WAGESLAVES
Spare a thought for your fellow
residents and other park-lovers
Please DON'T cut ACROSS the GRASS
cheers.

Your comments are welcome; nay, invited. Together maybe we can find the ideal mixture of humour and severity.

(click on the images to enlarge)

Creme de cacao

Here's a quick one for you liqueur connoisseurs: how chocolate-y should a white Creme de Cacao be?

Because, the one I bought on Friday (Kings brand, out of Greenhithe, Auckland) ain't that chocolate-y at all.

Pop

Goddammit. If she (left) doesn't stop appearing in the margins of my Myspace pages, telling me that she's a-waiting for me over at ***** Intimate Dating service, I'ma have a fricken heart attack.

Ouch!

Think I'm gonna dance now.

Friday farce: Young Americans

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Ha ha ha.

Ha ha ha ha ha.

*gasp*


Anyone who's ever been in a band will hopefully be able to relate to those moments in the practice room where suddenly, spontaneously, for no apparent reason, you all start playing some appalling version of some (often appalling) song and for a few moments there, a few minutes, even, it's fun and zany and wacky and a huge joke and you have thoughts running through your head like "hey we could totally add this to our live set.. that'd slay 'em dead" (a good thing) and then you all get kinda lost in the bridge except for the guitarist who - oddly - seems to know the song by heart and gets irritated that everyone else doesn't know the changes and.. then you all kinda stop and it dies off except for the drummer who tries to get it going again and then you all realise what a bunch of dicks you are and how awful it sounded and you should be shot for imagining that you should play this live and... yeah? well, not if you're The Cure.

No, apparently, if you're The Cure, you spend most of the late-80s directionless and casting around, trying to work out what to do next, firing and hiring members left right and centre, and putting out a couple of pretty bad albums (e.g. Kiss Me^3) in the process. And recording an utterly wretched full-blown studio version of a David Bowie classic (Allmusic.com song review).

The Cure - Young Americans (3.66 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

If you recall, David Bowie got a bit of a bollocking a few weeks back for his awful version of Pablo Picasso; well, now it's time he got one back! Yeah!

*retch*

This song is only available on a couple of obscure radio-station compilations, as well as the exhaustive rarities 4-disc boxed-set Join the Dots: B-Sides & Rarities, 1978-2001.

EDIT
Since Robert Smith altered the song's lyric to reference President Clinton, I assume it was not in fact recorded in the late-80s, but indeed much more recently. However that it sounds like it fell out of a timewarp from 1987 only adds to the ghastly comedy of it all.

What to do, what to do

Looks like Friday night (25th August) is well sewn up if live music is your desir du coeur.

The hipsters will be well sorted at Bar Bodega with the return from afar of ex-Two Lane Black Top guitarist Pip Brown and her band Teenager, which also features Oscar out of Letterbox Lambs on drums. Support is in the form of Pip's solo act Ladyhawke, as well as Charlie Ash, The Actualities and "Wellington's most awesome DJ" Sift. (more here on Scoop).

Meanwhile, over at Happy, bithday celebrations will be winding up with the biggest of the three-night party. Look out for Jeff Henderson's monstrous Deconstruction Unit, as well as the Not Quite Quiet Choir, The Pleasing Mummies, Alphabethead, and on into the night with a "wack funk party".

That'll take care of the pre-hipsters, the post-hipsters and the entirely-uninterested-in-hipsterismists; leaving pretty much sweet fuck all left to catch The Idle Suite and Starcruizer at The Adelaide. Which kinda sucks, because Starcruizer are one of the coolest and most entertaining bands around at the moment. And The Idle Suite and their twin-drummer-propelled post-rock endurances are not too shabby, either.

Melbourne

As you may have been aware, I went with my band The Stumps to Melbourne recently. More on that soon, when I can collect my thoughts, but for the moment, here are a couple of pictures.

The Stumps, in a street in Brunswick. Shifty lot, innit. Self-portrait. Composing self prior to spending about A$500 at Metropolis Books and Music.

Damn I'm good-looking.

Friday farce: Love will tear us apart

I don't really know what to say about Albert Kuvezin and Yat Kha, his Tuvan throat-singing rock band. Except possibly "cookies!"

I would say, however, that Joy Division's classic 1980 single and, er, swan-song Love Will Tear Us Apart almost certainly belongs on the list of songs of which cover versions should never be attempted. Everyone from Calexico (hmm?) to Paul Young (yikes!) have tried, however; I've not heard any of those but The Swans made a reasonable hash of it in 1988, emphasising its nihilistic gothic-chamber-folk nature.

Albert Kuvezin and Yat Kha recently released an album of cover versions (tracklist and notes). Entitled Re-covers, it consists of their versions of some of Albert's favourite songs. Frankly, based on their attempt at Love Will Tear Us Apart, the album sounds completely, utterly, gag-worthy, retch-inducingly 'orrible.

Albert Kuvezin and Yat Kha - Love Will Tear Us Apart (1.44 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

You can also listen to their version of Motorhead's Orgasmatron on this page; this at least is as comical as a drunk Irish pub band featuring a retarded Rumanian vampire/Dr. Frank-N-Furter-wannabe on vocals. Or something.

2-fer-1 Friday Farce: The Boys of Summer

It's late, I know, but I really have been whacked since I got back from Australia. So to make up for my tardiness I've put together a super-duper bumper edition of the Friday Farce; so super-duper and bumper, in fact, that it's virtually interactive!

So Don Henley out of The Eagles bounced back from his 1980 arrest and subsequent charging for "possession of cocaine, Quaaludes, and marijuana, and contributing to the delinquency of a minor" and had a few solo career hits back in the 80s; amongst them was a charming tune called The Boys of Summer, which although I feel I almost oughtta know better, I can't help loving to pieces. It's truly "melancholic and gorgeous", and there's something quite plaintive about it which is very affecting.

Today you get to choose between two covers and decide which is truly the Friday Farce: will it be The Ataris' earnest, faithful and ultimately pointless fist-pumping revved-up possibly-even-Emo (*gasp*) skate-"punk"anthemn? Or Spanish retardo-club-techno producer DJ Sammy's appalling-eyewear-wearing bad-haircut-sporting convertible-driving glowstick-in-anus-inserting female-diva-horror shocker? The call is yours and yours alone.

The Ataris - The Boys of Summer (3.95 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

DJ Sammy - The Boys of Summer (3.33 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

I kinda like the irony of The Ataris altering the "yuppie-baiting" line about the "Deadhead sticker on the Cadillac" to be a Black Flag sticker; as has been dicussed here previously, punk is well and truly dead, and it's due in no small part to clueless neo-pop-skate-"punk" bands like The Ataris doing earnest, sentimental covers of 80s commercial top-10 songs. But don't get me started.

Don Henley's main fan-site is here; this is where I learnt that in addition to snorting coke off the breasts of fucked-up-on-'Ludes teenage jailbait (see above), Don enjoys fishing, reading, "writing scathing letters", cooking, and gardening. He is apparently also "an environmentalist, intellect and crusader for a variety of important causes"; however a cursory investigation hasn't revealed any supporting evidence for these statements.

Over here on his official site you can actually listen to the original tune in WMA and RealAudio formats (it's track 01 off the Building a Perfect Beast album).

Green Morning

Just a quick brag to let you know that my new full length CD The Green Morning has just been released on Digitalis, in the USA.

Here's what the label said about it:

New Zealand's seht (AKA Stephen Clover) has spawned a musical monster around one consistent idea: that simplicity can be the most mind-expanding drug around. Over the course of a dozen releases on labels like Last Visible Dog and Celebrate/Psi/Phenomenon, Clover has perfected this artform. Using a minimal array of instruments and effects, he sculpts every sound source he can find into soothing walls of aural bliss. Doing more with less is rarely done better than this.

The Green Morning is seht's third proper CD release, and comes on the heels of a series of limited CD-Rs. Through his ability to synthesize a seemingly endless array of sounds into a single, focused point, seht acts as a modern composer in the same vein as William Basinski. Clover's drones have explored various territory through the past few years, everything from glacial ambience to desconstructed blues. The Green Morning is like the early moments of dawn, bathed in warm plumes of sonic sunlight. These songs are the memories trapped beneath the floorboards, and by looking back Clover offers a mere glimpse into the ambience of a not-so-distant future.

More info here. If you follow the links to the Digitalis release page, there's a track (Cydonia) you can listen to; you can listen to a further track (Valles Marineris) on my myspace page.

There's also a new 3" tour cdr release "sputnik II" on Melbourne, Australia label Diagnosis...DON'T! recordings but I'll pro'ly blog that separately.

(ps. please contact me if you are having trouble finding somewhere that is selling them.)

Tuesday tune: When she sang about angels

seht and The Stumps are going to Australia tomorrow for almost a weeks worth of shows in Melbourne. Here's the itinerary, as we know it so far:

Thursday 3rd August:
Missing Link (405 Bourke Street) - instore performance 5pm by The Stumps

Friday 4th August
Pony Club (68 Little Collins Street) - The Stumps, seht and AM
with:
Datura Duo (2/3 Grey Daturas), Bad Cop Bad Cop (members of On/The Stabs), Agonhymn (members of Terrorust/Cement Pig)

Saturday 5th August
Bus Gallery (117 Lt Lonsdale St) - The Nether Dawn and seht
with:
Nigel Wright, Blarke Bayer (Ben Andrews of Agents of Abhorrence/My Disco), Skovorodino and Bone Sheriff (2/3 EOH)

Sunday 6th August
Bar Open (317 Brunswick St, Fitzroy) - The Stumps and The Nether Dawn
with:
Malakat (inc members of EOH/Whitehorse), Rod Cooper, and Mike Rose (Mark Groves of Whitehorse/True Radical Miracle)

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To celebrate the tour, both seht and The Stumps will be releasing limited-edition 3" EPs on Melboure label diagnosis...DON'T! reCoRdings. Needless to say, we're all pretty excited about this.

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So yeah. There ain't gonna be any Friday Farce this week, so I thought I'd leave you with a tune for Tuesday.

The Go Betweens - Cattle and Cane (5.99 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

I posted about the wonderful Aussie band The Go Betweens before; since then, Grant McLennan has passed away (and here), a turn of events that saddened me greatly.

Cattle and Cane, from their early album Before Hollywood, is described as McLennan's "autobiographical masterpiece" and was recently voted by the Australian Performing Rights Association as one of the ten greatest Australian songs of all time. It's not an unreasonable call.

See ya next week!

Bob Arctor

(stupid A Scanner Darkly/Philip K. Dick/paranoid conspiracy theorist/whatever joke follows)

Umm, Bob Arctor wants to be my friend on Myspace. Should I be nervous?

Mad Mel

Frustrating news for fans waiting for pick-up shooting and post-production on Mel Gibson's new big-budget biopic "The Passion of Saddam" to be completed.

Meanwhile, Gibson's publicist yesterday denied that there was any truth in the stories currently circulating Hollywood that the feted Oscar-winning actor and director is "bat-shit crazy".

"Mel just needs a holiday, a couple of Xanax", Hiram P. Assgobbler is quoted as saying, "and to stop talkin' it up for tha ladies. This latest project has really taken it out of him."

In other news, rumours are flying that Mel Gibson's father has been inducted into a secretive Australian neo-Nazi organisation. But from the Gibson camp: "that's just fucken bullshit, mate".

...

Phew. This fact-checking and reporting lark is exhausting. Time for a nice game of Rock, Paper, Saddam, I think.

Rock, Paper, Saddam (442 KB Powerpoint presentation: right-click and Save As to download)

(thanks, Dave).

Friday farce: Pablo Picasso

Jonathan Richman's original, performed by The Modern Lovers on their seminal 1973/76 self-titled album, is a classic of pre-punk sneer and ironic self-deprecation. John Cale, who was the producer of the Modern Lovers album, himself covered it in some style on his wonderful Helen of Troy record. The song was featured in the cult movie Repo Man, there performed (heh) sensationally by obscure LA punk outfit Burning Sensations. It has also been done in fine style by oddball British new wavers Television Personalities.

Read 'em and weep: Well the girls would turn the color of an avocado / When he would drive down their street in his El Dorado / He could walk down the street and girls could not resist his stare / Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole...... Not like you

And now David Bowie has come along and ruined it for everyone.

David Bowie - Pablo Picasso [from Reality] (3.75 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

Yep. For some reason, he wasn't content with the "avocado" lyric, and had to insert a "juicy" in there. As in "the girls would turn the colour of a juicy avocado". (Whatever the fuck that means, considering avocadoes are 100% devoid of juice.)

Not like you, mate.

...

Isn't describing something as "seminal" a funny old thing to do. Hmmm.

More beer

Talking about beer, the Tuatara Pilsner on tap at Bodega is superb this week. I say this week because as we all know, some of the Tuatara stuff is notoriously variable in consistency. But yeah, the stuff we were drinking last night was dangerously quaffable. I actually remarked at some point that it tasted like a half-decent sauvignon blanc.

It didn't mix at all well with the Coopers Stout I had been drinking up to that point, though, and I reeeeally should have known better.

I also had the worst Martini I've ever had last night at Mini Bar, but that's another story. So too is the reason I had a second one.

...

Had a couple of Coopers Sparkling Ales at San Francisco Bath House last night too, where I witnessed the strangest thing. Before opening the bottle, the barman laid it on its side and rolled it up and down the bar for a few seconds. Who'd have thunk that that would be an effective way of combatting the characteristic sediment that is found in a bottle of Coopers Ale.

Nasty little tipple it is, too, with its oh-so-moreish fruityness and positively deceitful 5.8% a.b.v.

...

The sediment must have affected me more than I realised, because in my dream last night, I invented a bar/bench-top device for serving Coopers Ale and other sediment-ridden drinks. It involved a centrifuge-chamber, some muslin-cloth, and a new revolutionary design one-way ladle. The patent is, as they say, pending.

Beer

So I was hunkered down with the boys at The Adelaide the other night, sippin' on a brew.. watching the footy.. listening to the bands.. and thinking "so.. what is it with this Oranjeboom muck, then eh?".

I mean, despite being rated as a "premium lager", and being described as.. uh.. "lamb dressed up as mutton" it never was particularly good to start with, even when it was imported by the case from Holland. But it was ok. They're now selling it on tap at all the cheap undergraduate dives now, and they certainly wouldn't be doing that if it was still imported; it turns out that good ol' Lion Nathan has got its hand on the license to brew it domestically. Or should that read, "ruin it" domestically. As one of my companions remarked, "it tastes like a yeast infection." (Read into that what you will.)

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Yeah, so RealBear.co.nz is "the leading source for online beer industry information in New Zealand" and features "the latest beer news, beer events, listing of New Zealand's breweries, plus online beer forum." New Zealand Beer starts here, apparently.

...

As for The Adelaide, it's a good spot to do any/all of the above (bands, beer, footy). And the Brian Le Gros-era fitout is fantastic, and I hope they never see fit to change a thing. (photos to follow). Personally I'm super-fond of the super-comfy padded-leather bar-top.

Awesome.

Reprazentin'

Pumice on tour in the USA. (Images courtesy of The Last Visible Dog.)

July morning podcast

Jani Hellen has submitted another 'cast. It's lovely.. like a July morning in Finland, y'know?

linkage: Microtonal Piano Music

I'm not sure just how much of any of you, my readers, are interested in microtonal music; nor how many of you that are interested are not already aware of the Microtonal Music podcasts at Prent Rodgers's site. But, just in case you are, and aren't, here's the link:

An Exploration of the World Between the 1:1 and the 2:1

My particular favourite is the Microtonal Solo Piano Music podcast from a few months back. Featured are four piano works, all performed and with commentary by Prent.

Microtonal Solo Piano Music podcast (17 MB mp3; right-click and Save As to download)

Friday farce: Fairytale Of New York

Love it or hate it (and lately I'm still tending towards the latter), The Pogues' Fairytale of New York is still the only "seasonal" song I can hear these days that doesn't make me want to kill people. And only just, at that.

I guess it seemed only natural (wha?) for Ronan Keating, formerly of Boyzone, to cover the song. He is aided and abetted on this debacle by Maire "Moya" Brennan, out of Enya, who sings the female part in the duo.

Ronan Keating - Fairytale Of New York (feat. Maire Brennan) (4.16 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

I really didn't want to spoil the surprise, but I can't resist: witness the politically-correct alteration of the second line of the original couplet "you scumbag, you maggot / you cheap lousy faggot" to "you're cheap and you're haggard". And weep.

PS. Please stop emailing me to ask if Duncan Bruce is single.

Caravan

Duncan Bruce is a treasure.

Lessee.. he records under and/or goes by a bewildering array of monikers and pseudonyms: Pubes.. Khalil Rahmane & The Cats of Ulthar.. Duicide.. Farad Farad.. K. Rahmane.. Kin Rahmane.. Rizmane.. Rizman.. Rahmane.. Abnu.. and Dantor, to name a few. He has an encyclopaedic knowledge of jazz and modern music. He is virtually unknown in his own country, but loved - and legendary - in the rest of the world. He books gigs and doesn't turn up to play. He releases albums of shambolic weird retardo-exotica and noise on respectable underground imprints in Western Europe (Veglia). He has an ambigious relationship with publicity - about two incomprehensible Dutch-language 'net interviews (here, and here) he once remarked that "Anything beats getting mentioned in Real Groove or NZ Musician". He has one of the best Myspace pages ever (check out the 'friends', man). He's the coolest dad I know. Usual story, really.

He is also a friend, and so it is with great pleasure and pride that I present his wonderful "shambolic weird retardo-exotica" cover of Duke Ellington's classic tune Caravan, arranged for toy drums, cheap electronic-keyboard drum-presets, reeds, synthesizer, sheep, turntables, television sitcom, and cosmic space-death-ray sounds effects unit (that's actually mostly guesswork):

Khalil Rahmane & The Cats of Ulthar - Caravan (1.42 MB mp3: right-click and Save As to download)

Here's some more information about Caravan:

"Caravan" was written by pianist, bandleader, composer Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington (1899-1974), Juan Tizol (1900-1984), and Irving Mills (1894-1985).

"Caravan" was usually the second number played when the Ellington band performed. "Caravan" is considered by some to be the first real Latin jazz tune, although it owes as much to "Middle Eastern" melodies.

That was taken from this page, part of an online resource dedicated to exhaustively documenting known performances by Frank Zappa of cover versions of other people's songs. God bless the information box.

punk's not dead.. oh noooo

While I don't really agree with the actual message ("HOMO!"), I can't help feeling more than a little sympathy for the sentiment.

As The Exploited put it so eloquently in their classic tune "Punk's not dead", from the album of the same name (Secret Records, 1981):

Said so near the punk is dead
Here was you a modern tend.(of tendention)
Don't let it losing don't any worse
and all cruise up tha the punk is dead

Punk's not dead i know [x4]

We're all punks and we don't care
That was price to do out here
Blow the trapist in your face
with about tone of noise

It acsros to any law
Have no fear 'till the day I die
We all here use just to walk around
Don't like I'll hitchu to the ground

Yup. (Lyrics courtesy of the.. uh.. interweb). Actually in my opinon, and as TimothyFarrell22 of Massachusetts concurs in this Amazon CD review, it was bands like The Exploited who killed punk with their moronic attitudes and the appalling, laughable throwback-to-NWOBHM (Wiki) sound that they developed in the mid-to-late 80s; oh, the Irony. The deep, dark, dank Irony.

There's been a bit of advert/poster-jamming going on around the place of late; hopefully I'll be able to capture some more of the more-interesting and less-reactionary ones for y'all.

Cold

Helpful hints for cold people (things our mothers never told us):
1. Stay dry. Wet clothes are never gonna be warm, unless you happen to be inside a tumble-dryer, or hypothermic. In the case of the latter, you may want to consider going straight to #4.

2. Wear warm clothes - a no-brainer, to be sure, but you'd be amazed how many people wearing only a shirt or blouse on their upper-body complain about being cold. Wearing many layers creates an insulating effect. Wear structurally complex (wool) or space-age (polypropolene) fabrics, which also support and encourage insulation.

Still cold? Then read on...

3. Most of your body heat escapes from your extremities - your head, your hands, your feet. In particular, the masses of blood vessels near the skin in your head makes for a superb blood-cooling system - particularly unhelpful when you're cold. Wear a hat, scarf, gloves, and thick socks (or two pairs - see above re. layers and insulation).

If you're wearing a hat, scarf, gloves and good socks, and you're still cold after 15 minutes, there's something wrong with you. You may want to..

4. See a doctor. Doctors are qualified, experienced medical professionals who are well-qualified to diagnose hypothermia, and other terminally cold conditions; possibly equally as importantly, they are good at spotting temperature-related malingering, or "whinging" as it is commonly known. They will also likely have a supply of blankets - not to be underestimated, a good blanket - on hand which they can lend you. They also have the authority to order you to be rushed to hospital where your coldness will hopefully be fixed, one way or another, for good.

If you are in a hurry you can bypass the doctor, and rush yourself straight to hospital by ringing for an ambulance. Ambulance-men (also known as "paramedics") will also be well-endowed with supplies of blankets; if you're lucky they may even have those hi-tech silvery tinfoil-like blanket things which are even better, and have the added advantage, when you've got one wrapped around you, of making you appear like a piece of space-junk.

Good luck.

the world is hanging in a web of exquisite possibility*

i met the spider of exquisite possibility once. i said "ha ha ha so many legs". and it said "too right. all 186,000 of them. you wanna try shopping for shoes for these babies sometime." "no thanks" said I, half laughing. then it just kinda sniffed, turned sideways and vanished into the 4th dimension.

*niwi

Podcasts

Two new podcasts:

1. "No retreat, no surrender" podcast by seht.
2. Syd Barrett tribute podcast by Jani Hellen.

Enjoy..

World Cup Death Watch

Awesome fun. Also here.

Best quote:

Even though I am Italian, after that headbutt, I think France actually won the game. I'm sorry to admit that I am a fan of headbutts more than soccer, and that was a beautifully executed headbutt.

Cats that look like Hitler

Yep, even better than Stuff On My Cat.. I give you: Cats that look like Hitler.

This guy (right) is easily the best, but there sure are a hell of a lot of cats that look like Hitler.

Suit

Things we love to hate #1
Dorky metrosexuals wearing high 4-button suit jackets and getting the 3/2 button rule so so wrong. You doan look good with that thing buttoned up by your collarbone, dork. Unless you're David Tennant/Dr. Who, apparently, who seems to be able to get away with that AND having the bottom two buttons undone as well.

Must be the "geek-chic".

(image courtesy BBC News).

Over hang party

Dear god almighty. 3 people. 8 bottles of red wine. Codeine. Several classic rock LPs, including Deep Purple In Rock, Black Sabbath Paranoid, and Motorhead No Remorse. All-in wrestling. You do the math.

Over Hang Party - Now come out (the naked existence) (right-click and Save As to download)

Good track. Now come out (the naked existence) is "model for Overhang Party's minimal rock". Tokyo Flashback Vol. 2 is a pretty good album, too. Great, in fact. So's the whole series (we're up to Vol. 5 by now).

"Incredible, 11 Groups from Tokyo". Indeed.