Archive for the ‘Tunes’ Category

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My unfounded theory

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My Bloody Valentine – Wonder 2 (mp3 removed)

Eating, shitting and sleeping. That’s what life essentially consists of, according to my dad sometimes. There’s a level of truth to this, reductive as it is, if you exclude things like doing drugs, talking about and wildly exaggerating drug stories with friends, travel, getting into relationships, sex, playing video games, The Internet, and enduring the manifold awkwardness that modernity confronts us with on a regular basis. Still, the three things mentioned at the top of the paragraph are different, because they retain meaning despite the fact that we do them all the time. P.S. This is 63% of why Louis C.K. is a transcendentally funny man.

Ever have a 5-second epiphany, while watching some professional sporting event – football in my case – about how utterly, completely absurd it is? Like, a bunch of humans running at insane speeds, physically jousting with each other, often violently, stretching themselves to the limits of their own strength . . . in order to kick a round piece of leather into a mesh netting. What? I mean, I love it, but I have no idea why. It is not an unhappy experience, though, simply a weird one – a gentle reminder from your own mind of how strange your existence is. There is something to be said for being disoriented (or disorientated, if you’re British).

The new My Bloody Valentine record is quite brilliant and you should buy it if it’s your kind of thing, but you didn’t really need me to tell you that, really, because almost all of the Very Serious Music Critics can tell you and have already told you that. I do, however, have a theory about this record, one for which there is no real evidence.

My theory is that each song on m b v represents – well, not “represents” but has some sort of strange relationship with – different types of sexual encounters. These include: sensual, lovely, romantic sex; contrived, camera-voyeurism sex; graduation sex; sweaty, tight, period sex; a type of sexual encounter which has not yet been experienced on this planet, but which, if it were to take place, would happen in the back of an airplane charged with unloading apocalyptic explosives upon humanity (“Wonder 2”).

According to this theory: The album took 22 years to be released because, well, Kevin Shields took his time accumulating the necessary experiences. Then he turned these things into sound.

[m b v.]

Posted on February 26, 2013 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

Make my sad songs sincere

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puppy dog eyes

The Magnetic Fields – No One Will Ever Love You

I’m second choice with the dog even. Third, really. Rawles prefers either roommate over me.

If we’re alone in the apartment, he’s affectionate. He’ll burrow into my chest as I’m watching soccer, or prance around in excitement as I put on my shoes, or sleep in my bed, his chin resting on my stomach. But when someone else is around, the pecking order is clear.

Sometimes, when the humans are sitting on the couch watching Modern Family or something, I’ll call Rawles and pat my thighs. He’ll jump up, walk over my lap and snuggle with the roommate next to me.

For Valentine’s Day I bought myself 69 Love Songs.

The Magnetic Fields – (Crazy For You But) Not That Crazy

Because we live in the Western world and read from left to right, the steak knives on the left endure much heavier use. In the row of six along the bottom of the knife block in the kitchen, the far right one seldom leaves its slot. The two middle ones probably haven’t breathed fresh oxygen since we moved in three-quarters of a year ago.

The mug in the far right corner of the cupboard would probably leave a dust ring. The bottom small fork might have never tasted a human tongue.

Lately I’ve taken to remedying the imbalance. I shuffle the steak knives. I rotate the cups. I extract my silverware from the bottom. Everything deserves to be held on occasion.

I can’t tell if I’m OCD or just lonely.

[69 Love Songs.]

Posted on February 23, 2013 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

sensitive torso

Written by

Daniel Horowitz

Brian Eno – Becalmed

I need tea tree oil right now and tea tree oil is the only thing I need. No rest till tea tree oil. I gave away an almost-empty bottle to the people camping in my backyard to keep the mosquitoes away. We didn’t use to have mosquitoes. There’s a crater-sized ditch in our yard where we tried to dig a pool and never finished. Now the bottom’s choked with murky water and mosquitoes breed with fevered purpose. Did you know people who eat a lot of bananas attract more mosquitoes? I know that because for about a month I ate, like, a lot of bananas and mosquitoes went nuts for me, and then I stopped and so did the attention. Also, I read it somewhere.

Sometimes when I lie down I imagine the nerves in my fingers going out like burnt-out light bulbs one by one, and then my hands, and my arms and legs and feet too, gradually all my extraneous senses dropping out like a bad connection. Actually, truthfully I’ve only done that once or twice. I could probably sell it as a new form of meditation, but like, kind of unsettling meditation. That’s very 2013, I’d say. I don’t know where you’d stop, though, with the nerves dropping out. Like are you just a really sensitive torso, or do even your tastebuds fall away? If you get good at it you could stay like that for ages; unfeeling. You wouldn’t even notice the mosquitoes. Or maybe you would and you’d just let them bleed you dry.

I could tell you approximately how many mosquitoes it would take to drain a human body, one bite apiece. If that’s something you’d like to know. But first I think I’ll just lie here for a while. Think maybe I’ll start my own count.

[Another Green World.]

Posted on February 19, 2013 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

I’m not the girl you’re taking home

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batman

Robyn – Dancing On My Own

Doing the Harlem Shake alone in your room on Valentine’s Day when the the drier buzzes.

[Body Talk.]

Posted on February 15, 2013 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

yeyeye

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mechanic hands

Daphni – Ye Ye

Squat in your sandals and shorts. Spit on the filthy concrete. Wet your finger in the spittle puddle and rub it on the tire valve. Screw the cap back on. Spin the recently replaced tire. Squeeze a tube of oil over the chain. Grease it down with your steady, blackened finger.

[Jiaolong.]

Posted on February 12, 2013 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

I hear one thing: “I know.”

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Majical Cloudz – Turns Turns Turns

I hear one thing: “I know.”
I hear one thing: “I know.”
I hear one thing: “I know.”

The thing is: “I don’t know. I have never known. I have pretended to know, grasped at the fingertips of women and men who I thought knew, cried and begged for knowing, adopted the crushed posturing of somebody who knows. I have told people what to know, how to know, what it is to know. Angrily, I pointed fingers and shouted aphorisms in the name of Knowing. I believed Knowing was Power. Then, I believed Knowing was Peace. Neither held clean after the dishwashing. In the villages, I lusted for people to watch me stroll about my business. They would be hushed, wary. Whispering amongst themselves, ‘The Man Who Knows was known to walk these chalky paths.’ I have wished, dearly wished, to know, but all I know is the more I have known, or thought to have known, the less I have known in truth and the more confused I have become. Forever turning, never still.”

[Turns Turns Turns.]

Posted on February 7, 2013 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

So mechanical, and you’re beautiful too.

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Foxygen – Why Did I Get Married?

“I’m late, I know. Unfashionably. I was, like, five minutes away and I got lost so I kind of cruised, started checking out the houses in your neighbourhood. Bit posh. Wait – is that . . . did, did you put out cheese and crackers? What the fuck? Whatever. Just point me to the beer. How’s the party? Who showed up? Oh, seriously? She came? I wouldn’t have picked that. I guess that’s cool. You should put the moves on her, man. Like Mick Jagger, ha ha. Current Jagger, though. Like 69-year-old Jagger. Not Rolling-Stones-Can’t-Get-Enough-Satisfaction Jagger. What I’m trying to say is you move like a senile pensioner. Kinda look like one too, with that polo top. Since when do you wear polo tops? Polo tops are for golfers and/or Larry David. Yes. Yes, they are. Alright, whatever. Anyway, good luck, man. No, seriously. I was just joking! Relax. I’m pulling for you. She has a great set of tits.”

[Take The Kids Off Broadway.]

Posted on February 4, 2013 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

Lean on old familiar ways

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unicorn lovers club copy

Paul Simon – Still Crazy After All These Years

“I have a headache.”
“Did you take a shower?,” Love asked.
“I tried everything — I took two showers, I took ibuprofen, I drank three glasses of water. I still have it. I’m going to bed,” Mrs. Love said.

It struck me that that was one of the Loves eccentricities. They will raise children who believe taking a shower will cure a headache. That’s just a Thing that will happen.

Every couple has its inexplicable eccentricities. Some put batteries in the fridge. Some put red wine in there. Old wives’ tales persist; I mean, we are still supposed to switch off electronics in a plane, despite Science. [Link 1, 2, 3, 4, infinity.]

Now I’m paranoid that I have a bunch of habits just this side of innocuous that no one has bothered to talk to me about.

[Still Crazy After All These Years.]

Posted on February 3, 2013 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

Back down, back down

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leotard

TOPS – Turn Your Love Around

1. I’m 16. I’m on a Vespa, my mom on back. We’re driving to buy bread, zipping down the hilly paved road at about 40 km/h. As we crest one hill, a scooter shoots out from behind a fence. My mother screams into my ear and it startles me more than the motorbike. We hit — hard — and I flip over the top of the handlebars and sail through the air. Time stops. I’m sure, fully positive, that I will die. I know this the same way I know my name. I feel a peace. I’m content. I’m going to die and everything will be ok.

2. I’m 20. I’m in the old gray Nissan truck, a junker with a rusted frame but surprisingly decent engine. All four of us boys learned how to drive stick on it, so the clutch is pretty finicky, but otherwise it has held up well mechanically. My mom is in the passenger seat. We’re driving into town to mail a package at the post office. Over the bridge there’s a three-way light, with a semi waiting at a red. I pull up and he starts drifting backward. I look behind and there’s nobody behind me. I go to put the pickup in reverse, except it keeps jamming. I push the gear stick down and to the right and all I get is that abrasive gear crunching noise. I’m not sure what to do — the semi is rolling slowly toward us — so I just keep trying to jam it into reverse. The semi is feet away. My mom reaches over and pushes the horn frantically, and the truck stops rolling. I probably would have sat there mutely and let him crush me.

3. I’m in fourth grade. Just graduated, in fact. I’m sitting next to my brother in a 20-passanger white van, ready to drive to the airport. All our luggage is piled in the back of a truck. Everyone at my boarding school whose parents live in Indonesia are in the van. Most of them are seniors. The girls are openly weeping, pressing their hands against the windows at their friends and pushing stringy hair out of their wet faces. They don’t know when, if ever, they will see their friends again. Either way, it won’t be the same; they will go to different colleges and grow apart and never raise each other like they did in dorms. We’ve been sitting in the van for half an hour. My brother and I are giddy. We’re on vacation and about to see our parents. And, plus, airplanes! We are laughing and poking each other in the ribs. We are tone deaf. One girl, through heaving sobs, cries, “Can we just go already?” It’s too much to stare at her crying friends, having already said goodbye, just sitting in a cramped sweaty van waiting for life to change, probably for the worse.

[Tender Opposites.]

Posted on January 31, 2013 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

Puny humans!

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Dragonball Z – Main Title (Rock The Dragon)

Reasons why you wouldn’t want to be a Saiyan in the real world:

  1. Your personal health insurance rates would be ridiculously high.
  2. Goku, on average, eats the equivalent of a week’s worth of food every meal. Given the cost of groceries, his weekly bills would be ridiculously inflated. You could make the argument for him buying some items in bulk but it would still be a helluva financial burden to take.
  3. You would be on call for every natural disaster, political conflict and societal meltdown – all across the world. When would you sleep? Saiyans need sleep.
  4. The real world doesn’t have senzu beans or healing chambers. Saiyans, as part of their physiology, become stronger each time they heal following a conflict but man, that’s a lot of time in hospital beds. How do you even operate on a ki-blast injury?
  5. You would end up with a lot of bugs in your mouth flying at high speeds.
  6. You think you’re already self-conscious during sex? Imagine if you were a Saiyan, with nearly limitless potential strength and speed. Get carried away once and you could kill your spouse. Sometimes it’s hard not to get carried away.
  7. Across the planet, people would be afraid of you. Even if you were constantly performing good deeds. Humans would be worried that one day you would realise how unrivaled you are in terms of strength and speed and use that to your malevolent advantage.

Reasons why you would want to be a Saiyan in the real world:

  1. You could turn into a fucking Super Saiyan, dude.

[Main Title (Rock The Dragon).]

Posted on January 28, 2013 - Tunes - 1 Comment » Share

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