Some things I've enjoyed this year/1: songs

I begin the (more) arbitrary (than usual) listing of items for the years end. Today, I'm going to list several songs that I quite enjoyed - songs that existed independently of albums that I purchased or songs that were unfortunately attached to rather mediocre records.

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Archer Prewitt - "Judy, Judy" from Wilderness

Whenever I listen to this record, I think of that one Basil Bunting poem that goes something like "...remember ascetics, prophets, half-wits / young girls with little tender tits / that fellmonger death is waiting over all." Anyway, it's something like that. I think its the pencil-sketch on the cover. But the record for the most part, like Basil Bunting, I cannot latch onto, tho I can recognize its inherent quality as far as composition. Of course, that's the way I feel about a lot of this Chicago stuff - a lot of Jim O'Rourke records, Sea and Cake, Tortoise, Shrimp Boat, etc. "Judy, Judy" is the little tender tit in the center of this record that gets my attention and sticks out in my memory. Kinda sounding like classic rock radio staple America without being quite so discouraging (America makes me feel as if its not really worth it to do anything at all, ever, for any reason). And how can you argue with the too-polite-to-be-insistent drums coupled with the lyric "Judy, Judy, come on..."? You can't. You just get sort of exasperated and sink back into the couch. The sweet sound of failing up.

Andrew Thompson - "We're In Business"/"Don't Get Down" from Egad!

Tho the rest of his debut record is just as awful as the title would suggest, these two tracks push thru the rest in order to bring the heavy 1983 vibe. "We're In Business" is the whitest Off the Wall outtake and probable contender for "Best non-Parliament/Funkadelic Song About Robots". "Don't Get Down" probably would've been song of the year until I found out that the chorus lyric is in fact "Cheer up, Isaac" instead of the infinitely more brilliant and ambiguously gorgeous "Sheila...Isaac". Still, an affecting little synthpop track that would dovetail nicely with "We're In Business" had the two been released as a 7" instead of a full length. Strangely, this is on the same label that gave us Edan's Beauty and the Beat record that had all the heads going "hells yes."

Mike Jones & Paul Wall + Britney Spears - "Tippin' Toxic" (Hollertronix Mash) from Hollertronix Vol. 2

I am still not 100% sure about what Hollertronix is, exactly (record label? studio? artist collective? website distribution center?), I only know that when I see Hollertronix attached to something, I give it a listen. And tho this sometimes unsettling mash-up is far from the best I've found with that tag, it's an oddly compelling track right from the get-go. It does miss Britney's tech-fucked vocal fills, but the "Tippin'..." chorus slides in so perfectly around Bloodshy and Avant's brilliant string hook (possibly the most genius hook since Mary Wells' strings/handclaps/vibes combo on the stupendously unbefuckinglievable "Honey Boy" single) that it's hard to really fault any of the clunkiness of the verses. And whenever I put this on, I can't help but see that really bored-looking chick from the "Still Tippin'" video - you know, the one dancing in front of the turntable in the yard - compelling, if rather confusing.

I was gonna put up the track here, but since YSI isn't cooperating, I'll put it up later along with some more song favorites. But for now, the internet and I need to rest.

A comment on the previous post

Now that I can make it past the first 3 bars of this song without getting all emotional, I feel it necessary to mention to anyone interested in the song that Tom Waits does eventually come in to add his voice to the proceedings, which changes the meaning of the titular phrase to mean something more along the lines of "I use Jesus' blood to stave off the impending spectre of eternal doom and damnation...bwahahaha." Still, tho, a powerful little excerpt, even if I would like, now, for there to be a "tramp" version and a "Tom Waits" version. Ah, well.

Soon, I will be talking about "Things That I Liked in Twenty oh Five" and the corresponding "Things I Really Could Have Done Without in Twenty oh Five".

Also in the works is a special project, undertaken to honor dance music and Continental theory. We'll see if I have the stamina/ability to complete it.

I am fucking sobbing

I am not kidding right now. I can't remember the last time I did this. My hand is covered in snot and my glasses have just fogged up. I can't explain this. I want to put this song on a CD and mail it to everyone I have ever known. This is so fucking cheesy.

Yeah, I took this shit from another blog. Yeah, I've only listened to it three times. Maybe this is shitty. Whatever. I wish I had this kind of faith in anything.

Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet

Goddamn it. I've gotta go dry off the underside of my beard.

The f[cr]unk accent/2

I'm sort of feeling guilty, because it seems like the only reason I have this little lot in the middle of the luminiferous ether is so that I can do year-end summaries. My summary of 2004 was pretty damn fine, if I may say so, and I may, since I can delete any comments that say otherwise, yet I haven't really done anything (other than an unfinished analysis of Cannibal Ox's The Cold Vein) with nearly as much aplomb - excepting, of course, dependent-clause-twister (my own Joycean game, (cf. M. Foster's paper "Oh! The places young polits will go!" for more fine examples) not nearly as much fun for you - witness fending thru this textfarm). In any event, I keep hoping that all will change, but since I cannot seem to get my shit together enuff to establish a solid hour of mixtapery for WTUL's temporary stacks (methinks I'm agonizing too much), I cannot reasonably hope to get it together in time to develop a good body of work, a voice, a paycheck, etc., before Greenland turns into a mountain dew slurpee and we all duck and cover into Colorado. By which I mean next summer, because all you fuckwits and yr four-wheel drive vehicles are the stones in this glass greenhouse of putrid vomit (see, Joyce would've said "snotgreen") and I shouldn't be throwing up because I'm not doing much better in my Chevy brand-name-was-filed-off-along-with-serial-number-because-I'm-pretty-sure-I-got-it-hot -off-of-the-same-Puerto-Ricans-I-got-my-dog-from. His name is Tristan and the car doesn't have a name because it sucks cocks and the passenger side door frightens people when they open it. We blame all of his eccentricities on his Puerto Rican heritage but none of his cuteness. This is because deep down all white people are racist fucks who can't be trusted to wipe their own asses, much less run a legislature. Not that I'm saying black people or chicanos or latinos or asians would be any better. The only people qualified to govern are blue libertarians. If we're going to have the end of the world, it may as well surge forth with a guy from Montana made of silver.

How did I get here?

Luckily for me (but unluckily for you, since I can't guarantee internet connection consistently), I'm only here in PHX for a scant 11 days before I return to the Irish Channel and begin looking for different things with water lines to throw up on. The soundtrack will be Neil Young's "Song X", but that's not at all what I came to show you today - I came for funk, and "Song X" is a pirate song, and only good for getting wasted and vomiting on flood damage.

Actually, that's somewhere between funk and crunk, which means I'm rethinking my original mission.

Neil Young - Song X

Now see, if I were sleeping well, you wouldn't be privy to all this. Buy this record if you dare.

The funk accent/1

It's really been too long. And I don't say that as greeting, I say that as self-flagellation - it's really been too long.

Well, I'm making my return for any and all selves interesting in contorting - with a new series! Yes, the last series was left off, but just like all zombified swamp-dwellers it's coming back, more dissolved than ever.

For now tho, I'm opening my heart to funk in unlikely places. It's a little-known fact that a lot of bands are actually funk bands. I bet that you, for instance, didn't know that. Well, it's true. And we'll start with a wonderful little example from an oft-overlooked "funky" era, the early 1980s.

Normally, a record called Discipline wouldn't be a harbinger of funk to come. Of course, normally a record called Larks Tongues in Aspic wouldn't be a harbinger of good music to come. So, with King Crimson, we have to take things in stride and open our minds as best we can. We also must consider that, at the time of this incarnation of KC, the band had been on haitus for the better part of a decade, and had just added erstwhile head talker Adrian Belew. I shouldn't have to tell you about his role, but if I do, you'll love (one of) my next posts.

When I first began listening to a lot of records from the early 80s era, one of the first things I had to get over was the "clean chorus" effect that guitarists seemed to love. I think it might've had something to do with cocaine. Or art school. Or the pernicious influence of Billy Ocean. Even on the best clean chorus-ed songs, the effect teeters very close to dismantling whatever good songwriting has worked so hard to assemble, like Neu!'s "Cassetto" without the helpful backstory.

King Crimson - Elephant Talk

Here, Frippertronics work their magic on a cleanly chorused guitar by coming very close to wiping it out. Damn. But the very slight off-kilteredness of the guitars is one of the very few instances where the extreme chorusing is actually put to somewhat effective use (not effective enough to warrant turning the "depth" knob past 4, but you know).

King Crimson's The ConstrucKtion of Light is one of the only records I've ever smashed to pieces on the floorboard of my car, so be careful when navigating the rough seas. I wouldn't want anyone to get hurt.

Start here. You can overcome yr fear of the early-70s double LP later.