Chester Whelks interviews Paul Colilli of Simply Saucer...

... I'd never heard Simply Saucer. However, after hearing them and reading the interview, as Chester says, I am an instant convert. Colilli has a new solo record which I've embedded above - go here and you can purchase it on his bandcamp. Read the interview and check out another track that Chester embedded on Joup here.

The Art of Punk: Winston Smith and The Dead Kennedy's Art

Lo-Pan - Sasquanaut

Band name a reference to one of my all-time favorite movies?
Check.
Ohio?
Check.
Sabbath-influenced stoner rock riffs?
Check.
Monkey Astronauts?
Check.

What the hell's not to like. Go to the band's bandcamp and buy it here.

Via Brooklyn Vegan.

Drumcondra, Ireland You're Haunting My Dreams...

Image courtesy of geograph.ie

It's been nearly ten years since I was out of the country. I've never traveled abroad as much as I would have liked to, however I've done a small amount. Problem is (not really a problem though) when I do get out there's really only three places I like to go. There's other places I want to see, but only three places I go: England, Ireland and Scotland.

Now, this morning I dreamt seemingly non-stop about Ireland. Specifically for some reason I dreamt of Drumcondra, a suburb of Dublin. I don't know much about Drumcondra - I was there during the earliest days of 2002 with my friends Grez and his cousin Tony and a certain other person who, well, scared the hell out of me and almost inadvertently got me killed. In a nutshell, she was crazy. Beautiful, but crazy. And I paid for that.

Anyway... I didn't dream about any of this; none of these people, none of the places I was at while I was there. What I dreamt about were a bunch of places and people I never encountered before in 'consensual' reality but in the dream felt like I'd met and now somehow stumbled into a very pained remembrance. I was with my wife and my folks, we were walking the green streets of Drumcondra, and suddenly I wandered away or fell behind for a moment and then lost them, only to enter a place and recognize it immediately. From there it seemed I climbed and descended endless staircases, on almost each level re-meeting people I had somehow forgotten and only just then remembered, but remembered in a way that made them very important to me. New bonds were established and then somehow there was someone following me - chasing me even - and I was trying to avoid them. When a confrontation eventually happened it was for naught, and then this older dude at work who I don't particularly care for (nothing against him - just keep my distance for perceived reasons) showed up and whisked me back to where my wife and family waited.

What the hell?

Brand New - Jesus Christ

I think this was the first song by this band that really hit. I remember I had dismissed them and then - and this is back like seven years ago (!) - three of my friends from Ohio band Blue Karma were staying with us while they met with a new manager (I think that was the purpose of the trip) and one night while we stayed up late and drank and played one another music they threw this on. I was reluctant at first but I remember Jeremy saying, "Listen to this, this was made to be timeless," and I focused on the music and suddenly had an epiphany: Brand New is an awesome band and The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me is an unbelievably crafted album made as a mark against time and a chronicle of youth slowly drifting into the uncharted waters of adulthood.

image courtesy of wikipedia.org

New Pelican!!!

There's a bunch of info on the upcoming album and tour on Brooklyn Vegan. I dig these guys, and this new record will be released on the mighty Southern Lord records! How's that?

McRad - MyWeakness/McShred

A 20-something year mystery is ended. McRad.

Bones Brigade Video 4: Public Domain

Holy crap - I am STOKED that I found this. At Mr. Brown's suggestion my wife and I just watched the Bones Brigade Autobiography documentary. Brought a damn tear to my eye. And Rodney Mullen - I knew he was WOW as a skater, but WOWWOW as a person as well. All those guys.

Twin Peaks Season 3 Twitter Feed (not official, obviously)

image courtesy of the wonderful welcometotwinpeaks.com

Twin Peaks Season Three Twitter Account.

So I really like this: a twitter account that's titled Twin Peaks Season 3 - it's a wonderful bullet point fan fiction for season three. The whole 140 characters or less really helps this play in a way that doesn't suffer the usual baggage of fan fiction (not all, but a lot) and this guy (or girl) really has the tone down. It's not perfect, but it's close and the few times they step out of the tone it works too.

Obnoxious and Anonymous Video Interview w/ Jen Lynch

I have no idea when I'm going to find the time to watch this, but that doesn't mean I can't share it!!!

Poststardom Depression - What You See is What You Get

This band haunts me. Another great find of my wife's, back in '05 shortly before we moved across country. Little bit of Stereophonics, little Queens, but entirely their own thing. There's a fuzzy debauchery that hangs over the album this is on, Prime Time Looks A Lot Like Amateur Night, the entirety of which is every bit as fantastic as this one track. Need to hunt down Jeff Angell's other bands, The Missionary Position and Walking Paper, the latter of which also features Barrett Martin of Mad Season and Screaming Trees, Duff McKagan and contributions by Mike McCready (according to good 'ol wikipedia).

Jacques Renault

About a year and a half, maybe two years ago I get set to go into the grocery one night. I'm by myself and it's the first time I ever think to throw my headphones in while shopping. Seems a bit weird, but what the hell, every moment with music is a moment grand. I scroll through my ipod and right hand to Maude I see the name Jacques Renault. It's a techno song (to use a super generic label because I'm tired). I listen and it's pretty damn awesome. I repeat it a second time while I shop. I have no idea how this artist or song came to be on my ipod (this isn't it - I'll find it and post it). But then I remember what became of Jacques. I remember my former roommate Tim almost beating the actor who portrayed him in Twin Peaks, Walter Olkewicz's ass. I remember Leland, duck-taping his wrist to the side of the bed. I remember...

So this is what he's been up to since Leland played "Pillow Face" with him? Cool beans. Glad to see he's made something of himself. Slimmed down a might too. Visit his soundcloud page here and check out some more cool stuff.

Evolution of a Post: Black Walls

Tonight I've a restless, stirring going on behind my eyes. You may have noticed from the increasingly flowery way I'm turning these last few posts into prose. Part of that's because I'm still a little disheveled from last week's weird experience with the NIN/David Lynch video, and part of it is because I've had a kind of off week working on my book. Regardless, I worked today - been up since 5 or 5:30 AM (it's almost 1:00 AM here now). Came home, went to write from about 5:30 to 8. Watched Night of the Hunter. Then watched TV Funhouse. Now am surfing - it's been a slow couple of weeks for music stuff. I've always got Heavenisanincubator to turn me on to awesome new stuff, but there's been a general disinterest in my own head with a lot of the stuff I find on the other sites I frequent. Pitchfork, Brooklyn Vegan, Gigwise. Not too much going on in those quarters. Sick of hearing about jz, daft punk and north west's progenitor. Then on Exclaim I find a new song by an artist working under the name of Black Walls. Something about the image the soundcloud player they have up for the new song "Mary of the Shrines" catches my eye. It reminds me of Sunn 0))). The words "Folk" and "Drone" are used. I'm pretty damn hard on acoustic guitar (Zeppelin does it so well they ruined it for most) but the track's great, listen to it and read about it here. I google Black Walls and find a bandcamp page from last year. I'm excited.
..................

*

Brand New - At The Bottom

This song still hits just as hard now as it did the first day that I heard it. We need some new Brand New. God and the Devil are Raging Inside Me is a masterpiece, and Daisy is even better - there's a guttural, haunting quality to this band's music. In it I can feel layers of childhood eclipsed by the inevitable rise of age; the drowning of promise and dreams with the unfortunate responsibilities life tends to push down our throats.

It's years ago now, but here's the review I wrote for Daisy after I first heard it.

TV Funhouse

Probably the most fucked up, awesome show EVER. It's not really a surprise that this didn't go more than 8 episodes. Watching these puppets snort Christmas Cheer and assault unwitting passersby with their obnoxious caroling is just... disturbing. In the best possible way of course.

Mr. Brown ordered the set of both TV Funhouse and the best of TV Funhouse SNL and had them sent to my house. I'm sitting here with a pint enjoying the warped, twisted genius of Mr. Robert Smigel. Has it really been 13 freakin' years since this was on the air? Good lord...

god bless us Robert Smigel, each and every one of us.

1988 - The Year Marvel Comics Destroyed Pittsburgh

image courtesy of wikipedia.org

Wicked comics from the 80's - read about it on Joup!

Ministry - Twitch (full album)

You know, despite considering myself a pretty big Ministry fan since the early 90's I've never owned this album. I'm not even really all that familiar with it.

Ministry - Same Old Madness

It's always a trip to hear old Ministry. And I mean old as in the Arista years. Regardless, this is still pretty awesome and I'm kind of surprised a song like this wasn't eventually re-worked. It would have lent itself nicely to being 'industrialized' in the later incarnation of the group.

Revolting Cocks - You Often Forget (Live)

I'm not sure what year this is exactly, but it's OLD SCHOOL. It's been a Revolting Cocks kind of day. Beers, Steers and Queers and Linger Fickin' Good are regular staples of my everyday listening diet, but I cracked out the pre-Connelly Big Sexy Land yesterday and it's been stuck in my CD player off and on since.

T.O.M.B. - Uncovered Ancient Gateways

My favorite strain of Black Metal is the kind that pushes the boundaries. Blut Aus Nord is, thus far, the best example of this I've discovered. My good friend Chris told me about T.O.M.B. recently and it appears they are of the same vein, although judging by this, further along the spiral of noise, hence why they apparently refer to themselves as Black Noise instead of Black Metal. And if you read their 'Bio' here you will not regret it. Field recordings of haunted and bizarre places incorporated into their music? Awesome.

image courtesy of http://label.todestrieb.co.uk/

Moderat - Bad Kingdom

FINALLY!!! New Moderat hit when I wasn't looking. Awesome. I've put in a lot of miles with the first Moderat album. I've grown quite fond of walking around West LA to it in the mornings. It's a very powerful pull on my creative process and I almost consider it more a tool in that regard than a piece of music, much like how I learned to use DJ Shadow's Endtroducing (that's some powerful stuff there).

New Moderat album is due August 2nd on Monkeytown Records.

New Music From Ghostbox: Listening Center

A few years ago a combination of scribe Warren Ellis and Wire magazine got me into a little British label called Ghost Box. Ghost Box is associated with what some call the "Hauntology" movement and features releases by, among many others, such names as Belbury Poly, The Advisory Circle and Broadcast and the Focus Group (RIP Trish Keenan). I signed up for the label's wonderful newsletter, Ghost Box News and frequent their blog, belburyparishmagazine.blogspot. I've been behind on my emails and just realized the newest in their Study Series releases is from New York's Listening Center. Great stuff, somewhat evocative of 70's era Goblin. You can buy the vinyl or downloads at Ghost Box's site here.

Sean Murphy & Scott Snyder's The Wake

image courtesy of weeklycomicbookreview.com

The new series from Vertigo comics is excellent! Read about it in Thee Comic Book Column #43 on Joup!

Rosslyn Chapel Cymatics

Another great Cymetics-related video via The Center For Cymatics. You can read more about this here at the Journal for Cymatics website.

image courtesy of crystalinks.com

Came Back Haunted... by Photosensitive Epilepsy?

I can't watch it. I loved what I saw when I was finally able to sit down with my friend Michael and hit play on David Lynch's video for NIN's new single "Came Back Haunted". I am a NIN's fan, and I am a MASSIVE David Lynch fan, but the video actually threw my head out of whack for well over 24 hours. Now, I'm not sure if I am sensitive to bouts of photosensitive epilepsy, as suggested by the disclaimer at the beginning of the video. I know that I have not ever had epilepsy or any other kind of seizure that I am aware of, but this really messed with me BAD Friday night.

Now, this is strange, in that long time readers will remember my posting an electronic version of Brion Gysin's Dream Machine on this blog several years ago. I utilize the dream machine on a somewhat regular basis - this is a machine is made to marry the viewer's brainwaves to various frequencies via flashing patterns, thus inducing various states of consciousness. This has never bothered me, therefore I can only assume that there it is the exact frequency at which the Lynch video flickers that is doing very uncomfortable things to my brain. This fits with the definition of photosensitive epilepsy that I encountered on Wikipedia. 

The experience was pretty much terrifying, yet at the same time there was something... Occult about it. That's the wrong word, however I've been interested in epilepsy for years, since being introduced to the concept of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy as a kind of visionary or perhaps even transcendent occurrence, first in the pages of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles, then in his The Filth. In reading about TLE on Epilepsy.com (here) I was a little unnerved to find that although actual physical seizures never arose (that I was aware of) this description somewhat describes experiences I've had for well over a decade, ever since I began practicing the Occult - a practice that has morphed and waned over the years but still remains of interest to me today, obviously - experiences that are pretty hard to sum up into words and have themselves morphed and waned over the years, from indescribable crystal clear memories of people and scenarios that seem dreamlike yet more real than any previous dream, memories that come on so strong they cause my nasal passages to sting as if with sudden bursts of ozone and silver spots to boil before my eyes (imagery borrowed from William S. Burroughs), to almost complete 'White Outs' where my vision succumbs to a completely white field that always carries with it glimpses of something that always remains just... out of... reach.

If I have the time I plan on writing a piece about this experience for Joup, as it was extremely unnerving, yet very interesting.

Oh Gale...

Mr. Brown sent this to me recently. It reminded me that I simply cannot wait for Breaking Bad to return.

NIN + David Lynch = Came Back Haunted

The Pixies - Bagboy

Wow. This is why, Frank Black... wherever you go, I will follow.