Archive for July, 2010

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I found a picture from before the fight

Written by

Sun Kil Moon – Natural Light

(the above is originally by Casiotone For The Painfully Alone [below])

I got some news on you from a friend
you’re in Charlotte again
teaching Spanish at high school

he said you’re going by Joy
you cut your hair like a boy
& you don’t talk to your old friends

I found a picture from before the fight
we’re in natural light
& you’re sitting on my lap
like everything’s alright

I’ve walked around with you on my mind
the names we used at the time
you know I’ve changed myself since then

I’ve thought on things that we said
what if we’d had the kid
I guess he’d be 15

I found a picture from before the fight
we’re in natural light
& you’re sitting on my lap
like everything’s alright

Casiotone For The Painfully Alone – Natural Light

[OK, so seriously now, go see Casiotone‘s last ever tour. For serious. And then buy Sun Kil Moon’s latest, Admiral Fell Promises, so that you can get the accompanying EP I’ll Be There.]

Posted on July 11, 2010 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

Carey’s pagan angel (I)

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Bon Iver – Creature Fear (Daytrotter Sessions)

Gallagher’s pub, on the corner of Glenden St. and Oxford Rd., drew a curious bunch. Carey found himself there on most evenings, throwing a two-fingered wave to the bartender, L, who nodded in return and served up a whiskey, neat, that rolled across the counter and sat sweating before he could take a seat.

Tonight, Carey’s jumper hung loosely from his slumped shoulders. Five days a week this jumper wore him to work, battling the frost waiting for him at his door following him to the gaping office hallway. The cotton was splitting at the collar and fraying at the sleeves, a tattered vessel sinking in the sea smoking from the deck.

Cupping his shrinking glass in the palm of his hand, he felt a dull glow in the evening’s stupor.

It was Erin’s hunched spine that gave her away; the dusty resignation that lingered on her wings shading their pearl with inky blotches started creeping on Carey’s skin. He watched the empty bottles standing at attention while she ran her fingers along the grooves of them. What did she know? She knew something. Her dove-tailing dress bunched up at her knees, exposing her thigh. Her bare feet dangled inches from the ochre carpet. Carey didn’t wait: he gathered his tongue at the tip of his teeth and made his way to her, her eyes waiting in their corners. I’ll get your next?

[Bon Iver’s Daytrotter session.]

(illustration by James Jean)

Posted on July 10, 2010 - Tunes - 1 Comment » Share

Please, just relax for one single perfect second.

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Morrissey – Moon River

It is all that lies between and on these five(hundred)-(and)seven(ty)-nine seconds that allows for splendour; that certain acoustic, vibrating electric, two-beat bass drum, the swoon and swish and call that is Morrissey, the space, its wind, her whimper. It doesn’t fit at an open window or in a cutesy scene, but in a quietened dance hall, maybe. The radio and it’s crackle would be a sufficient home. Your ear? Allow it to move in and settle. It’s beauty. Should you pay close enough attention, you’ll notice you’ve lost the childhood friend that was your knee. Both knees, of course.

[1. Watch ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’. 2. Listen to ‘Moon River’ by Steven Patrick Morrissey. 3. Purchase said song as a single track for £2.99 or as part the compilation album that is ‘World of Morrissey‘.]

Posted on July 9, 2010 - Tunes - 1 Comment » Share

Smoke cigarettes in rented rooms.

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Casiotone For The Painfully Alone – Young Shields

After we moved out of our Center Street house we hosted one last party. Just a few people, wandering the empty rooms which used to house our lives and our things and our bored moments and our drunken squabbling.

We’d already shown the landlord how pretty and clean it was, each room eerily bare and stripped of our collection of possessions. But we knew the house lay dormant and unlocked; it lured us back in just once more.

The oppressive emptiness funneled us all into Robbie’s old room, where we set up a battered set of folding chairs and passed around a bottle of Seagrams. Lara sat cross-legged on the floor, packing a bowl. The smoke from our cigs and pot stained the faded walls and seeped into the ratty carpet.

At sunrise we stumbled out to our cars and drove away one last time, down wide Center St. and a right turn onto State College and onto the 57. Behind us we left empty beer bottles and ash and Robbie’s favorite pipe and two inches of Seagrams still stagnant in the bottle and our former lives.

[Go see Casiotone For The Painfully Alone’s last ever tour and buy Etiquette.]

Posted on July 8, 2010 - Tunes - 1 Comment » Share

All we hear is Radio Ga Ga.

Written by

Love you, Freddie.

Posted on July 7, 2010 - Videos - 2 Comments » Share

Floating freely in the water.

Written by

Beat Connection – In The Water

This is fun. This is fun. This is fun. This is fun like lunch breaks on school excursions; sitting on the grass outside of the art gallery, kidding around and taking in the real-world sun. It’s so different from the courtyard sun.

This is calm. This is calm. This is calm. This is calm like standing under a spitting shower-head, steam rising from your pores, in the early hours of the morning and knowing the world around you is sleeping while you cleanse.

This is new. This is new. This is new like an unwrapped present offered by a stranger on the cusp of your birthday, handed over with a smile and a sureness that whatever it is, you’ll like it that little bit more.

[Beat Connection’s Surf Noir EP drops today. It’s July 6th.]

Posted on July 6, 2010 - Tunes - 2 Comments » Share

All I can do is keep on playing…

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Seasick Steve – Man From Another Time

This man, I did not know him. Beyond my years, beyond my compass of awareness and intellect. His company I was never in, but he was once a boy, too, once unsure, once unaware – forever questioning. I was in my late teenage years when I first found him. I thought his views were rather pathetic, rather sad. (“I used to think they were so boring, now I have arrived at last.”) What a way to spoil the sureness of time beyond [our] time, but I persevered for his voice spoke with assurance and commitment. It seeped. Too much time with him and we’d weep. I grew with his voice. Every word forced thought or judgement or shape and then a reshape. My world evolving with his hand [I assure you of no intended pun]. He now wanders through moments which will test his abounding courage. He won’t fall to bended knee, although should he, such a moment will be his to be had – a moment suited to just the lead character of the scene; not a moment for our rewrite or direction. Grasp it. Squeeze it. Start an argument with that which grows within and you’ll bounce in celebration and campaign again, my [unaware] friend.

[Steve, I salute you. Christopher, be well. ]

Posted on July 5, 2010 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

Delightful little boy lost in rain

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Farm World – Early Riser

At first I thought this song was all ethereal fluff like cotton candy and pixie dust and faeries, so I wrote a cute little story about a boy floating through pink edible clouds, but as I kept listening I realized there’s something else at the heart of it.

Somewhere, holding it all together, is a resonate harmony, like a neon laser through the mist or maybe that completely satisfied exhale  when you peel off your socks and plop down on your couch and take that first swig of whiskey after a long sweaty day.

[Buy The Mud Story if you support God’s decision to invent both cotton candy and whiskey.]

Posted on July 4, 2010 - Tunes - 1 Comment » Share

Oh-Ah-Oh-Oh (!) Oh-Ah-OhOhOh (!!!)

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Tame Impala – Alter Ego

The Alter-Ego: graceful, empathises easily, turns the other cheek and shows compassion at all the unlikely times. Wears her heart on her sleeve, keeps her words in her throat, and (compulsively) cleans her fingernails every day. Jeans well-fit, tees well-kept, and her health and well-being is of great concern. She doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink, doesn’t toy with casual sex, and doesn’t need an excuse to think twice, three, or four times about anything at all. Even breakfast. She is loved, respected, and relied on by others. [Innerspeaker.]

Bjork, Dirty Projectors – When The World Comes To An End

Björk with a Dirty Projector excites me. The Orca swims again in the over-stained photos coming through on the wall; the backdrop to the shoulder-shaking tunes on play. The oh-ah-oh-oh harmonising. The garbled Longstreth, voice shaking in a glass while Tyrannosaurus Rex approaches, pushing through the light. I would have loooooooved you, for a long time. For a long time. [Mount Wittenberg Orca; choose to donate $7, $25, $50, or $100 to the National Geographic Society Oceans Project.]

Posted on July 3, 2010 - Tunes - 4 Comments » Share

[Together through life]

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Bob Dylan – I’ll Be Staying Here With You

Bob Dylan, Thomond Park Stadium, Limerick City, July 4th.

Moments to search for:

Crowding into a car, making your case for which disc should spin, which window should lower for fresh air – the one furthest from you.

An Uncle who has warned us that a “torn jeans” and “white bandanna” combination is ironed and set to be put on display.

You know your ticket is legit, but that skip of a heart beat as it’s scanned.

The crowd tightening.

Open air venue with a ceiling trickle of rain, but the weather forecast is never wrong when negative.

To be reminded further that an aged voice outweighs one of youth.

His back catalogue: songs aplenty, but sing-along’s a rarity.

Itching and yearning for the first roar of harmonica splash.

To be witness to songs that most certainly will be played one day on neighbouring planets.

That charge of hope that at any moment the opening sounds of Queen Jane Approximately will choke the air.

Tightened gut at the realisation that no such moment will he had, no such song will be sung.

Straining one’s eyes for any level of humanity in that black clothed man: a smile, a small jig… maybe even a kick of cowboy heels.

The ride home.

The retelling of those moments that made the time special [for you].

Post concert blues.

Look at that view.

[Look at that Skyline!]

Posted on July 2, 2010 - Tunes - 4 Comments » Share

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