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 »

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

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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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

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 »

You’re wrong to think you’ll never escape it

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Lou Reed & John Cale – Smalltown

Andrew was born into this world a year before Marlon Brando would begin school. Three years later he would be joined by James Dean.  He did not date boys as pretty as these or girls as plentiful as these two men finally would. Andrew wasn’t aware just yet, but at least he’d one day compete with these men for the minds of you and I. “One day I’ll be a superstar or work in a junkyard.”

Sometimes, as a boy, he would pray to his Superstar. Not on his knees, but in bed, wide-eyed. Andrew would ask not for change, but to change. However, later on, as an older boy, he would ask Jesus to join the party. Jesus was never photographed at these events, but Andrew felt he had arrived at one or two. “The advantage of an open invitation.”

In his teens he would hide pornographic images of men beneath his mattress. Occasionally he’d pray to Jesus, “I sometimes like who I am. I don’t want to be caught. Be my lookout. Thanks. In the name of the Father…”

Andrew would be a father of none, but a creator of many. It’s hard to know whether this was enough for him. Those entertainers on the stage were his. That splash of thought on canvas and the magnetic fascination of certain film would be his. All alive by the demand of his dancing hands. As a boy his hands would dance in secret. A peek behind closed doors and people would not have understood. At least now he had found men and women who responded to his contortion of fingers. He prayed for these men and women. He prayed that he may find them outside his home and town. “I see stars. I see colours. Jesus, help me beyond these gates and give me dancers.”

And Jesus did.

[Buy Songs For Drella.]

Posted on March 16, 2010 - Tunes - 2 Comments »

Immutable

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Joanna Newsom – On A Good Day

“If I saw Younger Me, I’d kick him straight in the balls,” he said.

She giggled, fingering the circular cardboard cover on her coffee cup.

“Seriously,” he said sternly. “If I saw a younger version of myself out there” – he pointed out the glass panes that made up the front of the coffee shop at the swirling snow on the sidewalk, where a couple huddled together, leaning into the wind, as they hurried by – “I’d march on out there and kick him in the testicles.

“I have so much to teach him, but he wouldn’t listen a jot. He was a little rascal.”

She’d had first dates that went worse.

After the movie, she declined coming up to his apartment for coffee (“We just had some”) and trudged home, hands pushed deep into the pockets of her pea coat.

What if I could tell my younger self something? she thought, sitting up in bed with the comforter up to her waist. Just share one secret. One lesson I’ve learned that could help me get through it all again just a bit better.

She bit the end of the pen, wondering. As she put the pad of paper down and reached over to switch the lamp on her nightstand off, she paused. Hand outstretched, she thought. Suddenly she picked up her notebook again, and started writing.

Our nature does not change by will
In the winter, ’round the ruined mill
The creek is lying, flat and still
It is water though it’s frozen

She looked at what she’d written and re-read it several times.

Then she snapped off the light and pulled the beige comforter up to her chin. The wind sputtered tiny chunks of ice and snow against her window outside.

[Buy Have One On Me.]

Posted on March 14, 2010 - Tunes - 2 Comments »

What this generation needs is a war.

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Yves Klein Blue – About The Future

“He sounds like a garbling turkey.”

“How do you know that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, how do you know that he sounds like a garbling turkey?”

“Well… because I listened to the song.”

“But you live in Australia, man. There aren’t any turkeys here. You don’t know what a fucking turkey sounds like.”

“I’ve seen them on TV.”

“That’s all sound editing, man. They don’t use an actual turkey. They rub cellophane together and sticky-tape four cats to a rabbit to get that sound. There’s no turkey in the studio. There never was a turkey in the studio. Nothing.”

“Bullshit, man. That’s ridiculous. How would that make a garbling turkey sound?”

“I don’t know, man. It just does. I saw it on TV.”

[Buy Ragged & Ecstatic.]

(Photo taken from Joelzilla’s Photolog of a Sydney Kid. Check that out for yourself when you’ve got the time. It’s the kind of Sydney I’m familiar with.)

Posted on March 13, 2010 - Tunes - 3 Comments »

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