Lost and Lost Again

Best dreams: Records that don't exist. Tapes actually.

Had these dreams high school through college. I'd wander into a record store and find an album that didn't exist here. I'd buy it and the when I woke up I'd search my collection for it knowing the whole while it was a dream but praying it wasn't. (There were several record stores I haunted in those "dreaming lives": the NYC one under the train station near NYU, the mall one that seemed to have an endless supply of those cheap tapes with the slice cut out of the side, the one in the hollowed out tree.)

Over the years I "purchased" the following non-existent albums:

Arcadia "Shadow of a Tiger" - Duran Duran side project E.P.
The Cure "Rain Days" - an album prior to "Japansese Whispers" and similar in terms of keyboard use.
The Cure "Falling" - B-sides and unreleased tracks from the "Disintegration" sessions.
Depeche Mode "Everyone Remembers Me" - post-Violator but pre-"Songs..."
Depeche Mode "Love is All"
New Order "Family"
New Order "Cause and Effect"
Oingo Boingo "Outer Sounds"
Revenge (New Order bassist Peter Hook's side project) "Steel Rat"
Severed Heads "Big Saints" - more "Rotund..."-ish tracks.
Severed Heads "Exploding Bigots"
Thrashing Doves "Stains" - great follow up to their brilliant debut as opposed to that other one.
Top "Version 2" - They had one album "Emotion Lotion" and I dug it in H.S.
Xymox "Windows to the Soul" - "Twist of Shadows" follow up, not that dancey thing.
Xymox "Listening"

Sci Fi Sigor Ros Meets Ghostly Hermaphrodite

Heartbeats


Pass This On


Like A Pen


I know I've been going overboard on the YouTube vids but I just need to put up these The Knife's clips. Who are The Knife? "...precise, particular, dark, occult, funny-peculiar, funny-ha-ha. This Swedish brother-and-sister duo work mostly on their own in splendid isolation; they release music on their own label, licensing it to selected partners around the world, so they have to answer to no one. They have only ever played live once because they’re still wrestling with the old conundrum of how to present ‘computer music’ in an interesting way on the stage. Within the steely electronic pop of their last album Deep Cuts lurked songs about women’s rights and the duty of good citizens to pay their taxes. For their last set of pictures they dressed as gymnasts. " -- from The Knife.net

Psychic Soviet

The history of the world foretold in just 300 pages by Ian Svenonius (Nation of Ulysses, the Make Up, Weird War, Cupid Car Club). Vampires, Beatles vs. Stones, Seinfeld. Get your acacred on.

Silicon Teens

The late great Frank Tovey (Fad Gadget) and friends in Daniel Miller's (Mute records) on-off fake electro pop band.

Logan's Run with guitars

I just have a thing for Logan's Run fashion - never fully recovered after seeing it when I was eight. My other thing is for wacked out guitars that are supposed to look more machine than instrument. This one looks like an entire lab bench was soldered on. When the Apocalypse comes, as indeed it shall, the stormtroopers of the End Times will look like Real Life in this video.

Darkel

JB Dunckel's solo album's out and it's just as brilliant as you'd expect half of AIR to sound. The first single's a folksy, 60's psych pop breezer - it's dawn in the bull rushes with a joint and headrush. There are the minimal synth tinkerings - Dunckel worships at the alter of Kraftwork of DAF - and he sings a fair deal as well with a voice that's reedy and light. Spacey and dubby, it's perfect for tea.

Prototypes

No it really doesn't get any better than Prototypes' "Gentleman."

The Sounds of Italian Cinematic Groove (MP3 Series) - Part I: Gianni Ferrio

"Step by Step" by Gianni Ferrio
Download here

Gianni Ferrio's been scoring Italian films since the mid-60s. His style is diverse, ranging from funk to westerns, and like many composers during Italy's cinema "heyday" during the '60s and '70s he was adaptable. His body of cinema work (he also recorded with a number of vocalists including Mina, James Taylor and Ellis Regina) runs the gamut from spag westerns (Ringo e Gringo contro tutti (1969) and Lo chiamavano requiescat Fasthand (1972)) to gialli, sleazy exploiters (Frau Wirtin bläst auch gern Trompete (1970)) and Italian cop flicks like 1974's Poliziotta, La (The Policewoman) from which this track is taken. It's a funky instrumental -- whispered vocals, chunky bass and tons of slinky keys -- and a perfect introduction to the sounds of Italian cinematic groove.

7" RCA (b-side of "Almost Love")

Black Dog

Seeing the "Black Dog" is often considered a portent. Mostly it's a bad omen. Truckers swear that if you see a black dog running alongside your rig it's a sign that a) you need sleep or b) something bad is about to go down. Two friends of mine have seen the black dog -- both are alive and well. Here are the encounters:

K. M. - Black dog seen staring into bedroom window at parent's house while a teen. Circa 1991.

T.M. - Black dog seen running along side truck around two in the morning while on way to Vegas. Circa 1998.

Hope Larson

Can't not mention Hope Larson. Her latest graphic novel is Gray Horses.

Meg Hunt

The sketches alone will leave you tingling.

Bad Lounge Jokes

These are terrible jokes I wanted to try out when Tigris Euphrates and I were DJing some of the more inauspicious night spots in Denver. You may have read about our show in Westword back in '02. But you sure as hell didn't come see our gigs. No one did. I don't know what these jokes would have given our show. We didn't speak much and when we did it was usually to tell the few passers by who stumbled into our scene that last call was in ten minutes. I think the hope was that if things really got moving we'd be able to expand from lo-fi lounge and exotica to a comedy schtick. Don't ask. (We did have a rather nice troupe of burlesque dancers at one gig, though.)

Jokes:

So a skeleton walks into a bar and says, “give me a cocktail and give me a mop.”

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A termite walks into a bar and asks, “is the bar tender here?”

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Tigris, how many real men does it take to change a light bulb?
None, real men aren’t afraid of the dark.

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Tigris, where do you find a no-legged dog?
Right where you left him.

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Why are there so many Johnsons in the phone book?
They all have phones.

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Hey Tigris, I got a part in a play as the husband?
Too bad it wasn’t a speaking role.

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My wife said lets go out and have some fun tonight,
Sure, I said, but if you get home first leave the hall light on.

Lost Cut Up

Nothing more entertaining or humbling than going through old documents (most of mine are on floppy discs and essentially lost to time) but there are a few on CD. This goes back to 2001 and I vaguely remember writing it in a delirium. It's a cut up poem (a la Burroughs). There are some nice bits here. For bored readers only.

Carnage visors

The couplers are moving amidst windowpanes caught reflecting
The gaseousness of carnage inspectors ; we are all familiar
Hands drawn from the pointed beaks of the rosary
Hands drawn from the breaks of the pointed rosary
Hands pointed by the drawn beaks of the rosary
Hands rosy from the pointed breaks of the drawn
No feeling by the wayside ; you are driving too fast
Round corners that flip us sincerely worry and melt
That new edition ; a big consumption is coming upon us
Not breathing this time just being cool in the sun
Not sunning this time just being breathe in the cool
Not cooling this breath just sunning the time
Not timing this sun just cooling in the breath
We all feel the virus of language and baggage of the tides
The movement is not sincere it turns us towards the wayside
The edition is no longer new ; we don’t need more art
Not in my pool and not in this hot weather
Not in my hot pool and not in this land of couplers



Southpaw bat (carnage visors redux)

The couplers are beaks of the rosary
Hands drawn are from the breaks of the pointed rosary
Hands the no longer carnage driving moving amidst windowpanes caught reflecting
The gaseousness feel the virus inspectors ; we are all familiar
Hands drawn from pointed by of you of language and baggage of the tides
The pointed breaks being cool in the sun
Not sunning this time movement is not consumption is coming upon us
Not breathing this time just that in the breath
We all the drawn it of the flip us sincerely worry and melt
That new edition ; a the the pointed too just being fast
Round corners sun just cooling rosary
Hands of the not in by rosy from; new ; we don’t need more art
Not in my pool and of this hot weather
Not in my hot pool and turns us towards the wayside
The edition is not in this land drawn
Not timing this sincere beaks wayside big breathe in the cool
Not cooling this breath just sunning the time
No feeling couplers

Cold drawn water from the source

White is the side of the sky tonight
Like the instances when we feel the stars twinkle in bowels
The twinkling that makes the skin peel back to perform
Peeling back is necessary it makes art that much more
Tactile in the presence of common denominators
Remember covering, clothing, converting, codependence
Just look at how we sail these potential weaknesses

Greatest Video Ever?

The Twin's were (actually still are) a German synth pop band in the Depeche Mode-mode. Their early sound was Camoflage with a bit of OMD sound-scaping bluster. "Face to Face- Heart to Heart" was a huge hit (it was played during the last Winter Olympics when the countries were walking the stadium -- can't recall with country was blessesd with it) though The Twin's later output wound up sounding more italo than new wave. But this video is like a chem lab Forbidden Zone -- two jocks trapped in a basement with some out of work lab techs? or maybe Howard Jones' back up band (sans mime)? -- and is simply stunning in it's mind numbing simplicity. The keyboard playing makes cracking eggs look difficult and how many times do we need that montage of their "twinned" faces? The rawker drum stick toss is priceless...

Same Old Madness

Rare as all get out old skool Ministry clip of "Same Old Madness" a never released song. This is from '82-'83, back when the band was tearing up Chicago as the latest sound. While "With Sympathy" is a nice slice of dark-ish electro pop it didn't capture the driving edge evident here. If only Al back pushed in this direction...

Only the Dead Get Off at Kymlinge Part 1

While working on my piece about urban exploration for Geek
(due out Sept.) I interviewed the Multidysfunctional Monkey a Swedish urbex-er. He's got a sweet site here with photos of his exporations. I had a lot of fun talking with him. Here's an excerpt from our conversation with more to follow:

I asked about "urban legends" in the UE community. I was riffing on the whole C.H.U.D. thing.

Monkey:

"This story dates back to the days of the 1970s and the abandoned train station of Kymlinge (in Sweden). I say abandoned but it was actually never put to use. The station was put up as there were plans to build a lot of industrial buildings around it and someone figured it would be good to have another station. But for some reason the industries never happened and the station was never put to use. The trains never stopped at Kymlinge and I guess it became known as something of ghost-station in everyday conversation. But the thing that really got the talk going was the ghost-train (!).

At some point in the mid 1970s people started to report sightings of a strange train that only traveled around a night. It looked a bit like the regular trains but was the colour of silver. This train obviously became something of a ghost-train with time and was rumored to be the only train that ever stopped at Kymlinge. "Only the dead get of at Kymlinge station" was the word on the street. However, nowadays the story of the silver ghost-train has been explained time and time again.

The ghost-train was actually a set of 8 prototype train carts (a type that was called "C5"). There were only 8 of them produced as it turned out the train carts would be too costly to use. The train was known as "The Silver Arrow" and is now a ghost of the past."

Carnivale!

Danielle De Picciotto - an American currently living in Berlin - creates illustrations/graphics/photos of a bizarre neon soaked nightlife. Cowboys, tattooed burlesque dancers, a wide assortment of odd animals stuck in taxidermic epiphany - a true carnival of 20th century oddity and sparkle.

7" Up

Crippled Dick Hot Wax's latest release - continuing their progression away from '60s/'70s Eurotrash soundtracks - is this collection of 7" singles by British new wave/no wave/post-punk bands. Some excellent stuff on here. Particularly Thomas Leer's home made first single - one of first DIY "hits."

Here's the info from the Crippled home page

1.
Mark Beer
Here‘s an example of an artist with precious few releases to his name. With a sustained mood of tranquillity, musically Mark Beer has more affinity with the Young Marble Giants and their follow-up projects than with the din that otherwise pervaded the sceptred isle. On his third single ”Pretty“ he would seem to have been inspired by reggae singles, where he recorded the basic melody with the bass and put an even groovier dub version of the title piece on the B-side. On his only LP “Dust On The Road”, such flights into the more atmospheric reaches did not always quite come off but his early singles will be fondly remembered well into the future.

2.
Glaxo Babies
At the end of the ’70s the Glaxo Babies, together with Rip, Rig + Panic, The Pop Group and Pigbag, were one of the most significant bands in Bristol. As Gerard Langley from the Blue Aeroplanes recalls: ”I think the key to the whole set-up at the time is comprehending the importance of the Glaxo Babies. The Glaxo Babies‘ performance at the 1978 Ashton Court Festival has lived long in many people’s memory. The intensity! The dyed-blond hair! The guitar played with a vibrator! Subsequent journalistic takes have seen The Pop Group placed at the centre of that era but I remember it differently. For me, the Glaxos were the cornerstone of the whole Bristol scene. Both sophisticated and primitive, they were basically pre post-punk punk. The Gang Of Four didn’t come as the shock of the new round here, mate. I had read that Iggy Pop cut himself with a glass, but it was different seeing Rob Chapman do it immediately in front of you at the Stonehouse pub. They were real, man, and I loved them.“...until, that is, reality caught up with them in 1981 when the pharmaceutical company Glaxo forced them to part with their name. Which they did, and re-formed as Maximum Joy.

3.
Contact
The Manchester-based Object label provides illuminating material for the study of the ”ten people have eight bands“ phenomenon. Tony Friel was with Nuclear Angel, then formed The Fall with Mark E. Smith, then The Passage with Dick Watts, and then was involved with Teardrop Explodes. And Duncan Prestbury‘s list follows similar lines: Steve Miro & The Eyes, Spherical Objects, Future Primitives, Warriors. The ”Future/Past“ 7“ was their one and only release.

4.
I Jog & the Tracksuits
It‘s bands like this that lend this compilation its special appeal. Internet forums are filled with fans filing desperate calls for help, fans who at some time have heard these singles,
or even possess them, but have no idea who‘s behind them. Nothing can be found out about them, except that another 7“ exists. Who knows anything more?

5.
Gerry & the Holograms
As with I Jog & The Tracksuits, there‘s another 7“ besides this one, but as it‘s glued into the cover, it cannot be played. Who knows more than our London source? „I’m pretty sure I have one or two singles by them, 1980, probably from Sheffield 79-80 ... not at home so I can’t check! I think the chorus on the single goes ‚we’re gerry and the holograms’ in an electronic vocodered voice.“ Heard once and by dint of the splendid refrain stored for eternity.

6.
Brian Brain
Restlessness is another character trait that marks out many a musician, and Martin Atkins must surely be restlessness personified – and this to the present day.
Mynd was the band he started off with, before being snatched away first by John Lydon (ex-Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) for the latter‘s Public Image Ltd. Then disagreements arose and soon afterwards Atkins left the band, formed Brian Brain with Pete Jones and in 1980 they rapidly released their first singles and an LP. In 1982 they both joined Public Image (PIL) again, which would mark the beginning of the end of this mutual project. While Jones stayed with Lydon, Atkins was wooed away by Killing Joke in 1988. After stopping off for a while with Ministry and Nine Inch Nails, he got together with such illustrious comrades-in-arms as Steve Albini and Trent Reznor to found the industrial supergroup Pigface in 1991. At the same time he worked on the side with Skinny Puppy‘s Nivek Ogre on the Rx project. And this is but a brief sample of Atkins‘ projects. Today he teaches The Business of Touring at Chicago‘s Columbia College, as well as having several other projects on the go in addition to Pigface.

7.
They Must Be Russians
„They Must Be Russians“ was the headline in Britain‘s yellow press in reaction to the Sex Pistols‘ single ”God Save The Queen“. This quote was of course handing it on a plate to all the bands on the look-out for a suitable name. One of at least two They Must Be Russians came from Sheffield: this band‘s leading figures called themselves Russ Russian and Paul Russian and were quite well known at the time. Cabaret Voltaire helped to produce the first EP ”Nellie The Elephant“, which was then followed by ”Don‘t Try To Cure Yourself“ – if it‘s a dose of VD you‘ve got, that is.

8.
Moondogs
There can be no talk of The Moondogs without mention of The Undertones at the same time. Both bands come from Northern Ireland, both share a predilection for the mod groups of the ’60s, and, highly regarded by John Peel, both were repeatedly invited to sessions. The Moondogs again and again came very close to the group they modelled themselves upon: they had their first gig just five months after being formed as a warm-up group for The Undertones. The Kinks‘ Ray Davies was so taken with The Moondogs that he offered to produce ”Imposter“. In the end they followed in the footsteps of The Monkees and were given their own TV show entitled ”Moondogs Matinee“. The title track ”Powerpop“ made it clear what musical pigeon-hole they felt at home in. After recordings made with Todd Rundgren, however, the band then disintegrated.

9.
Thomas Leer
The fact that Thomas Leer recorded his début single ”Private Plane“ with the most basic of equipment in his bedroom at home was destined not just to impress The The‘s Matt Johnson and inspire him to form a band of his own. Today we also know that this song from 1978, together with The Normal‘s ”Leatherette“ and Robert Rental‘s ”Double Heart“, constituted the first releases of the synthpop wave that would not reach its peak until some years later. And should you be wondering why his voice on this recording sounds so whispered... Quite simple: when he recorded the vocals, his girlfriend was asleep in bed near him and he didn‘t want to wake her up.


10.
Cult Figures
Just how Cult Figures came into existence is another nice example of that laid-back, Do-It-Yourself approach at that time. Gary Jones and Jonny Hodgson got to know each other at an art course that Epic Soundtracks and Richard Earl of Swell Maps were also attending. Jonny was already playing with the Scent Organs, and both bands had already scored some considerable successes. Encouraged by the mood of ”everybody‘s got a band and is having fun“, Gary, without further do and together with Tim Wilday, another friend from the art course, formed a band himself: the Cult Figures. The small fact that neither could play an instrument was not to be an obstacle. Jonny begged The Jam‘s drummer Rick Buckler to give him some drumsticks while Gary, having paid a neighbour £20 for a guitar and an amplifier, learnt how to cobble a song together in next to no time with a minimum of barré fingerings. Taken with their first results, the Swell Maps offered to play as backing group at recording sessions as well as to release a 7” on the newly formed Rather label.

11.
Monochrome Set
Are there days when Bid perhaps wonders what might have become of him if he had followed Lester, Andy and Adam, his former fellow musicians with The B-Sides, and started Adam & The Ants? We at least can breathe a sigh of relief: he didn‘t. Lester Square and Andy Warren soon came to their senses, left and joined up with Bid to form Monochrome Set. And it can be of little importance to us today that they never experienced the classic fate of those beloved of the critics. Their excursions to major labels were short-lived, their glamour after all being a touch too subtle for that snow-sprinkled society. What we have left are a handful of high-quality records and the band The Scarlet‘s Well, the new form of expression for Bid‘s richly ornamented escapism. And what would have become of him if, faithful to his aristocratic Indian descent, he had opted for a life at court? And that‘s not an uninteresting question, either...

12.
Henry Badowski
After frustration caused him to give up on his art studies, Henry Badowski was persuaded by friend James Stevenson to join Chelsea, surely one of the very first punk bands. ”It wasn‘t exactly my sort of music,“ he would later say – a fact evidenced by his subsequent career. Although he had a decisive influence on punk in that he played in many of the very earliest bands – such as Chelsea, Wreckless Eric, Alternative TV, Captain Sensible and The Damned – he was never able to endure it for long. Until he finally brought out his first single. And the title track ”Making Love With My Wife“ finds him recording all the instruments himself, too. ”Life Is A Grand...“ is another outstanding record that he produced just like that, yet it was not sufficiently commercial for the record company‘s liking.

13.
Weekend
The Young Marble Giants were unquestionably one of the most influential and memorable bands of the period. After just one LP and two singles they subdivided into two equally impressive groups: guitarist Stuart Moxham set up The Gist, while singer Alison Statton founded Weekend along with fellow musicians who had experience in jazz. Indie had hardly been invented before Weekend began jettisoning the dogmatism that came with it. The insubstantial ease that had already characterized YMG is further underscored with a waft of bossa nova. Regrettably, aside from a handful of singles and EPs, they only released one LP. It just remains a mystery why they are not accorded recognition today.

No Style Like Mo' Style

Flicker

Finished Theodore Roszak’s Flicker last night (about ten years later than I should have) and couldn’t sleep. I lay there in the darkness and as my eyes adjusted the little light that crept in beneath the curtains gave me chills. Flicker exudes a creepiness that’s hard to place. There are no shocks in the book. No scenes of violence outside those in the films discussed. But there is this constant and nearly overwhelming sense of dread. It’s a foreboding that I think must be at the heart of all conspiratorial fevers. Like being in the head of the guys who craft those little ‘zines about the New World Order and the Intelligentsia that line left-field bookshops. I can’t for the life of me imagine how Darren Aronofsky is going to make this thing. Or better yet how Jim Uhls is going to translate that almost existential creep.

The novel is about a film geek turned professor obsessed with the work of a ‘30s director named Max Castle (orig. Kastell) who’s work may lead to the obliteration of all life on Earth.

If you’ve read Flicker you’ll be familiar with the Simon Dunkel (a stuttering albino film prodigy (and follower of Max Castle – I’m trying not to spoil anything here) and member of a baleful sect) Sewer Babies flick. The film’s a low-budget horror film about sad fetuses living in sewers. As the main character, Jon, explains, it’s a “quiet descent into absolute despair.” The one line in the novel that has haunted me since I read it is Simon’s explanation of the sewer babies themselves. They were “mewling, grublike embryos” and a “remarkable screen effect.” When Jon asks Simon how he made them his response still sends my gut twisting:

“I couldn’t make out what they really were. Obviously not costumed actors; their diminutive size ruled that out. Nor were they animations; they were far too organically mobile… I asked Simon what they were…”

“G-guess,” he challenged me.

“Some sort of puppet…?”

He gave a dismissive smirk. “You c-can’t guess?”

“No, I can’t.”

“N-n-nobody will,” he answered smugly. “It t-took a long time to grow them,” he added, but would say no more."