Sunday, June 30, 2024

Kroger 9:43pm on a Sunday

Kid

No more than twelve years old

Takes a running start

And jumps

Arms stretched to the heavens

Six inches short

Of the low-hanging security camera

I forgot

That I used to do this too

Friday, May 31, 2024

Usonian Automatic self-titled album

scum stats: this copy is numbered 3/50, though their website lists two different runs of 25 copies each. All lathe cut, these sound fantastic, with hand-written song titles on the jacket. Just how I like it

In the 20+ years of demos being flipped my way, very seldom has something so realized, so thorough, so unified crossed my desk.

Everything offered here by Usonian Automatic is exquisite. The songs, the recording of said songs, the jacket art, the 16 page newsprint insert...this is 100% absolutely worth whatever effort you need to put into securing one. All of it is tied together and, in one way or another, overarchingly influenced by Frank Lloyd Wright. Architecture and music don't really overlap in ways I can easily conjure, so the attempt here is real. It is valid. It is an effort without FEELING like an effort.

The accompanying manifesto is vaguely reminiscent of the White Stripes take in the "De Stijl" liner notes and the song "Nickles & Dimes" is very likely a sample of the drum into to "Jimmy The Exploder" slowed down just barely. All that to say, inspiration in this regard is merely a jumping off point, nothing slavish or pandering considering the perch I'm writing from where I'm hyper-aware of such things. I get Kills "No Wow" guitar vibes and haunted, detached vocals imbue the tracks with an ennui that feels real and not contrived. Some Earth-like arrangements and the "turntable" percussion appropriation all make a genuinely unique and enjoyable connection across otherwise unconnected realms.

Listen to the whole record, really, I don't know how many are left available to purchase from the Bandcamp page (this came out in 2020, for what it's worth) but I definitely make the case here that $65 Canadian is well-spent on this record.

And shit, if you buy it and don't like it, I'll happily trade you equivalent and thensome in TMR goodies so I've got a spare on my shelves. That's how confident I feel about this music. Essential? I think so.


Tuesday, April 30, 2024

The White Stripes Live at the Magic Stick April 17th, 1999


There are moments, ever so brief, that feel like an entire room has catalyzed and are all

speaking the same language. Even if speaking vaguely or in code, everyone understands fully.

So while I cannot speak for the rest of the 100 or so folks that were at the Magic Stick on April

17th, 1999, I can speak to how *I* felt.


For establishing purposes, exactly 25 years ago, on April 17th, 1999 the White Stripes played in

the middle of a bill with Gore Gore Girls opening and the Compulsive Gamblers headlining. I

was sixteen years old.


Barely a month earlier, it appeared that the White Stripes were done. With their cessation being

reported in the Detroit News, the fact that a DAILY newspaper was covering such underground

countercultural gossip still feels beguiling. Yet in the span of a few weeks, the Stripes had

played a triumphant non-farewell show (March 13th, 1999) and were most definitely soldiering

on, while Jack White’s other current musical concern, the Go, had unceremoniously kicked him

out.


I guess this was relatively big news in the small world of Detroit garage rock. In hindsight, it

seems pretty insignificant. So when the Stripes roll into “Astro” at the tail end of their set and

Jack substitutes in the names of his former bandmates in the Go “Bobby”, “Marc” and “John” as

“do(es) the astro” the feeling in the air, to me, was “oh man, he’s giving it to ‘em.”


To follow it up with the ending verse impromptu singing “Maybe someone has an ego!”

and “Why don’t you do what you want to, girl?” (with what I would interpret as foreshadowing of

future attack-like songs as “There’s No Home For You Here (Girl)” and “Girl, You Have No Faith

In Medicine”) and it all had the allure of an up-to-the-minute newscast, made up in real time, for

the couple dozens friends and scenesters gathered there that evening, all of whom knew the

score.


As the song concluded, you faintly hear a request for the Go song “Meet Me At The Movies” to

which Jack replies on mic “Somebody wanna hear “Meet Me At The Movies?” It’s the wrong

band!”


The Stripes performance, overall, is just so different from any single show they’d ever played

before or would play after. First ever appearances of gems like covers of Iggy Pop’s “I’m Bored”

and Earl King’s “Trick Bag” (done in the style of the Gories) alongside Jack and Meg’s first ever

performance of “The Same Boy You’ve Always Known.” They also cover Brendan Benson’s

“Crosseyed” for seemingly the only time ever with Brendan himself smack dab front and center

watching the proceedings.


Interesting little moments abound…the show-opening “I’m Bored” is quickly scuttled as Meg’s

bass drum pedal snaps. She coordinates a quick replacement with Deb Agolli (drummer for

openers the Gore Gore Girls) that precipitates Jack’s solo take on “Trick Bag”


(For years my recall is that I was up there helping Meg attach the borrowed pedal to her kick

drum. But just now, at this moment, I’m half-thinking that I watched it from the crowd. In my

head, I see Deb, coincidentally wearing red and white, behind the drums with Meg. But I also

see myself crouched down, futzing in the dark, helping Meg. The video of the show conveniently

shows neither myself nor Deb onstage during any of this. There’s a possibility my memories are

lies)


But once all is back up-to-speed, Jack just starts “I’m Bored” from the beginning.

There’s a simplicity to taking the song from the top, an innocence to it, a “we’re gonna do this

right” stick-to-it-iveness that I tend to think most bands would not actually endeavor. Most bands

would just move past it and try to pretend that they never even attempted the song in the first

place, let alone start their set with it.


And that’s just one of many reasons why the White Stripes were objectively great from such an

early point in their career.


Other treats include an early run of “The Big Three Killed My Baby” that does not start with the

trilling three scratches of the guitar. Seemingly every version performed afterwards would start

just like the album recording…with those ominous trills. Jack introduces Meg as his little sister.

Jack also, for the first time we’ve documented, signed off the show with a “My sister thanks you

and I thank you.” Little Easter eggs all of them.


And while there’s no real evidence here to point to proving so, we all know that this is the

evening that Jack White would pay a couple hundred bucks to Compulsive Gambler’s Jack

Yarber for his red Airline guitar that in short order would become an iconic piece of the White

Stripes imagery.


My favorite moment of the entire show unfolds in the middle break of “Astro” where Jack drops a

curveball…


What did the hen dog say to the snake?

No more crawfish in this lake

Just a hair, just a little bit, just a hair, just a little bit

Well what did the woman who came to the side,

one hand on her leg, one hand on her thigh

Good lord, have mercy, good lord, have mercy


This is a slightly altered take on George Johnson’s version of “Jack The Rabbit” as featured in

the 1978 John Lomax film The Land Where The Blues Began. Johnson was a gandy dancer, a

now-obsolete job of manual railroad track maintenance. This is a work song, plain and simple,

Johnson’s repeated lines of “just a hair, just a little bit” actually instructions to the rest of his

crew in regards to which increment or degree they should be adjusting the track. It’s chilling, it’s

got unforced attitude, it’s beautiful.


In sharing this clip with Jack this week, twenty-five years later, he said he had absolutely no

recollection of what it was or where it even came from.


But it felt so familiar, both then and now. Like a nursery rhyme I’d heard my entire life. Like

something EVERYONE had heard their entire life, certainly everyone in the room. Like it was

meant to be there, that it had always been there, and would always be there, smack dab in the

middle of “Astro.” 


The point I’m trying to make is that for these fleeting moments on this night, the demarcation of

stage and floor were largely irrelevant. What was happening wasn’t a band playing for a crowd.

What was happening was a conversation, an education, a therapy, a laugh, a finger-pointing, all

wrapped into one. And so much of it, hell, maybe all of it, happened just that once, seemingly to

be experienced only by those in the room. Fleeting.


So should you give a shit that this is effectively a spruced-up audience recording? Not in the

least. Just sit back and enjoy all the swirling different factors and reactors that melted together

to create a one-of-a-kind evening a quarter of a century ago.


Listen here...https://www.nugs.net/live-download-of-the-white-stripes-the-magic-stick-detroit-mi-04-17-1999-mp3-flac-or-online-music-streaming/36808.html


Sunday, March 31, 2024

Ada Richards "I'm Drunk And Real High (In The Spirit Of God)"

Ada Richards 

I'm Drunk And Real High (In The Spirit Of God)

Some weeks will have you questioning the existence of a higher being. I like to think if there is one, they exist in a realm where this song is on loop.

That scream.

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Eddy Grant “Nobody’s Got Time”


Eddy Grant


Nobody's Got Time b/w Where Are You Going To My Friends

scum stats: seems like this was a hit, but in a tiny country. who knows!

Oh. My. God.

This song is so damn good. Was shared with me by extremely great dude of the highest persuasion Chris Schulist (DJ on the Jack White 2022 tour). Sat in my inbox for a month or two before I ever even cracked the message because that's the state of my email affairs these days. 

I finally opened about three weeks ago and have not stopped listening to this song since. 

There's a simplicity to the groove here, coupled with an unusual heaviness, that puts the overall feel in rarefied air. It's likely the only record I own from Trinidad...and if any more sound like this, I will clearly need to find more.

My immediate thought upon grooving to this jam is that I want to play drums to this with Pat Pantano and that's already enough said. The plonky fuzz with the sparse, pick-and-choose bass...it's unmitigated perfection. I do not say that lightly.

There's a bootleg 45 out there that's a little more of a recent DJ "edit" with some added effects and shit, which is good too, but I have absolutely no qualms or quibbles with the original here.

I have not liked an OLD song this much in quite some time. A nice reminder that there are still gems out there that can connect to the innermost rhythms in our soul. Keep searching them out.

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Mary Jane Dunphe "Fix Me" b/w "Seasons"


Mary Jane Dunphe

Fix Me b/w Seasons

scum stats: limited to 835 copies on clear vinyl

By the sheer titles, I anticipated this being a Black Flag cover as the a-side and a solo Chris Cornell cover on the flip. You never know what you're going to get with the Sub Pop Singles Club and this waxing puts Dunphe on my radar.

"Fix Me" has is a catchy melody with propulsive drum heavy backing, prime for singalongs in a guitar focused manner. I don't know anything about Mary Jane, if you told me she's primed to be the next big pop star, shit, I'd believe it.

B-side is a little bit more in the feels, light synth interludes that recall bouncing ball marimba (more serious than cheeky) with emotive, heartfelt voicings. The more I sit with these recordings, letting them replay over and over, the stickier they become. I'm more entranced by the drum programming/production of recalling bits of Saint Etienne's cover of Neil Young's "Only Love Will Break Your Heart" with a bit of that early 90's trip hop vibe. I'm also getting the slightest hints of the Limiñanas here, another outfit that just hits that spot with me. Crisp and gritty at the same time.

All in all, a promising introduction to an artist I'm stoked to learn more about. Good luck finding a copy of this subscriber only record, so in light of that go and stream the shit out of this one.