Archive for the ‘Tunes’ Category

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I’ll tell the truth, so bear witness.

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De La Soul – Say No Go

Okay, so, so, so, so, so, so – NOW. (A tip: when you can’t for the life of you think of anything to write, you just sit back and let the music do it for you.)

Little ol’ drum beat ticking to the time. Guitar grinding to a slipping, dripping line. POSDNOUS. Crack babies and jerk mothers fiending for a hit in verbal punches – it’s a hook! Say no go. Say no go. And you feel your hips shaking a little bit, and that’s okay. Fidgety? You’re getting it, that’s right. Tongue rubbing against your gums, stretching your lips wide. Throw on some wooden rollerskates and do loops of the boardwalk.

My mama is a cleaner and she works ’til her feet go bust and the veins go greenish purple in a way I can’t describe any better. And my mama is submissive in an aggressive kind of way, and she always knows best. My mama gave birth to a boy born beaten with a cheek for being clever. My mama sees a gypsy in her son and I know that makes her sad. But my mama couldn’t help it she did what she could, and she did it well. And the red moon rising saw it all coming.

My papa is a worker and his hands tell you that. They’re rough and tough with a grip like lightning when it wraps around your heart and zap! It stops. So we don’t shake hands too much. And his face is tired and I look in the mirror and I ain’t never seen the resemblance people are always talkin’ about but I feel my face aging and I’m worried, man, really worried. The nights go quiet with the questions of days waiting their turns. AND YOU JUST YELL: “NEXT PLEASE.”

OW OW OW.

I just want to walk behind the rushing crowds playing this riff faster and faster and faster ’til they start running and I’ll start sprinting, screaming. SAY NO GO.

[Buy 3 Feet High And Rising.]

Posted on April 5, 2010 - Tunes - 3 Comments » Share

Roti canai and char kway teow

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Damn Dirty Apes – Naninong

Hi. This is my real voice, not my fiction voice. Just me casually talking at you. I know, I know, you imagined it deeper slightly less nasally. Fuck you. Just listen.

During a recent visit to Penang, I met someone a girl who enjoyed Damn Dirty Apes, which slightly exploded my brain. Half Swiss, half Malaysian, she wore her hair short and moused, and spoke with a gentle, soothing voice. I didn’t really know anyone else had heard of DDA.

When I was a freshman in high school, a senior named Sina quit his band, Analog Vs. Digital, to drum in a group his brother, back from college in Australia, was putting together. The brother, Pedram, and some random European tourist who was bumming around Malaysia for a couple months played guitar in a band they called Damn Dirty Apes. Since I attended a very conservative Christian boarding school, we spoke of the band in hushed whispers and called it DDA. (Not to be confused with Dance Dance Revolution, which we also enjoyed.)

I remember Sina walking around with stacks of self-printed CDs in red cardboard sleeves, selling them for RM 5 a pop (equivalent to 2 U.S. dollars at the time).

Air is thicker in Penang. Dripping with humidity, it’s gives everything a slightly underwater feel. And it carries smells better. When I listen to Damn Dirty Apes, I can feel the weight of the air on my skin and smell roti canai (pictured above). And then I think of gorgeous, ethnically-mixed women.

[If you find a place to buy this music, tell us in the comments section.]

Posted on April 4, 2010 - Tunes - 1 Comment » Share

If what we had was good… then why?

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Prince – How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore?

The city background had faded to aqua blue, but street lamps were still ablaze with light. His little red cigarette had burned with a temper for minutes without ever leaving his hand or waist. An eager stream of rainwater twisted its way down along the cobbled street, between each stone and merrily around his brown Oxfords. He flicked at whatever water had gathered and watched as the flying tail of stream whipped the streets onrushing glisten and disappeared for good.

He tried to see could his eyes follow what flew.

He flicked at the surrounding water again and immediately lost sight. Gathering some spit, he swished it and laid it upon his tongue. Curling his tongue to gather the spit whole, he brought it forward to part his lips and catapulted – what once sat in his mouth – up and onto the street. He followed this bubbly glob for maybe three seconds, but that disappeared, too. The man straightened his lilac tie, looked again at everything that would disappear, the world and its edge, stepped inside, and called her.

[Buy How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore (LP Version).]

Posted on April 1, 2010 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

Blood on my knees

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He won't be seeing me, with or without clothes, again.

Sharon von Etten – Consolation Prize (Daytrotter Session)

“WHEN I TOLD YOU I HAD A TENDER HEART I WASN’T LYING.”

Sharon screwed the lipstick back down and snapped on the cap. She afforded a shy glance upwards at the mirror, at her handiwork. The words took up two lines at the top, blood red in an almost glaringly white bathroom. He’d be home in a couple hours, he’d see it then.

Fidgeting, she put the lipstick in her purse. Then she took it back out and placed it, standing upright, on the counter next to the sink. Too symmetrical. She moved it four inches closer to the edge and left it.

[Buy because i was in love.]
[Download the entire Daytrotter session.]

Posted on March 30, 2010 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

Love, was the air in your mother’s lungs.

Written by

Cottage

The Middle East – The Darkest Side

Inside a blue-walled fisherman’s cottage, of timbre and fibro, with the roof a shade of brown that defied the backdrop of the sky above and the gate a chipped red too obvious to be red, a red you’re wantin’ to call something else, there’s an old dining table with aching legs draped in a plastic red and white cloth.

Nobody’s home. They’ve all walked down to the shore, to sit on the sand and run their dirty feet in the water until it tickles their knees and kisses the cuffs of their faded blue board-shorts.

On that table, there are a couple of sheets of paper. A few of them are bills: electricity, water, gas. The kind of paper that, with its invasive company header and the numbers always seeming larger than the words, makes people uneasy because they get the feeling that the latter should never be the case.

One is a note from the local school, encouraging parents to be more involved in the volunteer duties that help keep the school communal, and cut costs.

Never mind that Aaron can hardly keep attention in class, with his eyes on the hazed windows, glass fading from the salty air.

There’s a hand-crafted coffee mug, misshapen and chipped at the handle, with the morning’s liquor crusting at the bottom. Next to it, a plate with a toasted crust and crumbs scattered across it.

[Buy Recordings of the Middle East.]

Posted on March 28, 2010 - Tunes - 5 Comments » Share

It’s all about the way that it unfurls

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I feel lighter

The Magnetic Fields – A Pretty Girl Is Like

I’ve never responded truthfully to a “How are you?”

(Outstanding.)

Above Benjamin, clouds darted eagerly forward, growing hearts in jars. Kind loving mountains near opening, planning quests. Rising suns teasing unicorns, violently. William XI yelped, “ZANY!”

No mind… inside. They call it spring fever.

Listen to music.

Let’s be happier.

[Buy 69 Love Songs.]

Posted on March 27, 2010 - Tunes - 1 Comment » Share

Next stop, please.

Written by

Awake

Angie Stone – Wish I Didn’t Miss You

And she would whisper sometimes, in the early hours of the morning, to the unbeaten pillow beside hers, “I miss the smell of the evenings in summer.” Her hair would stick to her lips and, like pins, press into her skin gently. “I miss grotty strangers rubbing up against me on public transport and feeling their sweat trickle on my skin. I haven’t felt that kind of platonic proximity in so long.”

[Buy Mahogany Soul.]

Posted on March 22, 2010 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

Will it spin? Will it soar?

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Gorillaz & Little Dragon – Empire Ants

0:00 – Song 2-D.

“The sun has come to hold you.” Trudging acoustic lines press against the ticking delight of drum machine snare; it’s the sound of midnight air. Playful delicate taunts of piano lines skipping around the nucleus of flame drenched sound in stealth ninja suits. “The whole world is crashing down on you.” It will arrest you with longing-for melodies and then…

2:14 – Song Yukimi Nagano.

When I was seven years old I bought a Rubik’s cube. It took seven weeks to save up for through the not too admirable practice of collecting stolen pennies and an altogether flawed changeover of cash from the church tray: in one penny and out one pound. Still, I got to where I needed to be, alone in my room with my colourful cube. It was too big for one hand to handle, too colourful to avoid squinting and too complex for my mind to fathom, but it was here. It was glorious. At night I hid it in a potted plant – parental detection would be avoided – but one of these nights my mother watered the plant, the water soaked through the soil, wrapped around the cube and my cube, as I slept, grew.

There are still indents along the wall where the cube fell against. Each square I could climb into, if I had the nerve to squeeze out from the safety that was laying underneath my bed. Sometimes I’d peek, but mostly I listened. My room sized Rubik’s cube on crack with its twisting and twirling shapes. Every square revolving with colours my young eyes had not yet seen; colours I have yet to see again. Pellets of booming bass gushing through its plastic pours. Torrents of sound hitting and bouncing against every twist and turn my ear had to offer. And there was a voice, too. It was a girl – a voice of childlike transmission, but a knowing hook. This was as much as I could tell for certain. And I listened to her sing through this electrified pallet of colours – my overgrown Rubik’s cube. “My little dream working the machine.”

With my ear against the pulsing ground I felt her come to rest as the sound died and watched as my cube fell to the floor to fit in my hands once again. I rushed to the corner of the room and packed it back into the soil. In the bathroom I cupped my hands together as the tap emptied with water. Losing half of my cupped collection I emptied all I could onto the soil and then I waited.

[Buy Machine Dreams.]

Posted on March 20, 2010 - Tunes - 3 Comments » Share

Got two tickets to a midnight execution.

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Silver Jews – Smith & Jones Forever

At 5 a.m. I pulled on my blue trench coat and jammed a cigarette in my mouth. Out in the nippy air I lit it. A homeless guy took advantage of the halt in my stride to bum a smoke; I tossed him the rest of my pack and kept moving. My headphones were in, I wouldn’t have heard his thanks anyways.

Outside the 7/11 a few blocks from my house some of my buzz started to wear off. I smelled like ball juice from not showering, I didn’t have any socks on, and my body felt coated in the guilt that I’d been awake all night. A spandex-clad jogger bounced by, no doubt to head home and gulp down a cup of raw egg whites and a protein shake before work

Inside it’s my usual: some Arazona Southern Style Ice Tea and Green Machine Naked Juice. At the counter I flipped through Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Edition as the cashier rang me up. I pulled out one earbud, but he doesn’t say anything anyways, just grunts.

Out in front of the QFC a man wanders out and signals that he wants to talk to me. I put down my bag and yank out my earbud.

“Yeah?”
“Is there a QFC this way?”
“I don’t think so. What’s wrong with this QFC?”
“Nothing, there’s nothing wrong with it.”
“It’s all residential housing that way.”
“I’m looking for an AM/FM radio. Is there anything this way that would have it?”
“No, head the other way. There’s a 7/11 and a Safeway and then you’ll get to Broadway.”
“Oh the Safeway is that way? I was thinking backwards. Then the other QFC must be beyond that. Thanks.”
“Sure.”

I put my headphones back in; the man grasped the handle to his luggage and wheeled it away.

[Buy American Water.]

Posted on March 18, 2010 - Tunes - No Comments » Share

The foundations seemed so strong.

Written by

Humor

Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip – Letter From God To Man

In a middle-weight metropolitan city, at a bustling intersection, a crowd of exactly fifty-two waited for the flashing green man to appear and say yes! you shall pass through. It was finishing time for the nine-to-five brigade.

A woman, forty-three, voluptuous, fell as her heel gave way to the ignominy of being tread on every day of every week of every month of every year.

Three people came to her aid.

Eleven watched curiously, raising a hand as if to say Are you okay? Do you need some help? but doing nothing, and knowing they were doing nothing. She’s okay, everybody, announced their body language. She fell, but she’s okay, and you saw me help, right? I helped.

Of the thirty-seven remaining, six hadn’t heard a thing through their headphones.

Nine had barely slept the night before (four were having relationship problems, two were substance abusers, two were substance abusers with relationship problems, and one was an insomniac).

Fourteen turned their heads to see what all the commotion was about, but continued walking as they did. One of them, talking on his cell-phone, said, “Oh, somebody’s tripped.”

Two were disabled, and probably couldn’t have helped anyway, and besides, they had their own problems.

Six smirked when the fat bitch fell.

[Buy Angles.]

Posted on March 17, 2010 - Tunes - 3 Comments » Share

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