Castles Made of Sand

Photographs by Richard Ehrlich. And more.

Bartok, The KKK, Textile Mills, Harry Potter

The incredible story of Sandor Teszler.

Wonderland

Yeon Doo Jung recreates children's drawings, and photographs them. 

The results are both clever and extraordinary.

This Is Not Hamfisted

That's my friend Sam Champion on the left sitting all inconsequential like but delivering the liquor sword vein he is so good at, and on the right is someone I've never heerd of til tonight, Liz Durrett, who I like a lot. This song. Them. Together. Good.

Sunday Kind of Love

The first time I heard this song was back in the late 80's, after an all-night, mind-bending acid trip. A bunch of us had commandeered a friend's house while his parents were out of town, and proceeded to have a freak-in. One song we kept playing, over and over, was called Down to the Moon, by Andreas Vollenweider, who is a sort of new-age, world music guy. I'm sure it was pretty cheesy, but at the time it was like wind in our psychedelic sails. The next morning, we trudged around the house, cleaning up and trying to pull our faculties back together. The radio was playing, and this song came on. It sounded so damn good, and it still does.

Etta James - Sunday Kind of Love

What the world needs now...

Bill Evans - Peace Piece

I Ask You

What scene would I want to be enveloped in
more than this one,
an ordinary night at the kitchen table,
floral wallpaper pressing in,
white cabinets full of glass,
the telephone silent,
a pen tilted back in my hand?

It gives me time to think
about all that is going on outside—
leaves gathering in corners,
lichen greening the high grey rocks,
while over the dunes the world sails on,
huge, ocean-going, history bubbling in its wake.

But beyond this table
there is nothing that I need,
not even a job that would allow me to row to work,
or a coffee-colored Aston Martin DB4
with cracked green leather seats.

No, it's all here,
the clear ovals of a glass of water,
a small crate of oranges, a book on Stalin,
not to mention the odd snarling fish
in a frame on the wall,
and the way these three candles—
each a different height—
are singing in perfect harmony.

So forgive me
if I lower my head now and listen
to the short bass candle as he takes a solo
while my heart
thrums under my shirt—
frog at the edge of a pond—
and my thoughts fly off to a province
made of one enormous sky
and about a million empty branches.

- Billy Collins

Top 40 Smash Hits!

Joe Morris is a jazz guitarist, though jazz might not be quite the right word. Once he gets going, it's more like shapes than melodies or scale-oriented stuff. It's free but it ain't cheap.

Joe Morris - Way In

 

God Dwells There

Bulleh Shah (1680 - 1757) was a Sufi poet and peace activist.

Abida Parveen is a revered Pakistani singer.

Vote for Miles

I probably have more Miles Davis in my collection than any other artist. Why? Because he consistently assembled the most bad-ass players, writers  and conceptualists in music and played them like an orchestra, both in the studio and on-stage. Over the past decade or so, major creative periods of his career have been systematically organized, compiled and reissued. The latest, and possibly last in this series, is the remarkable music made around the time of his controversial album On the Corner. Reviled by the critics, fetishized by the crate-diggers, it's not for the casual jazz listener - it has more in common with Stockhausen, James Brown and Hendrix than Charlie Parker or even Ornette Coleman. Scratch-funk guitar deconstructions. Tabla and sitar. Distorto wah-wah trumpet. Funky-ass bass lines from the 21-year old Michael Henderson. Drum grooves that distinctly predict drum n' bass. Yeah, it's the shit all right. The box set has 6-CDs worth of music, so it's hard to pick one representative track. This previously unreleased jem will have to do.

Miles Davis - Jabali

Slinky Nougat

My Heart

Bowery BumB

I was standing outside an ART opening tonight, and a guy comes up to me and says, "You're in that band Need New Body." "I wish I was," I says. This is for that. And also, I promise I'll post something not from Youtube soon. What can I say, I'm visually stiimulated.
Thanks for dinner John and Dawn.

Revolting Little Chihuahua

This song is pretty fucking awesome.

Grinderman - No Pussy Blues

Pass The Biscuits

Here's another from the vinyl vaults. Written by Bobbie Gentry, it's the story of a country boy's suicide, as related by a family sitting around the dinner table. The daughter seems to lose her appetite when she hears the news; Billie Joe was her boyfriend. 

Bobbie Gentry - Ode To Billie Joe

First Step

I finally hooked up my record player again. To celebrate, here is a song off the Small Faces first album, First Step, written by the late Ronnie Lane.

Small Faces - Devotion

Did You Know

Showmirman

God Does Not Approve

My Pen

Why I Miss California...

Kleenex

Between Two Ferns

More German TV

The Monks

One of the only good things to come out of military spending
on German TV in 1966.

Neil Diamond Shilo

The Greatest Story Ever Told

Cary Grant's Thoughts on LSD

I learned may things in the quiet of that small room. I learned to accept the responsibility for my own actions, and to blame myself and no one else for circumstances of my own creating. I learned that no one else was keeping me unhappy but me; that I could whip myself better than any other guy in the joint.

Read more...

Phish in the Trash

Saw this today on Bleeker, and it made me sad. I don't think I've ever heard a Phish song, certainly not in its entirety, but whenever someone takes a picture of a band down from their wall, and a framed one at that, well, there's a little hurt. It gives you pause.

How's Yur Daughter?

I had this song tattooed across my chest for a couple of years in SF. Right between my bosom, down my sternum and over my belly. It was my treasure trail when I was a sad tornado.

Cah Jumpin in Mass

When The Soul Is Settled

Rahim Alhaj - Taqsim Maqam Ajam

We Are...

One of my favorite sources of new music - and by 'new' I really mean new to me - is the folks of We Are... who podcast a new mix a couple times a month. I think the guys that put it together are mostly electronic musicians and producers but the mixes are all over the map: Krautrock, English Folk, Avant Jazz, Dub, etc. It's pretty much all good and it's the perfect antidote to iPod burnout. Their latest is actually a 3-part, all hands on deck extravaganza, and it's wicked good. Subscribe to their podcast (or just download directly from their site), support the artists, and spread the word.

We Are...

Here is a track from Lukid, who both appears in, and is a contributor to the We Are... mixes.

Lukid - Western Swing

Kokiriko Bushi Yes!

Guess I'm Falling In Love

One of my favorite Velvet Underground tracks is the instrumental version of 'Guess I'm Falling In Love' that shows up on the posthumous odds 'n' ends collection called Another View. When the band re-united in 1993, they played this song, lyrics and all but it doesn't really compare. The words actually detract from the giddy, careening fuzz-thumping joyride that is the original. 

Guess I'm Falling In Love (Instrumental Version) - The Velvet Underground

Ballad of Barbara Allen

Look what Roscoe Holcomb sent me today >>

Have a great night with your girlfriend!‏
From:	Roscoe Holcomb (sypnibmfum@nibm.nl)
Sent:	Thu 1/03/08 1:03 PM
Reply-to:	sypnibmfum@nibm.nl
To:	anthony@diablodulce.com

Joyful celebration to you!!! Having asperity with your sexual life? Our meds contend excellently with this trouble!

Retrieve your confidence, and have many splendid nights with your girl!

Unexpected but thoughtful. It's nice to see that he's keeping busy. Thank you Roscoe!

Support your local Giantess

I pre-ordered the deluxe edition of the forthcoming Black Mountain CD and my order included a couple free digital downloads. One of them was the Insound Holiday Sampler, called Let's Get Digital 4. I was hoping it was a collection of Christmas-themed Dubstep versions of Olivia Newton John songs...but alas, no. It's merely a collection of 2007 favorites that Insound and Mavi Jeans put out to sweeten your tassles around the yuletide kebab fire this holiday season.

In keeping with yesterday's Turkish-related post, Mavi was founded in 1991, in Istanbul. If you have an extra 3 minutes, go to their website. Soon you will be looking at images of scowling young men and women wearing jeans on their heads. All I can say is...finally. 

I've only listened to 1/2 of the sampler it so far but one track stood out from the zeros and ones - 'Stella Please' by Giantess, a Vancouver-based rock band with connections to Destroyer, Black Mountain, et.al. They used to be called The Battles but changed their name as to not be confused with Battles. 

The lyrics of the song essentially seem to be a guy begging his girl not to give up 'cos look how hard he's trying to better himself. Which is pathetic - I know because I've been there - but done in a charming way here, with some nice wordplay and a little bit of elegant swagger on the riff.

Wait, did I just use the word 'wordplay'? Yugh.

Anyway, the song is pretty bad-ass, in a shambolic pop, Pavement-y kind of way. Check it out:

Stella Please - Giantess

I stumbled around the web looking for more info on the band and ended up on the MySpace page for another band named Giantess, which I initially mistook for the same band. But I soon realized that I was an idiot and that they are a different band altogether. Still awake? Great - then go check out 'Firing Squad':

(Portland-based) Giantess on MySpace

Pretty sweet, eh? I'm kinda burned out on acoutic guitar fingerpickery with breathy male vocals but this one got to me - maybe because it's so simple and lovely and the chorus climbs like a stealthy vine. The other tune up there, 'End It', is also really beautiful and sung by the female half of these sleepy romantics. 

Now go start a Giantess in your town. 

Turkish Star Wars

Who knew that there was a Turkish version of Star Wars?
Probably a lot of Star Wars geeks and film school hipsters.
It's completely ridiculous, as you can see from this clip:

I think my favorite part is when she washes his hands with lettuce.

all's quiet....

on new year's day. 

One of my favorite bands from the olden days of my youth was called 9353.

They were sort of punk rock in attitude and 'scene' but stylistically they were much broader than that, incorporating elements from pop, psychedelia, country and what not. Not so much in a John Zorn, musical collage kinda way - more like they took so much acid that the walls between genres literally melted before their eyes. Here is one of their best-loved tracks. 

Famous Last Words

I think it's kinda appropriate for the New Year's tradition of reflection and renewal.