marc pietrzykowski

Not the CDs: me, for neglecting to post for so many days! I remember the part of the Inferno where Dante describes negligent bloggers hanging from meathooks over a raging stream of binaries… on second thought, maybe I shouldn’t depend on Bruce Sterling’s translation when making reference to the Inferno. Kidding, of course, Bruce Sterling spends most of his time translating Bruce Sterling, I should think. Ciaran Carson did an interesting translation of Dante, much better, I thought, than Robert Pinsky’s which was released around the same time to much more hoopla.

(bonus: what level of hell would you be on?  I got to level 7!:

The Dante’s Inferno Test has banished you to the Seventh Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Take the Dante’s Divine Comedy Inferno Test)

89) dos: justamente tres

dos is Mike Watt (Minutemen, fIREHOSE, and now, I believe, playing bass on the Iggy and the Stooges reunion tour) and Kira Roessler (Black Flag), and they both play bass guitar, and Kira sings. That’s it, not a lot of overdubs, no guest musicians that I can see, a few effects larded on now and then… and it’s great, interesting, melodic songs that force the listener to pay attention in a different way, while remaining familiar enough (clear song structures, standard western scales, folk-influenced singing) that the challenge is not contentious. A bit like punk chamber music, I suppose. (bonus: Watt’s solo stuff is very strong too, but I only have digital copies, and so won’t be discussing them here, just thought the world should know.)

90) The Psychedelic Furs: The Psychedelic Furs

It still amazes me that someone as snotty sounding as Richard Butler could have US hits (“Pretty in Pink,” “Ghost in You,” “Love My Way”), although on those songs he tones down the snot a bit. Anyhow, the snot is flowing here, as are the big, echoey drums, the wall of sound production, and the great, hooky, SNOTTY songs: “India,” “Sister Europe,” “We Love You,” “Imitation of Christ”… doesn’t exactly make me want to dance, but does make me want to stagger around on a dance floor and bump into people and not apologize. (bonus: Butler is a pretty good painter, turns out; check out this snotty painting.)

91-92) Jeff Buckley: Sketches For My Sweetheart the Drunk

Jeff sure had a lot of talent, and a lot of interesting ideas, and what is tragic about is his death is that he never got to put it all together into one awe-inspiring package. The closest he came, I think, was his cover of L Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” the best moment on his only “official” CD, Grace. Many folks seem to think Grace a masterpiece, but it doesn’t reach those heights for me, it is the sound of a man searching for, well, grace, and also for a vision. The same holds true for this CD, recordings meant to be Buckley’s next release, and which he kept messing with and re-recording, trying to find the right tone. Still some good songs here, and some sonic experimentation that foreshadow the artist he might have grown into. (bonus: Hallelujah. Scary how many versions of this song on YouTube claim Buckley wrote it–does no one bother to read the goddamn liner notes?)

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And more CDs! It’s exciting, getting a zit, when you get 1 every 4 months or so; it gives one something to really focus on for a minute or two, trying to get the right angle to relieve the pressure, and of course, the sensation of the zit popping…

85) Annie Lennox: Bare

I had this CD and the next one in the wrong cases, both are stark white with very little printing on them, and both CD cases are washed out, have a woman on the cover, and so, I, probably a bit tipsy, put them in the wrong cases some time ago. When I discovered that the CD in Autour de Lucie was in fact Annie Lennox, I put the CD case inside until I got to the Annie Lennox case and then swapped’em back. It’s one of my rules. If the Autour De Lucie CD had not been in the Annie Lennox case, I would have had to set them both aside and wait for another washed out CD with a woman on the front came along… the music is not washed out, but it is white, and I don’t intend any racial connotations, just that the music–mildly funky, danceable, tastefully produced, with Annie’s icy soul vox layered on top–sounds like the color white, although I’ve been led to understand that white is actually the absence of color, which suits my metaphorical purposes even better. (bonus: Annie writes a very bland explanation of her stark cover photo on the back of the CD, something about challenging ideas of beauty and marketing. It reminded me of this, only whiter.)

86) Autour de Lucie: Faux Mouvement

Lush, seductive French trip-hop that gets more heavy and angry as it gets later in the track listing; like a lot of trip-hoppy electrofolk CDs, this one has lots of neat riffs and sonic effects and maybe 2 or 3 memorable songs: “Je Reviens,” “La Contradiction,” and maybe “Le Salon.” Well done, totally expected. (bonus: they are French, so their bassist is named Fabrice. I am so jealous.)

87) The Stax/Volt Review: Live In London

Now, if Dusty Springfield had Booker T and the MG’s backing her up, well, ’nuff said. I’m not a fan of live albums, generally, but this one is pretty damn good: “Green Onions,” Eddie Floyd, Otis, Carla Thomas, and of course Sam and Dave (“Hold On, I’m Comin’” is the finale and really grinds up the stage). Whets my appetite for more Stax stuff, but goddamn, I’m stuck in an arbitrary order and cannot satisfy the craving. (bonus: “stax” is a portmanteau of the original owner of the label’s last names, if you were curious. It also sounds bad-ass.)

88) Ween: The Mollusk

I think this is the only Ween CD I own; my friend Conrad played the first 3 of their CDs relentlessly for a few months, so I don’t think I need to hear “The Stallion” again. As a connoisseur of nonsense, I have to say, this is some pretty good nonsense, both musically and lyrically. They even claim that “Cold Blows the Wind” (known to most folks as “The Unquiet Grave”) is an old Chinese folk song. Such monkeys. Too bad they got all cleaned up and starched and boring. Nothing wrong with sobreity, but there must be something about the way we help people get sober, the 12-step programs and Betty Ford places, that exorcises whatever was interesting about them in the first place. It doesn’t have to be that way, won’t someone come up with a Dada substance abuse program? Anyway, they’ve been pretty dull since this CD, in my very humble opinion. (bonus: no, they didn’t really huff Scotchgard while recording “The Pod.” Sorry to burst yer bubble.)

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Where was I? Oh yeah, listening to every CD I own, one at a time. I was going to listen to a box set once I hit 100, but I might just blow by that via xmas CDs… oh the tension.

81) Blonde Redhead: Certain Damaged Lemons

Squirty? Quirky? Squirky? Some interesting songs here, lots of wrap around time signatures and discothequey pararhythms, plus wobbly soprano vocals on some track, and wobbly boy tenor vocals on others… a bit like what wa once called “math rock,” but way more danceable and hook-laden. “Melody of a Certain Three” was the college radio hit, and there are plenty of other songs like that one, interesting, fun to listen to, and only memorable as an aspect of a particular brand. (bonus: produced by Guy Picciotto, ah, I see, Blonde Redhead does sound a bit like Fugazi’s queer neighbors… the two boys in the group are even twins.)

82) Dusty Springfield: Heart and Soul

The first 8 songs or so are just awful, that crappy 80’s production with some asshole trying to make shakahuchi flute sound with his keyboard and so much treble that Dusty’s voice becomes just another pattern in the wallpaper, and yes thanks could I have another line, please? Then, #9 is “Son of a Preacher Man,” which is fine but not great, and then there are some live versions of soul classics that are really good, and serve to remind us that Dusty started out as the British Diana Ross, more or less. After the live songs are a few more crappily produced songs, but crappily produced in the 70’s manner: strings drenched in treacle, snares that pop like bubble wrap… and that also make Dusty into another wallpaper motif, thanks for the Quaalude. I guess the fact that Dusty’s voice was kind of thin made producers want to envelop her in HFCS arrangments, but why not pare things down and let the smoke in her thin voice out? I blame Phil Spector. Also, this is just not a very good collection of material… (bonus: the “hidden track” is a radio commercial for some kind of UK make your own soda syrup. ??? I can’t figure out if that is some kind of mean joke or what…  Oh, and Dusty’s real name was Mary Isabel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien. No, not kidding.)

83) Melvins: Hostile Ambient Takeover

Too bad Dusty Springfield couldn’t do a CD with the Melvins. It would be good for both of them, I think, but, Dusty died in 1999. The Melvins probably should have… kidding, Melvins are fun, even if they have released the same 2 albums over and over again: the protosludge groovy stuff that makes heads bob, and the “experimental” noise stuff that isn’t really interesting at all to listen to unless you are 12 and just figured out Led Zeppelin is a load of shit. That said, this is not heir best take on the latter formula; the “trilogy” is much better, as is “Stoner Witch” and some of the more recent stuff. (bonus: here is the key to enjoying the Melvins: pretend Buzz is singing in Armenian, unless you speak Armenian, then pretend it’s Japanese. The lyrics, almost without exception, are worthless.)

84) Gay Dad: Transmission

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I’ll have to start in on the xmas CDs soon…

76-78) The Essential Guide to Bollywood: Vol 1-3

I’ve never seen any of the movies these songs are from, and I don’t speak a word of Hindi, but so what. I dig the Bollywood beat, that 3/3 shimmy that makes your brainstem want to wag like it was an ocean wave, and listening to the various production eras is always a treat, except for the late 1970’s, early 1980’s trebly freebase squeaky clean stuff, everyone just learning to use midi and such. I could do without that crap, it’s like chewing on glass shards and ripping your mouth to shreds and then you scream and–nothing, no blood, the song is over and not a bit of it lingers in the air. There’s not really too much of that style on here, actually, I think I am still recoiling from the first four songs of the Dusty Springfield collection that comes later. Anyhow, here is Mohammed Rafi, who appears on more tunes here than anyone, doing on of the songs from CD 2:

(bonus: wow, am I out of date. Apparently, there is not only a Bollywood, centered in Bombay and focused on Hindi language movies, but there is also a Sandalwood, Tollywood, Mollywood, and Kollywood, as well as a Lollywood in Pakistan. I really wish I could learn langauges via neural implant…)

79) Cop Shoot Cop: Ask Questions Later

Whoa, not in Bollywood anymore… I remember seeing fliers for Cop Shoot Cop all over the lower third of Manhattan, though I never saw the band. The image of these fliers, pasted to poles or glued to a wall, is very distinct, even though all I remember is the name, in big block letters. I guess that means it is a good name for a band, an industrial band with 2 bass players and big old Killing Joke-style drum wallops. They sprinkled their sound with jazzy changes and interesting lyrics, when you could hear them, but none of the songs are all that memorable. Good to listen to when driving home from a long meeting, or before an audit. (bonus: Just like every other bad-ass, countercultural, industrial band of the 90’s, Nike used one of their songs in a commercial. Well, ok, Missing Foundation never got a commercial. I think.)

80) Björk: Volta

I think I saw Björk when I was in Iceland, in 1999, walking across the square next to the main bus station. Of course, Iceland is filled with women who look like Björk, it’s like saying you think you saw Pamela Anderson on Venice Beach. This CD has the best packaging of any Björk CD, which is saying something, but musically is very uneven, the sound of someone who has forged a career on innovation beginning to chafe at having to be wildly different every time. She should release a set of folk covers, or maybe do a set of Ken Nordine-esque word jazz, or else remake all the Sugarcubes albums as disco metal… or just work on writing good songs and not focus so much on the packaging. The duet with Antony from Antony and the Johnsons is lovely, and there are 2 or 3 other good songs here, and a bunch of stuff that sounds like Björk being Björk, the way Manny is Manny–but when he goes and pisses behind the left field wall, not when he hits a 450 foot dinger. (bonus: did I mention I thought I saw Björk in Iceland? Sorry).

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A reminder: I am listening to all my CDs (all 1600 of them), one at a time, and then writing a bit about each.

72) The Clash: Combat Rock

London Calling is better, but this is still a great CD, and “Straight To Hell” may be my favorite Clash song just now. It’s also the CD most people will recognize, so if you are stuck in a room with 100 strangers, and you just have to play a Clash CD, then this one will please the largest percentage of folks, at least once “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” comes on; “this is a public service announcement–with GUITARS!” will probably alienate many of them at first, and then “Car Jamming” is a bit of a wash, but then the hits come one and you are off and running and won’t be torn limb from limb by the mob. (bonus: they never became the Rolling Stones, let alone Led Zeppelin, despite the attempts of many coke-spoon and pinky-ring wearing bastards to make them so.)

73) Karen Dalton: It’s So Hard To Tell Who’s Going To Love You Best

Dalton was a part of the Greenwhich Village folk revival, playing with Dylan before he needed to shave–not sure he needs to now, actually–and she had an amazing, languid, slightly gravely voice that sounds a bit like a mix of Billie Holiday and Edith Piaf. She didn’t sing in french, just had a similar world weary creakiness to her tone… and she played a big old tenor banjo too. But, she had a sad life, mental illness, homelessness, and early death, and listening to her sing, such a fate is not hard to imagine. (bonus: well, just listen:

)

74) Psychic TV: Trip Reset

I have a Throbbing Gristle CD somewhere, and I used to have one of the earllier Psychic TV LPs laying around; P-orridge and the gang seemed to get more and more playful with each recording, and after listening to this CD the first time (which is downright goofy, albeit laced with images of blood), I had to go back and check out Throbbing Gristle again to be sure I hadn’t missed something. And I think I found the thread: this is a kids CD, more or less, composed by a person who used to pierce his penis with needles onstage, and in fact the old TG stuff–”Hamburger Lady,” “His Arm Was Her Leg,” etc–is kids music too, kids music for folks bored with pop and uninterested in more difficult avant-garde stuff. Quite a lot of fun, actually. (bonus: I won’t embed the video this time, but this short documentary, about P-Orridge’s life after the death of his love, Lady Jaye, is quite affecting, especially because he and Jaye had been having lots of plastic surgeries in an attempt to look more like one another and essentially become one being.)

75) Ana Moura: Guarda-me a vida na mão

Moura sings fado, which is an achingly sad Portugese genre that, according to some, began with poor women singing a cappella in taverns around Lisbon for $. Whatever the origin, fado songs are generally sparse, often in minor keys, and usually address some aspect of suadade, an apparently untranslateable Portugese word that means something like “longing for what is love.” The word immediately reminded me of “mono no aware,” a Japanese term (物の哀れ,) that means something very similar, a yearning born of the transient nature of things, and a sensitivity to their inevitable disappearance from this world. And yes, that’s what these songs evoke, even though my knowledge of Portugese is pretty much limited to fado and suadade. (bonus: fado singers are called fadistas. Don’t know why, but that just tickles me).

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Ok, I listened to the following CDs during November, but haven’t blogged’em until now, so dammit, I’m counting them as CDs listened to during November. Tough. Stop making that face.

67) John Coltrane: Lush Life

I just read in the New Yorker that Flying Lotus, a DJ I’d heard a few mixes from but had not thought was hot shit enough to appear in the New Yorker (but let’s be honest, Sashe Frere wants nothing more than to be a starmaker), was Alice Coltrane’s nephew. Huh. I’m not sure what to say that might add definition to the shape Coltrane occupies in American music; it’s a big shadow, and for good reason, since even folks who care nothing for jazz can find themselves swept away by the spiritual imperative of his solos. Here’s another thing I read the other day that might help: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way” — Viktor Frankl. (bonus: Donald Byrd! Boy, I love Donald Byrd.)

68) John Prine: Great Days, Vol 1

Ok, John Coltrane stretched what jazz could be, what music could be, through a highly individiualized kind of sonic exploration. John Prine writes the same 2 or 3 songs over and over again, and also somehow manages to stretch what music can be by making the same 2 or 3 songs distinct enough in their iterations that they not only stick in the brain like peanut butter, but they protrude through to the world outside the song; at his best, his songs are more than just songs, they are bridges to other people’s inner lives–again, much like Coltrane, but whereas the force of Coltrane’s personality takes you with him on his journey, Prine takes you to the bus station, where you sit and watch folks and talk and maybe have a chocolate milk. This CD has seceral songs that manage this trick, and others that fail to do so but are warm and endearing nonetheless… (bonus: good quote from Kris Kristofferson, after seeing Prine early in his career: “Prine’s so good, we may have to break his thumbs.”)

70) John Prine: Great Days, Vol 2

I can never quite decide, but as of this listening, I favor the second disc here. It has more of the transcendent songs: “Angel From Montgomery,” “Down By The Side of the Road,” “Storm Windows,” “Souvenirs”… even the lighter songs, like “It’s a Big Old Goofy World,” have that extra dimension, like watching an aspen twitch and glitter in the wind on a perfect summer day, moments that make life the most precious thing going. (bonus: right in in the middle of the version of “Angel From Montgomery” chosen for this collection, the live one done with Bonnie Raitt, whoever is doing the guitar solo muffs a note, muffs it loudly, and keeps on going. Rather than “fix” it, this is the canonical version of the song. Makes perfect sense to me.)

71) the Rolling Stones: Exile on Main Street

If you have to own 1 Stones CD, this is my recommendation, because I only own one and this is it. And because it is excellent from start to finish, is a double record, has none of the “hits” you’ve heard too many times already, and because Keith Richards wants you to. Hell, even the cover is iconic. “Venilator Blues,” baby. (bonus: Marianne Faithful and Anita Pallenberg on AbFab.)

>>Monthly count: I have 4 more CDs that I listened to in Nov to write about, but I want to go do something else, so they will have to count toward Decemeber’s total. And, I need to get the seeqpod list together. In the meantime, I listened to–well, listened to and wrote about–33 CDs in November. Auugghhh! I did 5 less than last month… need to pick up the pace more, and many of them will be Christmas CDs, since I decided I can go out of order to listen to them. Shut up. I can too.

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