marc pietrzykowski

Mercy, mercy, the banks are failing, but then global warming is going to turn shit biblical, so why worry? Why has that spline of logic not propagated across the mumble room yet? Why do commentors continue furrowing their brows and pretending to care? Maybe they fear riots, or maybe they know that would be the end of their careers as commentors. Not I! Such a lucky fool, am I…

122-123) The Replacements: Hootenany –and– Antony and the Johnsons: I Am A Bird Now

Both these CDs were in the Replacements’ case; usually I set aside empty cases and try to fill them as I discover hitchikers, but I haven’t found the AJ case yet, so… I am listening to both. The Replacements is good, drunken, annoying, well-written, sloppily arranged, stupid and brilliant, like most Replacements albums. Same goes for the Anthony and the Johnsons record. No, of course not; Antony is a transgender chamber pop singer whose voice sounds like sparrows falling from the sky, and so is alternately gorgeous and precious. The songwriting is strong on roughly half the songs, hitting a spacy lounge stride that lifts the surreal-yet-confessional lyrics above posturing; the other half try to get over with atmosphere and are thus cloying. Too bad I couldn’t skip those songs, but I am duty bound to listen to every track, (bonus: Antony and Tommy Stinson are engaged! It could happen.)

124) Melvins: the bootlicker

I read an interview a while back with King Buzzo, the Melvins’ guitarist, wherein he complained about Motorhead “doing the same record over and over.” So, I guess the next Melvins record will be a collaboration with Caetano Veloso? His comment told me two things: don’t read interviews with musicians, because they are, along with athletes and actors, the people who we hear the most from that have the least to say; and that many artists would do well to stop worrying about being “original,” the very word is a bankrupt signifier, dragging the economy of artistic expression down. (bonus: maybe they will do a CD with Caetano Veloso, I’d buy that.)

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Ok, maybe not such a hot idea, the fairly tale inspired by CDs bit. But I have to finish the story, so I shall, then back to just listening to the damn things and writing the first thing that pops into my head.

(part 1 is in the previous post).

115-121

Mr. G. was, it seemed, a Mister, as he had an adam’s apple, a man’s hands and feet, and a man’s face, but he also seemed to have prominent bosoms, and on second glance his face didn’t seem so manly. “You, I think, are not a girl,” Ravi said. “No,” Mr. G. replied, “I am in the process of becoming pansexual, but my other half is gone, and without her, I have no model.” He stood three heads taller than Ravi, and many more heads taller than Bob. He swayed back and forth gently as he stared the two travelers up and down for an uncomfortable period of time.

“Want some E? Ribbit,” Bob asked.

“Thanks no, I am past drugs now. Unless you have some nice Jenkem. Oh never mind, perhaps I should become a pan-racial being, do you thing I could borrow some of your characteristics, and you could borrow some of mine?” He asked Ravi.

“I think I prefer not to have bosoms, though I am not sure about that,” Ravi said. “Might we stay with you until the monsoons are finished, and we can talk some more about this exchange?”

“Yes, yes, of course, welcome,” answered Mr. G., and he led them into a large room strewn with pillows. The scent of cinammon wafted through the air, and music tinkled gently from the walls.

“What a lovely song,” Ravi said.

“Indeed, that song is by Stevie Wonder (Original Musiqarium I), a very famous blind person in the United States. His blindness gives him superpowers, as you can hear…” Ravi and Mr. G. swayed gently together, until Bob suddenly began singing “I just called… to say… I love you… I just–”

“Please! Hush, frog creature. Eat this.” Mr. G. extracted a fly the size of a tennis ball from his pocket and threw it on the ground.

“Cor!” Bob leaped down from Ravi’s shoulder and began gnawing on the fly.

“That is a very large fly.” Ravi said. Mr. G. nodded. “Yes, my friend David brings me all kinds of strange insects, it seems they emerge from his ears as he sleeps and then gather at the foot of his bed, awaiting orders. He believes he too is some kind of insect, though I think not.”

“What does he do?”

“Ah, he is a musician too. Everyone is a musician!” Mr. G. shouted, and flipped a hidden switch near the doorjam, causing an image to appear on the far wall:

“You see how he might think he is an insect? But he is not, he is a musician. He once had a very famous band (Talking Heads, Remain in Light), but no longer. Now his fame is more dispersed. He brings me the insects, and I do not know what to do with them, though now I can give them to your friend.”

“He is not exactly my friend,” Ravi said.

“No matter,” Mr. G. replied. “At least he can eat insects. My cousin is part frog, but has only Frog Eyes (The Bloody Hand), not a Frog Mouth, so he is no use. But he is also a musician!”

“Oh dear, I am afraid that is is true, everyone is a musician.”

“It is true. We cannot differentiate between ourselves, and must become a single being…”

As he pronounced these last words, Mr. G. began to expand, slowly at first, then more quickly, until he had filled the entire room. From his pores a kind of acid began to leak, breaking down the cellular structure of Ravi and Bob and of Mr. G. too, until the entire room was gorged with grey goo. Then the grey goo began to hum, and then to hum some more. After several weeks of humming, the grey goo had developed several patterns that it liked to repeat, and it was humming one of these when there was a knock at the door. Every person in the world stood outside, listening to the song, so the grey goo began to seep out into the yard, and soon it had absorbed them all. The end.

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Only 21 cds in January, and I haven’t posted my first Feb chunk until the 9th! So bad. But, it is the big slush season in Western NY, Jan/Feb/March have a way of sucking at your soul, grey skies and crusty black snow piles, sudden warm spells that tease one with sunlight, then back into snow… I like snow, but that’s a different story, I’m making excuses.

115-XXX)

Once upon a time, a charming young sitarist named Ravi woke to find monsoon season had come early, and with much suddenness (Ravi Shankar: The Sounds of India). The rain beat at his roof relentlessly, and found its way through every hole in the thatch. In fact, Ravi woke, despite the fur that the previous evening’s party had stuffed into his skull, because one very fat raindrop landed exactly on the bridge of his nose. “Oh, bother,” Ravi thought; “I suppose I will have to go find someone to rethatch my roof, once the monsoon is over. In the meantime, I had better find somewhere else to live!” So Ravi took his sitar and an umbrella and set off on the path to the city, listening to the ragas that the rain played on the leaves, 5 note patterns all.

After walking for half a day, Ravi stopped to rest beneath a plane tree. He took out his sitar and began playing an afternoon raga. Before he had made his way twice through the movement, he felt a strange, wet, sandy sensation on his wrist, and turned to see a bright yellow frog stabbing at him with his tongue. “Hello,” the frog said, in a froggy voice. “Why, hello,” said Ravi, “how are you, Mr…?

“Bob,” said the frog.

“Mr. Bob?” Ravi answered.

“No, Mr. Holroyd,” said the frog, “but call me Bob” (Bob Holroyd: without within).

“Ah, Bob,” Ravi said. “And why do you lick at me with your sandy tongue, Mr. Bob?”

“Just Bob. Ribbit. I’m a musician too, ya know,” Bob replied. “I play chill-out music. And like that.”

Ravi looked at the frog and said nothing. And said nothing. And said nothing.

“You wanna hear some?” Bob said, once he could bear the silence no longer.

“Yes, you are Bob, yes? I forgot. Did I hear the music already?” Ravi asked, and stood up and continued walking toward the city. Bob hopped up onto Ravi’s shoulder and kept talking: “I make ambient world music. I play the mixing board, and Reason, and Acid”–”what are these instruments?” Ravi interjected.

“Do you want some E?” Bob answered.

“Yes, thank you, are you a girl?” Ravi replied, and together the two musicians continued toward the city, chatting happily under the umbrella.

Soon, the road began to grow steep, and Ravi and Bob had some trouble making their way through the mud. After some messy clambering, they arrived at a small, bent building painted a furious lime green. The sign in front of the building read “Templ Uv Psychick Youth” (Psychic TV: Dreams Less Sweet). Ravi pulled at a rope that hung beside the sign, and the sound of a goat braying into a vat of crumbled wax paper echoed from within. It seemed there was no door, but before the goat had brayed thrice, the travelers heard a creaky, exhausted voice warbling at them from all directions: “Oh, very boring, very boring, is that a frog?”

Ravi and Bob turned in a circle, and then in another circle, and then in a third circle, and they became dizzy and fell in the mud. When they looked up again, they saw: Mr. G.

to be continued…

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