everyone's heart should be broken

i am aware i am segueing from my promised post yet again. sue me.

i just received an historic package in the post (well, not "just," it was more like five hours ago, but i had things to do, and i just now am sitting down to bloggify (that's like testify, only less religious malarcky, and more indie crap)).

"what, what, matt, what historic package was this," i hear you say (because i hear things).

well. let me just tell you.

i have mentioned boyracer here several times already, and here i go again. the england-to-arizona twee punk legend(s) have put out their final record, and are calling it a day. as boyracer anyway. stewart anderson has said it's time to focus on new baby and herd of cattle (hopefully in that order), and the pipe dream of being a rock star is currently untenable. he has since said there will be a new project from him and jen turrell (featuring a violin!), but after its incredibly long run, it's time to put boyracer to bed. 

to commemorate the occasion, stew and jen have released a brilliant lp on vinyl in a limited edition of 100 copies. they sold out in about a week or something.

pretty damn good. they record is too. 

or rather, it kicks you in the balls, then when you've crumpled to the ground, it cracks your skull with steel-toed doc martins, and as the brain and blood oozes out, it puts out its cigarette in the waste. in a good way, that is. exellent fucking record. punk rock in all it's speedy-drummy-squeally-grindy-guitar-attention-deficit-disorder-basslines-andspitspitspitoutthemlyrics-delivery-glory. stewart's rapid-fire whine wheedles you into thinking it's 1995 again, and jen shrieking in the background is vintage riot grrrrl.

side two starts off with a drone of some outrageously bureaucratic flavour, which yields seconds later into a grinding guitar riff which opens up one of my favorite songs on the lp, "northshire coastline", followed by the likewise excellent "a sober truth." the riot of drums and maelstrom of feedback provide a gorgeous trapeze-artist's net for anderson's high-pitched voice, and it's hard to think of any young bands today who can deliver the clashing favours of disaffection and lusty joy of what punk has to offer--certainly not the crop of teen-rebel idols. i don't watch american idol, but i've seen glimpses of it, and i have to tell you, i genuinly feel sorry for the insipid little shits who think that's what music is. maybe i'm just getting old, thinking how much better "we" had it (actually, it sucked. the music was just really good). i really don't see bands like mudhoney, seaweed, boyracer, galaxie 500, the violent femmes, the vaselines, or a hundred other bands relegated to the dustbin of indie-history (oh, you never sold a million records? mariah carey and whitney houston are obviously better artists).

it makes me want to puke. 

so does the whiskey i drank on a troubled tummy...

i could rant aimlessly, drifting from one fragment of thought to another, surfing the conciousness stream, but i want to mention the coda to the lp, and to boyracer itself, the last song on the record, "the last word."

it jells everything that brought me to boyracer in the first place (a lucksmiths cover of "i've got it (and it's not worth having"). enough punk to take the piss out of the geezers, enough melody and sentiment and smart lyrics to enamour the indie cognoscenti, beautiful guitars and clamouring drums. it's an unabashed "goodbye," an autobiographical paen to what's behind stewart, a "my way" without frank's misogynistic psychopathy, with a final flourish that could have been treacly if it wasn't so whole-heartedly good: a cameo from jen & stewart's baby tallulah, who gurgles with delight and closes this chapter on a truly great little band.

i feel really lucky to be one of the one hundred...

oh yeah, the lp was called sunlight is the best antisptic, featuring a slice of corrugated cardboard with a horse in the desert silkscreened planly in black. the track listing, record sleeve, lyrics, all are just tucked into a plastic cover with the cardboard; a simple, in-your-face d.i.y ride into the sun. and did i mention it's all sold out? what a way to go.

***

also, i just have to mention that jen also made the most gorgeous hand-decorated t-shirts. the best band shirts ever. 

on the devil's tail

i seem to have a problem with my resolution. i say i'm going to write about something (and usually i get around to it) but then i write about another thing instead. like eel. 

don't worry, i'm not writing about eel again (for now).

i was going to write about the anacortes vinyl, but i haven't really processed any of it yet (although i listened to 2/3 of the microphones, and the watery graves of portland and genevieve, and they're really good).

today though (a monday) i have been lurching through one unfinished chore to another. my hot water's off and i want to take a shower, and i'm waiting for the man to fix the pipes. i'm greasy from work yesterday, and irritable, and my mind keeps wandering (small wonder, since i've only fed it coffee today). i've been playing all sorts of stuff as i scuttle around my apartment, with the constant rainfall serving as interlude between the discs. i've already listened to the microphones (as i said), pet politics (the swedish band, not the silver jews song, or the mountain goats cover of the silver jews song), shonen knife (in english), shonen knife (in japanese), and finally a buttload of john vanderslice. about halfway through suddenly it all went dark (a limited-edition cd from barsuk feauring j.v. in a chicken coop in california with a two-track and the songs from trance manual) and i saw the postman out the window trudging wetly away from the house. 

there's very little i enjoy as much as the anticipation of what the mail will bring, and there are many pending parcels somewhere in the world heading my way, so i walked down the stairs to check the box. apart from the new issue of dwell, there was also a new cd-r sent from a young guitarist in ireland called cian nugent.

his first solo disc, a recording of his fourth-ever live performance, childhood, christian lies & slaughter, is a quietly strong instrumental set filledwith stunning meanderings through cian's original songs. sounding much less than "trad," traditional irish music, and far more like american blues married to spanish classical, nugent's able fingerwork and slightly unholy sensibilities make for the perfect accompaniment to the grey tedium of early october seattle. listening to it i think also of the eerily cheerful score to the wicker man (1973) by paul giovanni. there's an appalachian twang in some of the phrases and a timelessness as well, and the overall effect is compelling and slightly ominous (hence the affinity with the wicker man--actually, it also sounds a little like the creepier work by the decemberists, like the tain and some of the songs on the crane wife). and then of course, there's the fine, suggestively flawed character of the album's title. nice one.

i should also mention, as an aside, the reason i came across cian nugent in the first place. i was surfing around the myspace music world (on midday veil's page, if i'm not mistaken) and i saw one of those "ad-comments" labels/bands/venues/whatever tend to pop onto the space. the ad was from the flemish label audiomer, and it had this gorgeous image of a bloodred medieval landscape with a massive, po-faced donkey (or something) hauling in its mouth the prone body of a man (these in black ink rather than crimson). the whole scene was super-creepy, and gorgeously drawn, by belgian designer/audiomer-honcho wouter smeraldina-rima, to resemble germanic woodcut engravings of the sixteenth century. the image also reminded me strongly of the illustrations for the arturo pérez-reverte novel el club dumas (which was adapted (sloppily, but engrossingly) for the screen by roman polanski as the ninth gate) the woodcuts in that story, executed by lucifer himself, lead a wolfish book dealer named corso (johnny depp, very well-cast, in the film) on the path to ultimate seduction by the devil.

while the recording is far less diabolical than the path of associations that led me to it, the seduction of nugent's strings is evident, as is his clear talent.

Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!

oh, holy shit, i just received the pile of vinyl i ordered from p.w. elverum & sun (source of wind). shit, shit, shit, it's amazingly gorgeous and i haven't even listened to it yet... as soon as i wipe the drool from my self i'll lie down on the floor and absorb it. omnibus blog coming soon...

freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

i'm a'gonna come right out with it.

"hi. i'm matt, and i spend too much money on records."

and you say,

"hi, matt."

no really. i'm bartending. i'm (pathetically) single. i have several guitars and a stack of "to-read" books this high, and my fridge is well-stocked with beers (thank you) and i have a bottle of whiskey. and i can't think of anything else that needs my liquid assets more than new fucking records. *sighs(dishonestly)* i suppose i could buy stocks... 

or i eard there was this bridge in brooklyn...

but it really is a little disconcerting when i look up at my paypal account and go all "shit!!!!--where the hell my money at?"

(well, right now it's being funnelled northward to the little community of anacortes, washington, and their fine, fine independent diy records industry. i am waiting for this pile of stuff to arrive--you'll be the first)

but in the meantime, as i wait (less than patiently, it must be said) for the GODDAMNPATHETICKNUCKLEDRAGGINGINDOLENTAPATHETIC"RAINSLEETSNOW"MYASSPOSTALSERVICE to bring me my fine, fine white vinyl, i have been goulishly haunting the good people at daytrotter. for the ign'ant, pay heed: the daytrotter is a bastion of pseudo-bootleg material for the pathetically completist indie-nutjob (present). so many sessions of good hard-workin' bands swinging by these humble studios to put down several (usually four) tracks live which are then posted on the site and d-o-w-n-l-o-a-d-a-b-l-e-f-o-r-f-r-e-e. of course. OF COURSE, you should support their sponsors. and then you should buy tickets for the bands as they continue their tours. and you shold totally buy those cds, people. but you should also chec out his site and get a butt-load of good stuff that really isn;t coming out anywhere else.

yes they have deathcabforcutie, kirsten dunst. your indie-cred will be safe. yes, sadly over-indulgent, overly tattooed baby-dyke, ani is there. yes rabid horde of speed freaks and SO SO SO earnest folkies, the mountain goats has graced DT with their gentle presence twice.

for my sins, i own up to digging out auckland band the brunettes (oh, so twee), southern wonders someone still loves you boris yeltsin (no, really), and dischordant geniuseseses dirty projectors, who i discovered completely by accident while sifting throught the googleage for information on julie doucet (OMG), and found in a related D&Q blog, where i saw pix of this band rocking out something cute, with a very stylish man and woman center stage, replete with upside-down geetar (ie left-handed). i downloaded the seven challenging and meandering tracks of slightly aboriginal seasoning (hello paul simon, hello ezra koenig), but in a way that rapes africa a little less and fucks hipsters maybe (hopefully?) a little more.

i'll certainly be looking for a little more.

having segued into montreal, if you are at daytrotter you must also check out the lovely, dark and moody stylings of canada's young galaxy. seeing the name i sustained a hope that they were following in the footsteps of krukowski, yang and wareham. they were not. but they are damned good.

to sum up: free is good. just don't be a douchebag (ie buy things too). ain't no reason you can;t do both, people.

and speaking of phil elvrum, and the digital world, and how sometimes it's great and sometimes not, i urge all of you who cherish the snailier mail to check out this brilliant plea.

brief note.

i have in the past mentioned the ridiculously good label dark beloved cloud. it is headed by pop-polymath douglas wolk. i wholly grant douglas' knowledge of arcane antipodean pop-punk could be considered superior to mine. that would be fair. the man has actually released a clean single. on vinyl. which is a gorgeous anarchic bullshit session committed to posterity by three of my own personal heroes. oh, how i envy douglas his profound connections across the disparate but ultimately fulfilling nerd-overses of independent labels and the might comic book. oh to be in über-trendy pdx rather than in sad-bastard seattle. etcetera. whatever. i have just this little flicker of pride at my disposal: that i blogged about the clean's uncompromisingly sweet live album mashed before douglas did. it ain't a competition. he'd win. i'm just officially ahead of the curve for a change. it's nice.

Blow me!

yeah, yeah.

i was supposed to be writing about woelv, but i 'haven't absorbed that one yet.' i mean, fuck, it's really good, but it's darkly beautiful and subtle, and i just had some coffee and my leg's all twitchity and my mood is less inclined to over-analize quietude. so i'm writing about the blow instead. 

subtle too, the blow (currently, and relevant to this blog, comprised of khaela maricich (constant) and jona bechtolt (current side-man) is anything but quiet and subdued. at least on the only record* i have so far, 2006's 'paper television' (k records). kicking off with a jaunty drum sample, 'pt' is a distinctively pop-informed album, with more samples, staccato synthesizer tones, overdubs and a general sense that if one were in a sweaty club, with sexy kids writhing in drug-induced agonies, the record would feel just as natural as it did to me, sitting in my otherwise quiet studio, where i stymied my attempts to work with the record on by playing it. it grabs the attention unrelentingy with smart and deeply (and ambivalently) sensual lyrics, and in the urgency with which they are expressed. the songs struggle with the balance of sexy-cool assertiveness and a raw, heart-rending vulnerability, all the while keeping a beat that races on unrelentingly. i had to listen to it three times in a row at first. usually i only do that when john darnielle puts something new out.

musically, it's interesting to look at how the blow relates to the 'other' northwest music culture (contrasted with the macho-pathetic-druggie-flannel era of the early nineties), the more diy-informed strain that, with olympia's beat happening, among others, predated, ran concurrent to, survived and thrived past the notorious 'grunge' moment that launched an ill-prepared seattle onto the world stage (an attention that was partially responsible for a socio-econimic influx that decimated our infrastructure and anticipated the increasingly national trend towards a dissolving economic diversity). the oly' bands were loud in  a more dischordant way than the more academically punk-metal combine of bands like nirvana and mudhoney, whose thrasher heritage was evident in their long haired head-banging and rough, heroin-chic. the bands a little to the south tended to be more akin to east coast icons like the velvet underground, with minimalist tendencies and performances, but more importantly, with a focus on politics that flew in the face of their contemporaries, especially with regard to gender and sexuality. olympia was the cradle, if not the birthplace, of the riot grrrl bands, and homegrown label k records, founded by calvin johnson in 1982, tapped into the international underground tendency of bands and micro labels who were trying to truly do it themselves, and opened the door for west coast artists less interested in sales and mastering and stereo, and more focussed on their individualistic outputs. when i was in school in upstate new york in the mid-nineties, i heard more stuff from olympia than i had when i was going to high school in the early part of the decade in seattle itself. funny how that stuff happens.

khaela maricich is from seattle (queen anne, specifically) and moved around from seattle to olympia and portland, and her locality both informs the blow and is defied by it. the play between girlish rasp and the assertiveness female strength are contrasts that are characteristic of bands like sleater-kinney, bikini kill, le tigre and others. there are also echoes of miranda july, specifically the type of fluidly quotidian aesthetic she espouses in her multi-media works (it should be mentioned that maricich is also a multi-media artist), most clearly in her film 'me and you and everyone we know' (2005). maricich's lyrics are confident and desperate, with a certain gender neutrality that is also echoed in her androgynous physical appearance. 

i'm droning on.

khaela maricich makes juicy-sexy-poppy-scary-goddamniwannacry-goddamniwannafuck-jump!-jump!-lie-in-a-ball-on-the-floor love songs. sometimes they are in french.

i'm totally crushing on this record.

****

*when i say record, i do mean it. i've been getting on a selective vinyl kick lately (yeah, yeah, the hipsters have been espousing vinyl for decades (see: 'high fidelity' (the movie, not the book)), but i'm talking about something simpler, i suppose, that when i can, i prefer some bands on the medium of a scratchy vinyl record. everyone knows that vinyl carries a certain tonal richness that is difficult to reproduce on digital media (especially my least favorite, the mp3 format), but i would like to just say i'm not a snob about it. i just prefer the copy of 'strangeways here we come' that i bought with my newspaper route money (no fucking joke) in 1991 to the copy of it i have on cd. i always listened to side 2 first when i listened to that record (which was a lot), and it always sounds wrong to hear it right! then of course there's bands that i've written here about like the cannanes and boyracer and all that, whose output just sounds better when it's fucked up (i don't actually own a decent turntable--just a shitty record/tape stereo from the mid-eighties--and the tape deck hasn't worked since 1997).  recently got some beat happening on vinyl from k records, and listened to it for the first time on its natural environment, and that was kind of cool, kind of comforting (remember, not so much cd sales for indie acts in the eighties). anyway, to sum up: not a snob, but certainly appreciative of the options available...

Back in action

hi, i'm back.

it has come to my attention that there are people who read this, so to they, the gentle bodhisattvas of diy-indie rock, i humbly apologise for my extended absence. i have been working too hard. if you want to know what i've been working on you can check it out here, and buy it here.

i know, i know. it's trés gauche for me to promote my own machinations on a blog purported to celebrate the music of others. i clearly am a selfish cad. buy my fucking record though, please.

***

i have really been dumping a lot of hours into that ep, but i've also been buying stuff in massive shit-piles, so as i work it deeper into my head, i'll regurgitate here. soon. really, i promise. first up will likely be the 'gris' ep from geneviéve castrée's 'woelv'  persona. more soon.