Will the Real Bob Dylan Please Stand Up

I've heard bits and pieces about the new Todd Haynes picture, I'm Not There, and being a huge Dylan fan, I've been intrigued and excited. On Pitchfork today comes news of more musical contributors to the soundtrack, which looks to be shaping up pretty well.

For those who don't know Haynes's work, he's the director behind Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, which used Barbie dolls for all the parts, instead of actors. Another of his excellent films is SAFE, an underrated and really disturbing movie which is as much a tour-de-force for Julianne Moore as it is for Haynes's creepy antiseptic, almost Kubrickean direction. Haynes was also the guy behind the ersatz glam rock movie Velvet Goldmine, and the Oscar nominated Far From Heaven.

For the Dylan biopic, he's recruited several actors to play the part of His Bobness, including Cate Blanchett!! And this is really what's prompted this post today. I saw this clip of Blanchett (whom I absolutely adore, adore, adore) as Dylan, with David Cross as Allen Ginsberg, and I got incredibly excited about this movie. Blanchett is amazing in recreating Dylan's mannerisms. Even her voice is pretty good as Dylan (she is, after all, a woman).

Watch this clip of Dylan circa 1965, and compare it with this clip from Haynes's film. There's also this clip of Dylan and Lennon in a cab in London, drunk off their asses.

Ms. Blanchett has been doing her homework.

fake industrial detritus

Greenpoint seems to have a reputation as a trendy neighborhood, but there are still plenty of old industrial spaces that haven't been converted into trendy residential lofts. In walking past them, if their doors are open, it's not surprising to see actual industrial detritus. It was far stranger when walking past one this morning (the weather is nice here and opening doors is logical) to see fake industrial detritus. I immediately recognized the work of Richard Serra and did a double-take. It made more sense in the industrial space (which is obviously now used for shipping valuable art) than in a museum or gallery and looked beautiful.

Vaguely related recent reading that was quite good: Harold Rosenberg, The Anxious Object.

Obligatory music comment: now playing, Rolan Vega, documentary.

Live for Each Moment

Listened earlier today to Polyphonic Size Vivre Pour Chaque Instant. They were from Belgium in the early-80s, and this one is their sole full-length album (my copy is on the very obscure Lark label, though the Internet tells me that the bigger New Rose has also been involved along the way). It's strange to me that an album produced by Stranglers bassist JJ Burnel is so raw, as the Stranglers albums tended to be very slick new wave affairs. It's a primitive, vaguely dark, synth-heavy record (though the closing "Je T'ai Toujours Aimee" brings an uplifting if tonally awkward end) with textures that sound rough and aged. Not rough to the industrial extremity of Cabaret Voltaire, just not polished as was the English/European style at the time. In some ways it sounds more like a classic rock record despite the style of the music. They sing almost entirely in French. It's an odd, pretty, and engaging record that I'd definitely recommend. This Website is in English and French.

Effigies interview

The interview with the Effigies on this week's Sound Opinions show was a really good listen. The way they describe the energy of those early 80's days inspires me still.

~Arum
currently listening to Townes Van Zandt

The Secret History of Songs

Anyone who's heard Bob Dylan play live (or heard live recordings) knows that he can be pretty mercurial in his reinterpretations of his own work (could that be what he meant when he spoke of "that wild mercury sound" in that famous Playboy interview with Ron Rosenbaum?)

A perfect example of this is "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll," which he recorded so starkly with just voice, guitar, and a little mouth harp for color on "The Times They Are A-Changin'" in 1964, and then transformed it into a groovy rock number with the Rolling Thunder Review in 1975. Both are remarkable versions, with unique powers all their own.

Download '64 Hattie Carroll
Download '75 Hattie Carroll

I always get the sense that when Dylan is reinterpreting his work, he essentially re-writing it, as if his songs are never quite finished. (George Lucas, who thinks far too much of himself, says in a DVD special feature that "a great filmmaker once said that films are never finished, only abandoned." As far as I can tell, the only filmmaker to have said this is George Lucas. But I digress. The point is, I think it's actually an interesting idea: A work of art is never completed, only abandoned.)

As an artist, I think it's pretty humbling and instructive to think about this. It's easy to get wrapped up in your creative choices to the point where they seem like the only possible choices. You can spend so much time finessing details that you get attached to things that may or may not be worth holding onto. In The Writing Life, Annie Dillard puts it this way:

"The line of words is a hammer. You hammer against the walls of your house. You tap the walls, lightly, everywhere. After giving many years of attention to these things you know what to listen for. Some of the walls are bearing walls. They have to stay, or everything else falls down. Other walls can go with impunity; you can hear the difference. Unfortunately, it is often a bearing wall that has to go. It cannot be helped. There is only one solution, which appalls you, but there it is. Knock it down. Duck. Courage utterly opposes the bold hope that this is such fine stuff the work needs it, or the world. Courage, exhausted, stands on bare reality: this writing weakens the work. You must demolish the work. AND START OVER. You can save some sentences, like bricks. It will be a miracle if you can save some paragraphs, no matter how excellent in themselves, or hard won. You can waste a year worrying about it, or you can get it over with now. (The Writing Life, 73)…"

I've been thinking about all this today because on the way to work I was listening to the All Songs Considered podcast (Arum: consider this a sidebar link endorsement) and they played a track from the 'new' Stephen Stills release, "Just Roll Tape." The story is this: Stephen Stills and Judy Collins were a hot item in 1968. Stephen was hanging around the studio while Judy was recording. When she finished the session, Stills slides the engineer a couple hundred bucks to stick around, and he picks up a guitar, sits down in the studio, and says "Just roll tape." The tapes were left at the studio, forgotten, and only recently did they find their way back to Stills, who's released them, apparently after much cajoling form Graham Nash.

The recordings include early versions of CSN classics, such as "Wooden Ships" and "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" but it was the recording of "Know You've Got To Run" that caught my attention this morning. It's an early version of the closing track on CSNY's Deja Vu, "Everybody I Love You."

Both versions have much to recommend them (if you're into Dirty Hippy Music), and certainly the early version is as good or better than a lot of Stills work, or CSN work. But between the '68 version and the 1970 version that CSNY recorded, much changed, and it's fascinating to get a glimpse of a song's evolution, it's secret history.

Download Stephen Stills "Know You've Got to Run"

Download CSNY "Everybody I Love You"

Weeds, Chick Singers, Saunas

I don't get cable, so when it comes to the hot cable produced TV shows, I rely on DVD, which I actually quite like. It's a pretty enjoyable way to watch television...marathon style.

This weekend I finshed watching the second season of Weeds which is a pretty great show. One of the things that I really love about the show is their use of music. Whoever is responsible for the song selection is really on top of it; the music is consistently great. Here's a complete list, with listening opportunities.

In theory, I am suspicious of the trend towards the 'synergy' of television and music as a means to promote music in the waning days of radio. In theory, I'm opposed to someone else establishing my emotional and visual associations for a piece of music, but in practice, when it's done well, it can be a remarkably effective way to bolster a scene, as well as to expose the music to a wider listenership. At least twice while watching Weeds, I've heard a song I liked, by an artist I didn't know, and I've gone directly to iTunes and bought their album. In both cases, I've found that I like the artist. And the songs, re-contextualized on their albums, have been strong enough to break free the shackles of their television associations.

For the record, Dan Reeder's "Work Song" totally blew me away with it's directness, it's mixture of irony and resignation. And Regina Spektor's version of Malvina Reynolds "Little Boxes" was my favorite of Season 2. Despite the fact that I love Chick Singers, I'd never managed to give Regina Spektor a listen. Weeds changed that, and I've not been disappointed.

Speaking of chick singers, and Dan Reeder.... Dan Reeder reminds me a little of the kind of irreverent humor sometimes found in the work of Dan Bern, one of my favorite songwriters. Interestingly, both dudes are named "Dan" and both are painters with a kind of childlike style. Dan Bern wrote a great song in homage to chick singers, which he titled, appropriately enough, Chick Singers.

Finally, for no reason other than I like this band-- a great live act--I want to share a little Drakkar Sauna with y'all. When I've seen them live, it's been 2 guys, one on guitar, and the other surrounded by an assortment of instruments like chord organs, shakers, guitars, melodicas. They sing in constant harmony, and create this eerie old-timey sound. The multi-instrumentalist aslo plays the "Tambourine Shoe" which is a tambourine affixed to his show, so his foot tapping keeps the beat. They wrote a song about it!


Download Dan Bern's Chick Singers.

Download Drakkar Sauna's The Debut of the Tambourine Shoe

Terrible as an Army with Banners

A bit ago, when I wrote about the Dead C's Clyma Est Mort, I was impressed with its obvious influence on so much outside/avant rock of recent years. This morning, I listened to a comparably beautiful record with little to no recognizable impact on anything being made today, Henry Cow's In Praise of Learning. It's a remarkable, unusual record that bears no relationship to anything remotely fashionable these days. It crosses boundaries of rock, classical, and (rarely) jazz traditions in most unexpected ways. There's a driving rock drum kit, lots of close mics, and obvious use of compression. Vocal songs sometimes rely on an emotional palette that obviously relates to rock. There are also classical instruments (bassoon, oboe, clarinet), through composition, and an epic/stately sweep that are usually associated with a classical idiom. Some of the strange textures live outside of any of these obvious referents. The boundary-crossing is strange and memorable, but it hardly explains the real majesty and beauty of this record. It does help explain how offputting it feels by any notion of music in 2007--there isn't a logical micro-genre in which it can reside anywhere in today's litany of subcategorization. 1975 was a long time ago indeed.

I did see the Fred Frith/Chris Cutler/Tim Hodgkinson show at the Stone in Manhattan in December and it was special (it didn't sound much like In Praise of Learning either). The show clearly manifested how each of their playing styles owes a debt to their years of collaboration and interplay.

Tim Fite's Gone Ain't Gone

I recently bought Tim Fite's Gone Ain't Gone recording. Weirdness, Acousticness, Intelligence. I like it.

I suggest checking him out.

Go figure, he has a website.

A pretty cool one, too.

~Arum
currently listening to Tim Fite's I Hope Yer There

My flag boy is gonna set your flag on fire

Speaking of covers, I had "Iko Iko" stuck in my head all last night - the version from Cyndi Lauper's 2nd album, which yeah, ok, I did buy. I was about 14: sue me, PeeWee Herman is on there, and I think that LP long gone or at least 2500 miles away now. "Dude," you're thinking, "are you saying your introduction to the music of greater New Orleans was Cyndi Lauper?" No, absolutely not. I am pretty sure I had seen the James Bond movie Live And Let Die by then.
More recently, as in this year, I've been playing this mix of hiphop/funk brass bands. It's hot. PeeWee does not appear.

Am I Born to Preach the Gospel?

While eating breakfast this morning at a trendy nook in Brooklyn, I heard "I Had a Good Mother and Father". It was, thankfully, Washington Phillips's original, and his music was playing the entire time I was there. I really should own his work on some reissue or another, I need more dulceola in my life.

And Then I See. . . A Hard Life

Past posts have me thinking about covers. I’ve probably got about 6 or 7 thoughts on the subject, but here are my top three.

I keep coming back to the 2003 album Master And Everyone by Will Oldham. It took years to fully sink in, but I think it’s a near perfect record, and I love so many things about it – beginning with the lyrics and their delivery, but also the recording and the instrumentation, and even the cover art. It’s a mature piece. I used to think he was pretty hit or miss, but I find that with enough time to digest, I can see the intelligence and artfulness and complexity in most of his released.

There’s a number of near perfect songs on that record, not the least of which is titled “Hard Life”. Johnny Cash is dead, and it’s doubtful there’s an unreleased cover of this sitting on a reel somewhere, but lord, he could’ve delivered the lyrics well. Of that I’m certain.

And it's a hard life
For a man with no wife
Babe, it's a hard life
God makes you live

But without it,
Don't doubt it
You don't even have
Your tears to give

I wake up and I'm fine
With my dreaming still on my mind
But it doesn't take long, you see
For the demons to come and visit me
And I've got my problems
Sometimes love doesn't solve them
And I end each day in a song

And it's a hard life
For a man with no wife
Lord, it's a hard life
God makes you live

But without it,
Baby don't doubt it
You don't even have
Your tears to give

I know I'm a hard man
To live with sometimes
Maybe it ain't in me
To make you a happy wife of mine

And maybe you'll kill me
Honey I don't blame you
If I were in your place,
Maybe that's what I would do…

The Bauhaus treatment.

Bauhaus is one of the bands that led me to play music. That’s no secret. Maybe there’s a little shame in having a goth-y past, but really, I still think the world of Bauhaus, and always have. I retain a lifelong affection for them, and each era in my life I’ve seen them as having sustained value, whether or not they were in vogue at the moment.

Their approach to covers seems unique to me. Maybe not so much their approach, but their relationship to them. First off, they nailed them. They’re uniformly wonderful to me. Specifically, T Rex’s Telegram Sam, Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, Eno’s Third Uncle, and Cale’s Rosegarden Funeral of Sores. They weren’t digging deep into their LP collection and turning new people onto some rare strenturengt artist. They went at the songs with their own energy, but didn’t reinvent them, like say, M Ward’s version of Let’s Dance that I mentioned earlier. Just from listening to them, and the uniform energy they have, I feel in the center of them a great enthusiasm. Raw, genuine enthusiasm. I imagine them loving playing them in practice, the way I loved playing Moonage Daydream or Gary Numan songs or Sonic Youth songs with Chris Fuller, and then deciding there was nothing wring in sharing that enthusiasm with their fans. There’s a sincerity there I really like. And while they didn’t reinvent these songs, they didn’t just duplicate them, echo them. The way I’d phrase it, they gave them their own unique treatment.


The iPod changes everything. One thing is does is releases the gems from sketchy un-uniform compilations, including comps themed on covering an individual artist.

I remember the first of these I heard – the Heaven and Hell VU comp with Wedding Present coving She’s My Best Friend (a great song for a wedding by the way) and Nirvana doing Here She Comes Now’ the Bridge Neil Young comp with Winterlong performed by the Pixies.

Then came a landslide of them. And of dubious quality. There were often some standout tracks among the trash, though. And some releases had some really priceless takes, like the Beck and M Ward songs on the Daniel Johnston comp, most of the Grievous Angel Graham Parsons comp (surprisingly, Sheryl Crow doing Juanita with Emmylou Harris is amazing), and a lot of the Townes Van Zandt comp (Lucinda Williams doing Nothing there is unbelievably haunting).

Anyway, in the iPod age, these cover songs I like to listen to are so much more accessible and easy to blend into my listening habits. They’re liberated from their original, uneven, often poor context.

~Arum
currently listening to The Slits, Vindictive

Various, Sundry

I saw my friend Matt Hohmann’s band Bully Pulpit play over the weekend at a crazy, ancient Czech restaurant in Cicero on Saturday at a show my friend Mark put together. Man, they were incredible. Once again, complete left turn for them. Three guitars + bass + soft & somewhat jazzy drums. Intricate fingerpicking on one lefthanded guitar upside down and Hohmann arpeggiating oddness and playing weird, sometimes atonal yet fitting chords, little distortion involved, so you could really hear the intervals. Kinda Californian sounding to me (someone, I’m not saying who, likes Slovenly). Mostly instrumental at first, then some softly sung vocals, then some shouted ones. Lots of personality, lots of originality. Me likes.

Poster Children also played. Rick and Rose are such interesting people. I saw Rick’s art since then, as I check up on everyone I meet on the Internet, to prove they have not suddenly become criminals. See this.

The new Lucinda Williams release, West, is incredible in my book. Her immediately previous effort didn’t ring so true to me. Lyrics and vocals and arrangements on West are all clearly superior. Come On and Wrap My Head Around That are my favorite tracks so far.

She also did an outstanding cover of Nothing on a Townes tribute record. Man. Crushing. Go find it. It’ll break your heart & spirit in two, and singularly pull together your attention and not let it go for a few minutes.

Slint plays Spiderland and Sonic Youth Daydream Nation and that’s a neat idea and all, but too bad you can’t buy the final final performance’s guitar on eBay, (I say sarcastically). Great piece on it in the SF Weekly by Michael Goldberg. They would’ve been better off without 2005 happening, what with the $55 hoodies and the eBay auctions and all. Reuniting to play Spiderland all the way through, once, and that’s it would’ve been a smarter move, but then, what do I know. I haven’t ripped them off in a couple of years, so I’m clearly out of the loop.

I’ve not watched TV much for the last few years, but coming back from Chicago two weeks ago I saw the drummer from Trenchmouth Fred on the TV at the rest stop on the gas pump TV monitor. That’s crazy and kinda cool. Trill has a DVD of Christopher Walken that has him on it, too. For the record, I never listened to Trenchmouth because I thought the name was stupid. That’s just how it works sometimes. I saw him later on in a salsa band, though, and he was a great drummer.

I wish I could find Fred’s SxSW video on the web. Poo. I can’t.

Ray LaMontagne has a CD at the Milwaukee Public Library called Till the Sun Turns Black and between the cover art and CD and song titles I decoded to give it a shot. Man, great stuff. Country meets Tim Buckley. Good lyrics and orchestration. But it all may be a matter of expectations. I was expecting crap, but it was a free listen and I was in a good mood. Funny how that works, eh?

~Arum
Currently listening to Joy Division, Transmission

The Mix is So Bizarre

I still lived in Chicago when the Eternals first started, and I was initially a skeptic. I always liked Trenchmouth, but only somewhat enthusiastically. They were a weird, interesting Gang of Four-tinged punk band at a time when the style was out of vogue (c.f. 2002). When the Eternals rose out of the ashes of Trenchmouth, I was pretty neutral--they seemed mostly like a quieter and less energetic Trenchmouth with a bit of Tortoise thrown in, and this shift didn't seem to flatter them to my ears.

With each year, the Eternals have impressed me more, and I've gone back and reinvestigated. Where the early 12"s segregated the "weird parts" and the "rock songs", they've slowly integrated the two sides of the band to far better effect. I bought Out of Proportion when it came out (the Eternals have made me excited to buy their records because they consistently do release records, on vinyl, the way they were meant to be). Out of Proportion emphasizes the band's most chaotic side and can feel impenetrable, but it features some strong songs too. By the time I bought Rawar Style, I was hooked, and that record has rewarded repeated listens.

Heavy International finishes the union of chaos and rock songs, with drummer Tim Mulvenna's jazz background providing an anchor not unlike Jaki Leibzeit's jazz pull in Can (I'm aware that those are strong words). They're pretty overwhelming live at this point with such a spectacular rhythm section, and Heavy International equals the live show. The crazy noises and effects finally blend seamlessly into the songs, and the compositional ideas really leave room for this freedom. It's an impressive summary of so many years of development into a refined, bizarre whole that's both accessible and offputting at the same time. Count me a fan.

the artifact is officially dead, Arum says so

This week I downloaded a new release in its entirety for the first time. It was Spoon's new work, in fact.

That's a milestone.

I've recently migrated all my CDs to iTunes, and I've subscribed to eMusic, and scanned it for things I've lost or forgotten, and found some gems, but never before did I substitute buying the tracks for buying the artifact.

Some thoughts about the consequences of this.

CD artwork never mattered a ton to me, not like LP artwork. So I don't mourn that loss.

Words trump numbers once again. "Listen to track 8, it's great" won't be in the lingo anymore. Once again I know song titles. And I forgot how great Trumans Water song titles were. "Yakboy=Nurterer".

Emusic trumps iTunes. Thanks to Jet Aspirin for that. I feel like I'm at the Gap or at the mall when I'm in the iTunes store. The eMusic selection isn't perfect, but it's a hell of a lot more fun to peruse. And no DRM.

How the hell does the artist know how many times someone really downloaded their song from a third party distributor like eMusic? I bet that one has kept Cory Rusk up at night.

"I just got the new record/album/CD by XYZ" is now "I just got the new release by XYZ".

We're all librarians now. Catalogers. And some of us poor ones. I mean, who the hell submitted all the Richard Hell albums to the track listing storage database with "(Album Version)" after the song title? People like that should be shot on sight in the new world order.

Questions for you. What was the first track you downloaded? The first entire release? The first artist you discovered browsing through a web music store like iTunes?

~Arum

listening to some Mission of Burma track

Tricky Zingers

Mid 70s Milwaukee band Creme Soda had completely eluded my radar. I still have not heard them but I'm eager to. Any wisdom in Bay View?

A Tom Waits MP3 I like

THEY'RE JUST GIVING THIS SHIT AWAY: Tom Waits and Kronos Quartet, 'Way Down in the Hole' Mp3

When Grandma Plays the Banjo

I learned about Roy Wood's first solo album, Boulders, when I interviewed Chris Knox a lot of years ago. It's a weird one. Lots of pitched vocals (probably tape sped up and slowed down, no digital pitch shifting in 1973), and he amazingly plays every instrument on the record except harmonium on 2 songs. It ranges from some really beautiful pop songs, like "Nancy, Sing Me a Song", to some really absurd sections, like "When Grandma Plays the Banjo". Unlike comparable records from around the same time (1st McCartney, 1st Emitt Rhodes), he did it all in studios and none at home. Alan Parsons was one of the engineers, at about the same time he was recording Pilot ("Oh oh oh it's magic") and Dark Side of the Moon. The jumps in character and personality (though really not so much in style) make for a confusing listen, but it's still a rewarding one, especially for fans of early-70s pop songs.

Michael Dahlquist memorial tale: I listened to Libertine a bit ago, and it's my favorite Silkworm album. The song "A Tunnel" has this completely insane kick drum pattern. What drew my attention to the part's utter complexity and how comically hard it is to play, is the fact that somewhere along the way, Michael is recognizably a tiny bit off on one beat. It reminded me of the fact that he hit the rest of the part so perfectly, which is pretty amazing.

Yen + Janet Forever

One hot summer several years ago (is it six now? or seven?) Arum gave my a burned CD of Silkworm's Libertine. Prior to that, I didn't really know Silkworm. But after a few spins of that record, I was quickly converted to their sprawling, sloppy sound.

That CD eventually became scratched and unplayable, but just 2 days ago I got a replacement, and it's been too long since I listened to this record. What a treasure. Thanks Arum!!

So many great tracks, but Joel Phelps's YEN + JANET FOREVER might be my favorite. At six minutes, it's the longest track on the record, but I think it has the fewest lyrics:

I'm sorry that I left you there
Your pretty hands were picking sand out of your hair
And i'm sorry that they went so far
Didn't end up coming back

I'm sorry about the way that i ran
I'm sorry that i ended up the way that i am
And i'm sorry about the way that i lied
Didn't end up coming back

I'm sorry that it rained all night
Letters that your sisters wore were strung too tight
And i'm sorry that your world went grey
Didn't end up coming back

A loping, lazy beat and meandering guitars open the song, running through the chords, ebbing and flowing in intensity and then falling away to just Phelps's voice and Dahlquists's snare and Phelps intones his litany of regrets over a eerily sparse arrangement which builds up again for an instrumental interlude before the second verse begins.

The second verse has the same sparse arrangement, making Phelps's vocals the center of the song. Again the verse ends, adn the instruments build up, but this time more emphatically, the intensity ratcheting up and Andy Cohen's guitar notes scribble higher and higher and higher and higher and higher and then....Phelps's voice sneaks in among the din: "I'm sorry that it RAINED all night...."

When he sings "Rained" it's a blistering scream that manages to best the intensity that the instruments had created. It's also the crystal center of the song: a scream full of rage, regret and self-recrimination and cathartic release. Goosebumps.

I follow where my mind goes

Last night a friend mentioned that he was going to drive out to Naperville to see the Psychedelic Furs at the Naperville Ribfest. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

Nevertheless, this brief conversation sent me directly to my old Psych Furs records, and god-motherfucking-damn are they good.

Their eponymous 1980 debut is amazing, with songs like "Sister Europe" and "Imitation of Christ" (with one of my favorite lyrics: "Jesus is a woman too") and deep cuts like "Wedding Song" and "We Love You."

In 1981, Talk Talk Talk gave us "Dumb Waiters," the original (and best) version of "Pretty In Pink," "She is Mine" and one of my all time favorite Psych Furs tracks, "All of This and Nothing."

In 1982, Forever Now yielded "President Gas," "Love My Way," and "No Easy Street."

1984's Mirror Moves opened with the fantastic "Ghost In You," scored a hit with "Heaven" and closed with "Highwire Days."

After that I kind of stopped listening, I guess, though in 1991, I did buy World Outside and vividly recall listening to it on the way to work at a job I hated on the day after I'd learned that my grandfather (in perfect health) had been killed in a car accident (not his fault). I sang along:

why wait?
there's a world outside
why wait?
for the reasons why
it ain't always what i want
it ain't always mine
why wait?
there's a world outside
you can't win
coming from the state you're in
you don't see
my reflections and my scenes


At 16, these were fucking potent lyrics. When I arrived at work at the job I hated (a ride operator at Kiddieland) I found my manager first thing and quit, telling him boldly (and in retrospect, somewhat absurdly) that there's a world outside, and I couldn't waste my time running rides and cleaning up puke.

I don't have that record anymore, but it will always occupy a special place in my heart.

So say I, so say us all: God Bless The Psychedelic Furs.

two recurring themes

are female songwriter-y records and recent listening.

Tying both together is a record that I unfortunately would not recommend, Milenasong's Can't Tape Forever. I bought this one first because it's on vinyl the hyped new one Seven Sisters I could only find on CD. I really don't have much to say about it, which probably says enough. It's tastefully understated but a bit short on character.