See you there.
We now live at: saidthegramophone.com.
See you there.
[Sorry for my absence. I hope that Dan and Sean took good care of you while I was away. I hope you didn't feel abandoned. I'm still your dad. You're still my kids. I'll still pay for college. You'll still drink and philander, though it shames me.
Anyway, what I wanted to do was organize a guest week before Sean came back and things got serious. That proved harder than hoping, and in the end I received only one submission. It is, however, a very good submission.
The author of today's blog is half of Damon and Naomi, he runs Exact Change Press (a small publishing house devoted to 20th century experimental literature), and was Galaxie 500's drummer. He is Damon Krukowski, and not only did he come through by submitting to the site as he said he would, but he worked to make a deadline. That was very kind of him.
- Ed. Himelfarb ]
Mr Krukowski wrote:
I've never contributed to a blog before, but from reading a few, it seems like an opportunity to express your innermost crankiness. (Isn't that a good cranky start? I've already insulted blogs, now I'm going to insult the independent music business.) I'm just back from SXSW, 1300 bands crammed into a few square blocks of Austin Texas, and the overwhelming cranky feeling I had there was: there's too much music in the world. No, wait, I'm someone who enjoys subway musicians, AM radio in Newark NJ, cantors, even people singing to themselves in the car in front of me in traffic. There can't be enough music in the world. But there are too many bands! In Austin, I heard bands that made me never want to hear clever postpunk again; bands that made me hate sensitive singer-songwriters; bands that made me regret I ever played a slow backbeat on a drumkit; bands that made me crave silence. But amid the cacophony, I did hear two things that made me happy: happy for music, happy to be making music, happy for the world of sound.
A Hawk and A Hacksaw - "Portlandtown"
A Hawk and A Hacksaw perform as a duo; she (Heather Trest) plays violin, and he (Jeremy Barnes) . . . he plays accordion with his hands, and percussion with his feet, knees, and head (by means of a hat, with bells and a stick strapped to it). He also sings, on occasion, in a vibrato-less baritone that recalls Clive Palmer. The rhythms feel like Eastern European folk dances. The melodies sound like Child ballads. The attitude is subway musician meets Newark AM radio meets cantor meets someone singing to themselves in a car in front of you. [Info]
Gram Parsons - "Hearts on Fire"
The other joyful noise I heard was on the radio -- 2 a.m., driving away from the live music capital of the world, Emmylou and Gram Parsons singing Hearts on Fire in the black Texas night. I want to sing, right here in the car, and I don't care if anyone sees me, much less hears me! [Buy]
from Greendale. it's the only song I've heard in it's entirety, but it knocked me down/around. Apparently the rest of the album is more guitarry, well...fine.
The following are all good things:
It's so tired. This song is the end of the rope, and it's like wishing you luck as it pries loose your fingers. There is so much unsaid, it's as if the chorus is missing words: "someday you'll find / everything you're looking for / because I didn't, and people should". Even the guitar is tired, it rattles like it has trouble breathing. And I want to listen to every word like it's true; like it's been proven by a lifetime.
The Robot Ate Me - "You Smile"
Lullabies are supposed to be sad, 'cause then you want to go to sleep to escape it.
[Buy]
[this is the fourth in a continuing series, exploring the music i discovered when travelling in europe last fall]
You take a ferry from Finland to Estonia. We took it twice, because we forgot things in Finland. This sort of forgetfulness is not recommended.
Tallinn, capital of Estonia, lies on the tense border between picturesque medieval town and sprawling, coughing post-communist city. The Old Town is beautifully preserved, lovely for walking, but when we ventured out into the greyness of urban Tallinn, we were not very charmed.
I bought a record by Urmas Alender at a supermarket in a shopping mall. I bought it based on the artwork, and by how many other Urmas Alender records were on the wall. And although I don't entirely regret my purchase, I kinda do, because it's not really to my taste.
He started as a member of Ruja, one of the country's most important bands, playing guitar and then later leading the prog group. Their career spanned decades, lasting through perestroika and into the early 1990s. In 1994, however, Urmas Alender was among those who died when a ferry sank en route from Stockholm to Tallinn.
Although I didn't know it at the time, Kohtumine Albertiga is a (clearly) posthumous release, gathering songs from Alender's other early groups - Andromeeda, Varjud, Teravik, and DATA. This is the opening track -
Urmas Alender - "Varjude revolutsioon". The repeated guitar strains at the beginning of the song remind me most of the Monty Python and the Holy Grail theme, but that feeling soon diminishes. Alender sings amid a rising wail, joined by trumpet and psych organ, a brew of sound. I can hear traces of Genesis, but it's folkier than that (Yes? This really isn't my genre.). The most important thing is the lazy power of the track, the way these chill hippie elements coalesce into a folsky potency, a revolutionary fervour. [I can't find a website for ordering this CD, but if anyone does, please let me know in the comments and I'll update accordingly.]
From Tallinn we traveled to Riga, the beautiful capital of Latvia. It's a wonderful city, rising organically out of the water and the stone of the old town, parks in strips that run toward the Liberty monument. The market is astonishing, four airplane hangars full of fish, grains, meat, vegetables, surrounded by hundreds of stalls that sell everything from pet food to bootleg CDs. Julian bought an mp3-cd with every Leonard Cohen album. I bought dumplings.
Later, though, I bought a CD by Prãta Vetra. When they try to crossover to the anglo market, they call themselves Brain Storm. (I know.) They are essentially the Coldplay of Latvia, the Radiohead of Latvia, the winner of Latvian Grammies, the commercial radio superstars.
In the CD liner notes, it reads:
"Paldies: (thanks) ... No Doubt, Oceanfall, Bob Marley un Dave Matthews Band par inspiraciju." So there you go.
More importantly, though, they write pretty catchy tunes.
Prãta Vetra - "Pa Pareizãm". I look forward, I really do, to the day when a computer can generate songs like this. Because in the meantime I'm forced to wait for bands to get their shit together, to find a studio with appropriate resources, and to get their music to my ears. There's some surf guitar in "Pa Pareizãm," but it's been neutralized, sugar-coated, tag-teamed with a good-natured synth-line. Renars Kaupers (uh, Reynard Cowper) plays it coy till the chorus zing, then taking every pleasure at the roll of an R, the zooming silly buzz of the hook. [buy 2003's Dienās, kad lidlauks pārāk tāls]
Oh - and a needless caveat about all this music (and what follows). I speak english, french, and some latin. I don't know latvian, polish or hungarian. I have no idea what the vast bulk of these lyrics mean - if any of it's hateful, or just mind-numbingly inane, I apologize. I'm just a naif.
Elsewhere -
Whether or not you read french (and especially if you do), listen to Alex's fine "Easy Like Sunday Morning" mix at ORTF. Rare tracks by Four Tet, Mum, Chet Baker, and more. (Max de Wardener, too!)
[this is the third in a continuing series, exploring the music i discovered when travelling in europe last fall]
We flew from Dublin, via London, to Tampere, Finland. "Manse" is Tampere's nickname - it's the country's Manchester. Tampere is concrete and grey, but like all of Finland (at least the little bit I saw), the space gives everything a feeling of freedom, of life.
Later we went to Helsinki, where boats sat like contented hens in the bay. Parks line the boulevards, with strange and evocative statues - Sibelius, communism, swans.
Between the two cities we took the ultra high-tech high-speed train. And I watched as tall, tall trees spinned past my window, like the stoic older cousins of the familiar Ontario and Quebec landscape. There were knotted forests, fading to blue in the distance.
The CD I bought in Finland is by an avant folk group called Kemialliset Ystävät. I went to a record shop in Tampere and picked albums based entirely on their art. Then I listened. And Alkuhärkä won.
It's a difficult record. From Panda Bear to Black Dice, this sort of psychfolk needs a certain state of mind to take seriously - just what the psych implies. (I've never understood why acts like Devendra Banhart or Joanna Newsom are given the same label. The differences are really, really clear.) Instruments blend and circle, half-melodies worming out of the soil, receding into it.
Kemialliset Ystävät - "Kiimaniityn Kutsu"
Kemialliset Ystävät - "Kamelin Hikeä"
For me, listening to Kemialliset Ystävät becomes an exercise in fictional ethnography. I don't just imagine the music, the manifestation of the synths, piano, strings, and drone, I imagine a culture that might have produced it. I try to situate the sounds in those tall, leafless trees, down the empty, wide and blowing city streets. It's the sound of the electric cables that run through the woods, and of the people who live in huts under them.
Read more about the record at Fake Jazz.
Elsewhere -
the legend is true: Montreal's grand, big, glowing cross turns purple when the Pope dies. I think it's beautiful that such an enormous monument is on a slow-time, half-century calendar, flickering briefly into a different, ghostly state. I wish I was there to see it.
Unreleased Sam Beam (iron & wine) at buked and scorned.
ftrain updates: the death of a cat. beautiful, very sad.
(main photo taken in the sculpture garden at Tampere's Sara Hilden Art Museum.
Indeed, yesterday's April 1 post about Gramophone-Going-Pay was entirely a poisson, a gag, and I'm relieved that not many of our readers believed it. (Contrast this with the people who seemed unsure about the sincerity of Fluxblog's awful april fools songs.) StG will never have ads or subscription fees, and we've never made a dime from InSound or Amazon. I just don't think it's cool.
It's quite possible, however, that while you were reeling with consternation or amusement, you missed Dan's other April 1 post, with real music/poetry to hear. It's here.
Elsewhere -
Via Tofu Hut, I just discovered the fantastic RIFF CENTRAL, a goof-off mp3blog-of-sorts that's half drew, half uh something else. Fake interviews with music bigheads, silly and stupid and smart and - most important of all, - genuinely funny. He snarks Matthew Herbert so hard. My favourites: the Game, Prefuse73, Sasha F-J. I just wish he updated more often.
GOSH: Pokey the Penguin is for sale.
Have a great weekend.
Oh. And even though I really do mean that righteous anti-corporate stuff, we just sprung CND$169 for a new .mac account, to keep the music flowing. If anyone is feeling generous enough that they want to help us cover that cost, you can PayPal sean@tangmonkey.com. Any amount is appreciated. (Nothing more will ever be said about this.) We really, really, really appreciate all of your support - verbal, monetary, sincere.
Due to server bandwidth, upload/download expansion, and CVI (computer visitation increase), Said the Gramophone will be a members-only site from now on. Please choose from any of the convenient plans below:
"StG-mini" Plan (29.99€/yr.) - full access to all the standard songs, and a synopsis of every review.
"Full Gramo" Plan (59.99€/yr.) - full access to all songs, including the 'adults only' songs which will be a weekly fixture, and full reviews from every contributing author, plus a picture of us writing the review.
"Pay-by-Post" Plan (2.99€/entry) - entries can be purchased individually, for those who can't commit for one reason or another. there will be no previews offered for p-by-p purchases.
So, the last free entry is below. Please don't think of this as the end of something free, but rather the start of something better.
at your soonest convenience, please e-mail us with your choice of plan.
- StG staff
Sunset-Valley - "Mr. Extreme Jeans"
My body is starting to react to the amount of time I've been spending at the computer. Wrist pain, then eye pain, and now, wait for it, a blister on my thumb from pressing the spacebarsomuch. So, in case I die before the end of this paragraph: WHAT A CHORUS! I've noticed recently that people will quickly relate a song's being really catchy to it's potential to sell something. "That song will probably be in a commercial" etc. I'd look down my nose at this, but I did the exact same thing when I heard this song. But maybe it's good, that way, ad people will be bowing to OUR standards as opposed to setting trends. Party in the street! (no cameras allowed, ever again)
[Buy]
Jack Kerouac - "an excerpt from The Subterraneans"
There's not really many author-celebrities today, are there? I guess Dave Eggars does his thing, and lots of people know who he is, but he doesn't like, go on tv and stuff. No one who's just an author enjoys the kind of attention that Kerouac....experienced.
Hearing him read was really the key to enjoying his writing for me. I could listen to him read for hours, often ceasing to listen to the words and hear only the sounds. Which I think he started writing like eventually, after the midpoint in the chronology of books, stuff really starts to lose sense. But not this one, Mardou is one of his most vivid characters in my opinion, entirely because of the lack of description she receives. He felt he had her figured out, I guess.
[Buy]