sitting with the nerd sounds...now with visual aid

so i went to see the animal collective last night.

apart from wondering for the whole show whether they were annoying or interesting...one image kept floating in my mind for the whole show, as i was sure i'd seen them before...

exhibit a

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sitting with the hoff part 2...now with added colour

so if i had a choice, i currently don't but if i did, as to the notion of what the word hoff meant to the world it wouldn't be a man who has acted in a score of bad television shows and tormented the ears of gentle music listeners.

the real hoff experience would relate to the greatest female popstar ever...


is this not a wacky photo, i'm guessing wacky doesn'y quite cover it but i do particularly think the wood/floral/hair thing is just so full on

i mean there are all those sweet teenage memories, most pg, and then she goes and releases that covers comp with matthew sweet covering lots of my favourite songs...ah, good times...
sorta makes you wonder as the bangles were involved in the cool paisley underground scene but as a teenager i never knew this at the time. i think the first time i looked past the top 20 scariness was the fantastic rainy day comp years ago and there were a few lovely understated covers. i think they kinda fit into that what if they were better category.

and geez, she even had a rickenbacker line all of her own!

really that's it.

11:56 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

sitting with the sunshine

woo...

you know how sometimes you can search for years to find something you've been looking for? you know it might be a tasty featherstone chair or maybe a footy card or maybe a...well heck it could really be anything i guess...and i do like people who are into something/anything.

anyway

awhile back i heard a track by a band called the tradwinds called 'catch me in the meadow' and i couldn't get enough of it! i mean it only goes for a minute plus what with it's lovely intro, one verse, one chorus and tasty outro but it seemed to have all the bits a sunshine pop song could want and i was all like 'well shit!' i mean i often think a song only needs to give me the verse and chorus once...



so, over the years i subsequently heard they had an album...did lots of the googling to find out info and discovered the band and two other outfits linked were really just two fellas...

you might have heard their very funny song 'new york's a lonely town', which is like the best song the beach boy's didn't write all about a surfer who moves to new york...and guess what? yup there is no surf!

but info was kinda light on the ground. it's funny sometimes the internet makes you feel like it surely must have everything somewhere...

well my new favourite thing on the net are those crazy monkey blog sites that keep on popping up and posting long lost albums and tunes and seem to know all about them. as after years of looking a site blogged by a c-razy european dumped all their long lost tunes (well, to me anyway) and even had little text dumps of information.


here's the two cheeky fellas...

the inner obsessive in me was all agog, by the way it's always nice to get to use the word agog...i even like the dictionary definition...ORIGIN mid 16th cent.: from Old French en gogues, from en 'in' + the plural of gogue 'fun.'

ah, sweet sunshine pop...

10:36 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

sitting with seijun

'youth of the beast' starts in black and white...you get some green text...then there is a red flower...then blam it all goes colour. i like this film a lot, yes indeed. near the start in a nightclub scene it keeps cutting from a nightclub to a completely silent side room that looks through to the nightclub with one way mirrors. ok...maybe that doesn't sound super exciting but it works visually...really!


ah, that's that colour flower i like so much.

i guess i figure some of seijun suzuki's movies to be pop noir and if you like the idea of a pop art inspired yakuza movie with a rambling plot this is the movie for you. there are loads of fantastic visual moments...loads of people behaving very badly...some punching and shooting...jazzy tunes...all good so far...

i guess if you haven't seen any of his movies i'd go for 'tokyo drifter' first...not radically dissimilar, but in this one the lead has a habit of singing the theme song thoughout the movie...nice!


look at those bright colours...

before i had seen any of suzuki's movies i had read a couple of reviews which always talk about the colours and angles...and what do you know? the first one i see is the black and white 'branded to kill'. it is a great movie...but i was a little disappointed with the lack of colour...it is the later of the 3 i've been rambling about. this was the movie that got him sacked for being a little too esoteric and when you watch these 3 films you can kinda see why a studio might freak out.


i think one of my favourite bits of 'branded to kill' is the lead's fetish for boiled rice.

for some reason i feel like watching these movies after watching a melville film...

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sitting with the wolfking

it was not until i got to see the monterey footage of the mama's and the papa's playing live that i really 'got' the band. up until that point i was a bit like 'yeah...sure...i do really like some of their songs...' but geez! the live footage...they were fantastic, all four part harmonies and goodness and the rockin'. they had a wild band and were the kinda band that would have been a blast to see. and up until that point for me they were on the edge of my musical brain.

i mean 'monday monday' and 'california dreamin' were always the bee knees but if you get a chance have a listen to 'go where you wanna go' from 'if you can believe your eyes and ears'...it's such a fantastic song.



funny how the mind works...i guess the associations for contemporary minds are 1. ham sandwich 2. mother of crappy mor band 'wilson/phillips' 3. too much smack. ummm...ok, maybe those are my associations but do you get my point? my thoughts were not really on the music...when maybe they should have been.

anyway

john phillips a man whose super duper talent was neutered by the shitty drug thing released a fantastic album in 1970 known as 'John, The Wolfking of LA'. at the time it was self titled but there is supposedly a poem on the back and that's what it's known as now.



currently out of print but when the revolution comes we'll have to make sure it gets back into shops. it's a great melding of the pop sensibility of the mama's with L.A. country rock.
and you have to think that the 30 years of ups and downs with drugs have consigned this wonderful record to obscurity. i love the track called 'someone's sleeping' with it's pedal steel pop country thing...reminds me of townes van zandt...and that's always a good thing.

hey, look come over for a beer and we'll listen to it ok?

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sitting with a medieval curse

so lets make something clear: i am 35.
why then do i have chicken pox?
why am i covered in little itchy red devils?
why can't they make the special soap smell better?

i like this supposed fact:

'There are many explanations offered for the origin of the name chickenpox:
the disease was named after chick peas, from a supposed resemblance of the seed to the lesions'
mmm...no i don't believe that at all!

'As "pox" also means curse, in medieval times some believed it was a plague brought on to curse children by the use of black magic.'
ah, now this i do believe. i have been told i act like a child on occasion...

i did learn today that there is monkeypox and that i am glad i have chicken and not monkey.

8:08 PM - 1 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

sitting in colour

little blog plus big pictures.
sitting of course, a little tired, had some nice thoughts, then out of the blue some colours just drifted by. eh?
you go to uni, read lots, drink lots, make messy, get degree...thankyou.
lots of words and books and thoughts.
a lot is just a breeze running through.
and some are well and truly sticky. the velcro connection.
the funny little man johannes itten must have put some extra adhesive tape in the edition of his book 'the art of colour' that i read: 'cause it's still there. i can't get it out!
i mean i figure it's meant to be a guide of sorts yes?
but i just found it to be a world of fine fitting pants.



a book full of primary and secondary colours?
hmmm, and tertiary if you really have to...


look, it's a big square...it's red, it's got blue...



i've always found it to be just full of the possibilities of colour and
any excuse to put slabs of colour out there can't be a bad thing...

6:33 AM - 0 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

sitting with crosby

while presently dr zaius is sitting as the 'person' i'd most like to meet, its not quite true (gee, really? but hell, it would be a blast). if i'm attempting to be a little more frank it would run thus (though in no particular order): a keyboardist, a guitarist, a pretty lady who thinks i am also the pants and david crosby...i'm in no rush but they are all good.

when ever the mainstream press rabbits on about icons o' the rock (and specifically the 1960's) it often seems to be the usual suspects (janis, stones, dylan, hendrix, beatles, doors etc) and the cynic in me has always thought this has more to do with the fact they are on major record labels and are an easy buck as they have been so busy telling us for 30 years that they were spiffy (and sure they often are).

anyway
i'd go the man david crosby.

being a founding member of the byrds always helps: but he's so entertaining, they're are so many stories. i like the story where when he was pulled over with cocaine and a handgun. when asked by the police as to why the big beard needed a concealed weapon he allegedly said (while wacked on the speedballs): 'john lennon', yup that was it...love it!

the song 'triad', banned from the byrds, all about his feeling that loving 2 women at the same time was okey dokes: gold!

without a doubt my favourite intro to a song ever: deja vu, on the c,s,n&y lp deja vu. those 30 seconds are worth buying the album for...then the first verse continues on the tastiness...mmm sure the rest of the song kinda wanders but wow, nice one, do it again!

ah, and the first verse of 'almost cut my hair', sung so intensely with such silly lyrics: its great!
'Almost cut my hair
Happened just the other day
It's gettin' kind of long
I could've said it was in my way
But I didn't and I wonder why
I feel like letting my freak flag fly'

calling his very tasty solo album 'if only i could remember my name' gets an awful lot of points...

and it's actually a pretty darn good album with great contributing musos, his best in fact. not liked much at the time...oh well.

i was looking for the pictures of beardy boy when he was in prison as they cut his hair and he had just a 'few' pounds on him at the time from the drugs and the good times...no luck unfortunately...did find the mug shot...and remember he had written that song about not cutting his hair...

imagine this without hair/beard/more pounds...ha!

if you get a chance read his autobiography 'long time gone', it's both great and kinda scary. telling the story of too many goods times and seems to mirror the experience of going from a more innocent time to the super group...with all the problems that can deliver. its my favourite rock bio (though david lee roth's is also pretty funny).

ah. good times.

10:58 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

sitting and getting my psych groove on vol. 1

you always feel a little dorky when you 'discover' a band only to find that they've been around for yonks. i was rambling through my 'best of 2005' comp and decided to detour while drinking my pot of coffee through nagisa ni te again, a band i first came across early this year. according to people who know more than me nagisa ni te translates as 'on the beach': so you might get an idea where this unit's coming from.

they are a osaka based couple shinji shibayama and masako takeda, who've released more albums than i've heard and my lord they are the pants.

there is a moment during the first track on 'same as a flower' (the track 'same as a flower'), that is one of those moments: guitars, voices all heading off to be on top of a mountain and you just love it (and its such an unexpected moment).


the cover to same as a flower

i've been reading a lot of the online reviews and most seem to say this kinda stuff: 'The Same As A Flower brings to mind the very best of ‘60s and ‘70s psychedelic, progressive and folk rock (middle-era Pink Floyd, Roy Harper, 13th Floor Elevators and early Neil Young).' mmm, and while i don't disagree the first thing that came to mind for me was a kind of beat happening who had taken music lessons (i like beat happening so i'm not being mean) or maybe a bit of galaxie 500, as i can see what they mean but for me they don't come across as so specifically retro.

they're the perfect band for the kind of day my morning was: inside and sunny. it's great to hear a band that understands space and weave around it. also a band that if you're in a good mood they go with it and if you're in a fucky one seem happy to follow along also...so if you're day vacillates between those polarities, they don't seem to mind (and as mine have a tendency to do that: are spot on).

there latest is a mini lp of redone versions and the final track is a very zuma like 20.57 number called 'the true sun'. this one is a bit of an epic (as how can something that goes for 20plus minutes be anything other than epic eh) but ah, its a keeper.



a part of me wishes, like when i listen to os mutantes, francoise hardy or any other artist who language is not my own, that i knew what they are singing about...but that's more about my own failings to know more than how to go to the beach, the pool and the public garden in french...

ah, summer sounds.

5:21 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

sitting vol. 3

so in between growing a comedy beard (as when i grow facial hair it is nothing but comedy), today's sitting was mostly about rodders.

broke out the faces and thought about dancing.
i'm surprised that some people don't dig rodders, some would kill for that voice.

3 tracks in particular do me in when listening to the faces.

1. 3 button hand me down (from first step)
great tune with (like the track below) really witty lyrics...its all about the 3 button suit. if i was a more suave man a 3 button suit would be an everyday thing...i'm not...


2. bad 'n' ruin (from long player)
one of my favourite lyrics (to a point, sure). love the bit how his mother won't recognize him..heck here's the copied lyric bit...'should you could not recognize me
i've heavily made-up eyes'. hmmm, perhaps it sounds better in context...


3. you can make me dance, sing or anything (this was a single)
well, isn't that how you want a lady to make you feel? great tune, lyric, blah blah...good to sing a long with, shake your arse...


every house really needs a faces record, not as a everyday thing but surprisingly they are a good early morning and late night band...how do they do that?

i don't think i was eating anything during this but drinking more and more coffee and thinking if the doctor hadn't told me not to move i'd be dancing...

hmmm, did the preview...lots of pictures and not much writing...oh well.

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