Gleaning

Heckler Spray. A sonic break-beat...



"This Malkmus idiot is some kinda song writing genius" Gary Young.



The last post was meant to be about the Boy...it got outta hand and now I'm obsessing.

My compulsive issues with The Fall are well documented, and mercilessly ridiculed by some, in these pages. Of course, it's not just the brilliance of Mark E. Smith that causes these bouts...brilliant though he is...there's a crack in my mind and right now it's being filled with nonsense and racket. Pavement.*

I've also finally figured out how to edit videos...kinda.

Recorder Grot.


(NSWF)
A tore-up but steady rhythm...when the lyric starts, with a squeal, it's stretched beyond melody. Then almost at the point of white noise it breaks into an Arena-Rock solid riff...claps and all...before descending back into jibbberish and noise. A slice of genius...this one.

"I forget sometimes how much I like them."

Unlike most of my obsessions, Martha's on board with this one. Not so much the Drag City, recording project stuff but, the actual songs that came later. By the time Slanted and Enchanted was released they were an actual band...for better or worse.

Elevate Me Later.



The Reflex by Duran Duran was once hilariously described as "cocaine set to music."** The crescendo at the end (2:10-20) and the breezy way it glides back to earth is about as close to the sound of a toke as you're likely to find.***

"Swingin' nunchucks like you just don't care"....If you want to know what my early 20's sounded like...when the past never crossed my mind and I had no notion of the future. I just was...here it is.



Looking back on it...not such a great time...mostly I was drunk but, the music was good.

There was one last great album...probably the best of the lot.

"They all sounded like hits to me...but I was smokin' a lot of pot." Malkmus on Wowee Zowee



For about six months Wowee Zowee was considered their first misstep...then a round of on-second-thought reviews started. The album was a masterpiece but, by that time the damage was done. The egos here were obviously more fragile than they may have appeared. I think it's what killed 'em. There were two more records but they didn't sound much better than the contractual obligations that they were.

Alright maybe that'll get it outta my system...thanks for humoring me.

*My Bloody Valentine is another recurring problem of mine...don't be surprised if I spend a month in the future posting When You Sleep every other day.

**Kibber did that.

***As a responsible parent I do not partake..and besides, it is illegal. Still, I am amazed that one can legally soak their brain in pure corn liquor but, grass puts you at odds with the law.

With a Sidekick Like This....

who needs a Nemisis?

This is a story about a cokecola....



but, it's more than that. It's a story about trust and the importance of being able to rely on the people in your life.

Them little bottles of cokecola are irresitable to me...just enough to finish off before it goes flat and they get so cold in that glass.



Especially if you've got a cooler full of dry ice.

You have to be careful though. By some mysterious force...cokecola exapnds when it freezes and it will blow that bottle to atoms.

So, I texted my man..."Parsons...do be a good fellow and text me the word Coke when you get this."

I'm a busy man y'all...ooobviously...and I thought it was best, in order to avoid an explosion, if I had a reminder to get the cokecola outta the cooler before it blew. I figured it would take a minute or two for him to get around to responding...

Immediately there's a buzz and the word "Coke, Sir" appears on my screen. Since it was Tuesday...or Monday...or Thursday...I should have known he'd just be loafin' about. Listen now, and this is coming from a Southroner no less...this &%$#@& neeever works. Never. If he had it any better he'd have to be twins.

"Too soon Parsons. I've got a coke on the freeze and I need you to remind me to get it out before it explodes. Give it a minute or two."

Like I said, I'm busy...I'm out there hustlin'...tryin' to put food on the table...shoes on my boys feet. That's why I need somebody who's got my back...who'll keep an eye on my blind spot...a sidekick.


I could rely on Martha but, how many times can you be told..."I don't have time for this foolishness right now. I'm actually working"...before you have to relieve that person of their duties? What does that even mean..."I'm actually working"?

There's The Sister...right, the same Sister that accussed me of being possesed by a demon?

What about Allan? I couldn't even get hold of him the last time I had an entire day to kill in Lucedale.

That leaves Adamparsons...who, it turns out, is as unreliable as he is readily available.

Ten minutes pass...and without a word from Adam...it occures to me that I have a coke in the cooler that ought to be good and cold by now. I couldn't stop the truck fast enough. When I lifted the lid I could see, through the vapors of the dry ice, glimpses of the red lable and my mouth started to tingle with anticipation. Man was it cold...what I thought were little flakes of ice, had formed at the top of the bottle. Perfect.

I rushed back to the drivers seat...I could already feel it buring my throat. I dug my lighter under the cap....pulled...and...



Once I recovered from the blast...I sent this picture to Adamparsons to shame him for falling down on the job but, all I got in response...ten minutes later...was the following text..

"You have no idea how hard I've been laughing."

With a support network like this...it's a wonder I'm still alive.


And just so we don't have to create a new tag...

Have a Genuine Grouse

That groove cuts so deep...it makes me light headed.


(a little language...our friends there seem to have a more cozy relationship with the Fword)

"Superficially ugly" music? Yeah I guess...if you never heard of rocknroll. Jesse.



Let it sink in Nat...ignore the haters.

Adam's Favorite Song EVER....*



Mine...



___________________________________




*My words not his.

Disease Ridden Southern Spectres...Dusty, Organic and Psychic

(Indian Mounds, Pocahontas)



(Yazoo City)

(Perverted By Language is the greatest record ever recorded and I am unanimous in this...it is the pink album with the Link Wray reference.)

You would be forgiven for assuming that as I trailed through The Delta I'd have some sorta blues in the car but, you'd be wrong. That player has been jammed with Fall Cds for a month now...and last week was no exception.


(Inverness)



(Inverness)



(Indianola)
I can't decide whether it's odd or not but they seem right at home on 49.

Even for Me it's Gettin' a Little Ridiculouls.

6:21 pm Central Time Zone (Zulu 6.00)

Mack Donalds on Government St. in Mobile, Alabama.

Forced off the interstate by traffic. I've come this way 855 times in my life and I've never seen anything like it. It's a parking lot 20 miles from the tunnel. 'Course Government and Canal are starting to back up now too.

Mostly the usual in here...20 minutes in line to get a cup of coffee that's so hot I have blood trickling down my chin. I have to say...it's the first time I've ever been asked if the coffee was "for here or to go." Funniest thing though was the yankee in line with us...you can spot them immediately in these situations. All you have to do is turn around to see who's breathing down your neck. They really can't help it, especially the northeasterners, there is no space where they live...personal or otherwise. Plus people will cut your throat to get in front of you...even if it's just for a mcnugget. This dood...geeze, his man boobs were almost brushing the fella in front of me (I was a respectable two feet off to the side...just like the good'un that came in behind me...we are loath to do lines.

Post #6

I've let it go...sorta.

It's curious to me that two people can hear the same sounds and come to completely different opinions about it.

Would I be outta line in saying that music is unique as a form of expression...it doesn't really convey information (I know it can be used to convey information, but doesn't that make it language?). You can write a peice of music and title it Confederate Veterans Day, but really who could hear it without the title and know what it was about? You could make the sound of a ducks quack with a kazoo, but it's the sound of a duck...and I don't think I'm being tautalogical about this.

There are sequences of sound that we recognize as being complete and sperate from other sounds, and these are different than a ducks quack or language. You could string a series of duck quacks into a song, but it's the arrangment that would set it off as a song and not the sound of ducks quacking. One might mistake a language for music, but that would depend on the listener being ignorant of it's actual purpose.

I feel like I may be getting beyond my depth here...in fact I know I am and I better move along before somebody stops by and pops my floaties.

I know there's this business of lyrics...they can be carried on music but they aren't the music...and they can be ignored. At least I know it's possible or I would never have paid for three different copies of Double Nickles on a Dime. Maybe they can't, but that's a different issue. You might say a lyric is depressing, but how can a piece of music be depressing.

Anyway...it's different it's not something you have to interpret...you just hear it and it shakes your rump, taps your foot, or whatever, or not.


How can two people with functioning ears have different reactions to the same ineffable sequence of sounds.? What else besides hearing is going on?

Post #5 1/2

In the same patient and deliberate tone she uses when telling my son he can't wear his tennis shoes to church, the wife has informed me that...

"Nobody wants to read a blog about tHE Fall Honey."

Fine then.

I'll let it go...for now.

Post #5

Y'all should be gettin' an idea of what's going on here.

I'm surrounded by lovable people who claim to find me confusing and even sometimes depressing (depressing?...seriously?), and who are genuinely deficient when it comes to aesthetic taste.

They're not dumb either...



That's one of my dearest friends there...you think he's dumb? Look closely at the picture. He's wearing a beret OK?

Still...he haaaates The Fall...(I say he hates The Fall because that's how I have interpreted his refusal to listen to them after a couple of bars)...and he's the one who made up some story about noticing but not noticing my my pi'tures.

As far as I know their ears work o.k.

How can they miss the rhythmic groove of a song like Wings?

Y'all think they're just being obstinate..or what?

Post #4

"I've tried not to bang on too much about Mark E. Smith of The Fall but if we do secede, he will be on the banknotes, the proud but self-satirising laureate of 'northern white crap that talks back'."
Stuart Maconie, Pies and Prejudice

BANG!BANG! THE MIGHTY FALL!



The Fall Wings:
Day by day.
The moon gains on me.
Day by day.
The moon gains on me.

Purchased pair of flabby wings.
I took to doing some HOVERING.
Here is a list of incorrect things.

HOVERED mid-air outside a study.
An academic kneaded his chin,
set in the dust of some cheap magazines.
His academic rust, could not burn them up.

Recruited some gremlins.
To get me clear of the airline routes.
I paid them off with stuffing from my wings.
They had some fun with those
cheapo airline snobs.(Are any of you seriously gonna try and deny the greatness of this?)

The stuffing loss made me hit a timelock.
I ended up in the eighteen sixties.
I've been there for one hundred

and twenty five years.
A small alteration of the past.
Can turn time into space.

Ended up under Ardwick Bridge.
With some veterans from the U.S. Civil War.
They were under Irish patronage.
We shot dead a stupid sergeant,
but I got hit in the crossfire.
The lucky hit made me hit a time lock.

But, when I got back.
The place I made the purchase, no longer exists
I'd erased it under the bridge.

Day by day.
The moon came towards me
By such things.
The moon came towards me.

So now I sleep in ditches.
And hide away from nosey kids.
The wings rot and feather under me.
The wings rot and curl right under me.
A small alteration of the past.
Can turn time into space.
Small touches can alter more
than a mere decade.



O'er grassy dale, and lowland scene
Come see, come hear, the English Scheme.
The lower-class, want brass, bad chests, scrounge fags.
The clever ones tend to emigrate
Like your psychotic big brother, who left home
For jobs in Holland, Munich, Rome
He's thick but he struck it rich, switch
The commune crap, camp bop, middle-class, flip-flop
Guess that's why they end up in bands
He's the green piece in us all
He's the creep-creep in us all
Condescends to black men
Very nice to them
They talk of Chile while driving through Haslingdon (Deny this line at the peril of your own credibility)
You got sixty hour weeks, and stone stone toilet back-gardens
Peter Cook's jokes, bad dope, check shirts, lousy groups
Point their fingers at America
Down pokey quaint streets in Cambridge
Cycles our distant spastic heritage
Its a gay red, roundhead, army career, grim head
If we was smart we'd emigrate
____________________________________
Baffelingly I am surrounded by people who haaaaaaaaaaate The Fall...Really?

Not only are they denying the greatest mind in English (as in English English) letters since Orwell...they're denying what may be the only example of organic English Rock-n-Roll. This is Bo Diddley playing CAN covers for Fat Possum Records...spontaneously arising like magic from Prestwich.

Why do y'all hate rocknroll?

Give it up...They are the greatest of all Time.

Post #1

My corner of the house.
The Missus doesn't share my taste in Art, but what can you expect from a woman who claims to not like The Fall.

Really Sugar?

My best friend was in here last night...he hadn't been around since I hung the pictures.  He didn't even notice.  What are you gonna do....he thinks grits are best made with water and that butter is optional.


How did I come to be surrounded by cretins...lovable as they all are?