GET BACK ON THE HORSE OR YOU MAY AS WELL SHOOT IT - More round, druggy media comes my way

Oh the days are rolling into weeks. Who knew? How could that happen? I guess when you start counting cigarettes & bottles & tapes you end up with a piece of time, as Atheist would say. But in the meantime, I've been letting nuevo cherse tunes slip out the door unnoticed. NO MORE. So here we go. A little new, a little older, and I'll call it adieu.

Los Llamarada - The Very Next Moment 7"
Back in the day when I had guests, I played the The Exploding Now, then take a walk around the block. Let them get acquainted. More often than not, I'd return to patches of blood, the needle riding the label like a worn out mechanical bull. Jesus, what a record. Licks the gel out of your hair and spits a rat poison tapenade in your pasty visage. How does Scott Soriano still have 25 copies left? What are y'all up to? Nice sleeve, good slice of ivory wax...you can't feel empeethrees, even with your fancy Audio Research studio-cooled speakers. You can't invite the heathens over on IM! Let'em in the front door! Write the check! You smart-marks can cash it, trust.
Or, in the meantime, you can pick up this, their latest missive. The title cut sticks their rumbly Ut and Mars thang between thick gooey slices of A-Frames stomploaf. Lovely synth peppering, too. Someone tell the dudes at Mutant Sounds! Cheveu fans oughta open their hearts for this one. Although, I should add, they've either moved up to a studio or someone hooked them up with the dopest boombox this side of a JVC in 85 because this don't sound like their usual Pixelvision fidelity. Don't mind it a bit, though. That lil number's keeps me warm just thinking of the Monterrey sun warming their leaky basement. Nothing like Robocoppin' in a droptop on a humid night. But that's another yarn.
And the B-side is...wow. Brenda Lee's "I'm Sorry" always seemed like the kind of shit someone shouts up to a 4th-story window in the wee-smalls with one hand on their sweaty heart and one on some E-dub--but never was before. Evil truckstop karaoke at it's finest. So annoying you'll never forgive again.
Live-r than most.


Blank Dogs - Diana (The Herald) 12"
I'm on the fence and it's not comfortable. I've been up there about Blank Dogs for ages. I can't decide if they're too revival.
Hang on, I'll unpack that. Okay, garage is kinda played out what with it always spooning from the same bowl, right? Every now and again someone dresses it anew, but few of us wait with baited breath for another Royal Trux--at least not realistically. Seems like that's on the verge of happening with some of the (warning: lingo migraine ahead) neo-DIY syphoners. Yeah the sources are still frosty enough for the young & fresh of my generation, but I'm left feeling a little under-fed by acts like Blank Dogs. They're either too indebted to their forefathers or spend too much time running with their brother's friends. Get out of the neighborhood for a minute, will you? I played this six or seven ways in a dozen settings and it never really felt rewarding. Not that it isn't perfectly fine music. It just feels a little like they Xeroxed a whole movement, blotting out some of the important bits. The interpretation is what's got me miffed. Maybe it's too soon to say this style is stale, but I've certainly had fresher bread. I say give the Fort Thunder gear a rest and dig a little deeper. And no, I don't mean into the crates.
Passable, but far from a squawk in the park.

NEXT TIME: I ESTABLISH THE SHIV OUTTA CADAVER IN DRAG! TAKE THAT, COPE!

A CORRECTION BY YOURS FALSELY

The Church Police 7" released on Skulltones is actually unreleased material by the California band from the early 80s, not some pomo rework by the JA crew. Who knew? Well, I didn't. There was basically no info online when I got it and thus I drew connections on my lonesome--all of which were wrong. That said, I still found it boring, whether or it preceded Happy Flowers/Flipper/etc or not.

Again, apologies. I oughta check my facts before I get all my disses in a row.

Coming soon: actual reviews and more aimless commentary about life in self-imposed New England isolation, bunking with Grammy Lambkin, and how I got Pip Proud's address. You're so excited. Watch the floor.

GREETINGS FROM THE HERMITAGE - A Belated Review of Graham Lambkin's "Salmon Run"

Golly, what months. Cripes and chiggers, how long's it been? I've departed the slightly unclean South and am now living alone on an island. Yes, an island. Not one of the mind but one of the earth, the part that broke away from Massachusetts before it bore such a name. The island of the Whaleship Essex where a friend has let me rent and live for next to beans. I suppose it is a bit of an island of the mind as well. Living alone in a 6-room house with two floors, two bathrooms and a porch is for-sure spinning my head. Figuring out where to sit is like a UN meeting gone solo! And everything is musty, as it's a barely-used-but-at-least-winterized summer house, so that knocks out about 1.5 rooms unless I feel like wheazing my way through a Misfits of Science episode. So it's not all bad. Plus I can spit to the beach, which is the closest point in the US to our Euro-neighbors.
Time hasn't eroded my sense of tangents, it would seem. Sheesh. Take it or trash it.
ONWARD CRISPIN GLOVER: About 4 months ago [by my watch], this here disc by the dean of Tart, Transmissions, der Shadow Ring & Elklink Mr. Graham Lambkin, was released by his lonesome. It was got through dubious duping or by tipping your hat to hawkmothsATyahoo and tossing a dozen digital bills. Then, silence. The applause long since faded, one trimmed youth stood up having been preoccupied with books about rats and Meadow Meal tapes to add some awkward claps. Well, here I am.
I never thought I'd have a roommate here, but this CD has taken up a peculiar kind of roost. None of the reviews I've read have yet compared it to or put it in context with a single other recording in human history. Not even a previous Lambkin outing! Well sure there was the Celestiial-meets-Berio of Poem back in the oh two, but not even that rings a bell.
Let's get down to facts and try to work our way out. Sometimes there's collaged classical run through King Tubby's board. Sometimes there's rain and the clatter of chimes. Sometimes the piano's been drinking (not me). Sometimes Lambkin just sits and laughs, living it up with some concertos.

Okay.

Fuck.
We're still at that critical impasse, aren't we? I guess there's nothing doing except let the little genius bastard be. I put it on in the bedroom and sit on the stairs. Let it do it's thing. I feel like I'm eavesdropping anyhoo. More like Lambkin's invited me in.
Most music of the popular sort illustrates the physical world or a world inside. It's rare that music itself becomes a place to occupy. Well, that's what it is, then. Lambkin's made a psycho-physical summer house.
Thanks for inviting me. Sorry I'm late. Best time I've had all year.
Can still be had at your local blog spot.

TEMPORARY LAY-OFFS CHERSE TIIIIIIIIMES

HOLD ON FOR HIATUS

As y'all've probably gathered like good kids oughta, I'll be taking a break from this for the next month or so, as an odyssey awaits me. If you happen to live in Lumberton NC, the Outer Banks, Krumville or Munnsville NY, Barre VT, or Parts Unknown ME, drop me a digital line and I'll come do my laundry on your tab and throw shoes at your pets. You'll be sorry I came. I'll be too drunk to remember. It'll be fantastic.
Then I'll be returning--from new digs!--hopefully with some kickin slices to talk on. Keep watching your skis and always eat your oatmeal. Or at least until mid-September. I'll know.

Church Police - Gilligan's Wings (7", Skulltones 2007)

Call me a cynical Northerner (read: a Northerner), but Skulltones is pretty over--and I don't mean that in a carny/pro-wrestling way--right?. I mean, they're finished, washed-up & 86'ed. I generally mount up on anything Tom Lax gets his mitts on, but I guess I missed the Der TPK debutante ball. I had the directions straight, but apparently my feet thought better.
So here we are. Another Jewelled Antler-sponsored drunk-in-the-studio one-off to be consumed by 8 people who all know each other. To the credit of the whole JA crew, they's got a sense of humor their peers oughta envy. I'd much rather give 16-minutes to something that at the very least sounds like a blast to make than something that sounds like it's supposed to have been "a really intense trip, man. We totally got out there. Really stretching and reaching through some doors." That is, if it's going to suck about 5 different ways regardless. Which this mostly does. "Life is Fun" is the best delirious wastoid rumble never to be on a Footprints of God 7"--for whatever it's worth. Kind of like the Bunnybrains doing German Oak. Yeah. There's my press release quote, Skulltones. Dine and be merry, for tomorrow you're boots. For rill.

AND WITH A HEARTY MEH

Agitated Radio Pilot & Nether Dawn - The Ghost of Medb/Under Your Night (split vinyl Pseudo Arcana)

So apparently months and months ago I wrote this review and some shady Internet business went down and it was relegated to the land of unwanted drafts. I don't remember a lick of this. Too much mud or too much Canadian; decide if you wish. So, moons and moons later, here is another tirade on some thangs:


Soon. Soon I will take a break and go back to reviewing dumpy black metal or maybe not review anything for a bit. Music is starting to feel like homework. It's hard enough to keep track of what new shit I've got, nevermind what I actually think about it.
So here we are again. I put this on and I let it play. I thought I knew Nether Dawn from Last Visible Dog's something or other but apparently I was mistaken. They're from somewhere. Who knows. Agitated Radio Pilot could be anyone of any gender recording anywhere in the world right now near as I can tell. It's got all the pretty, lilting festoonery of aged lore and forgotten colored paper and...oh shit! I started falling asleep there for a minute. Nothing stood out. Drones drone. I mean, what else do they do? Really good ones work their way into your head until they wind through the muscles in your back and then you're linked good & proper. It's like a bulldozer: you don't just hand it to anyone and expect him to know how to steer. And folk'll tell me I should be glad to hear boring drone and raga'ed-up folk than, say, bad metal. But it's all the same to me: you is or you ain't, and ain't no use in being anything but what you is. See the Cloudland Canyon bit for more unnecessarily heated ranting.
Anyhow, I like the Nether Dawn side because they at least smother their sound rather than gettin all cathedral on me. Don't we get enough of that these days? I mean, ND's "Sky Dust" had me with my ear to the floor, rather than thinking I was at Pseudo Arcana's midnight mass. And the melodies are challenging, in a loose and lopsided way. The point being, I'm not sorry I heard them. This might not climb to the top of some imaginary list in my head nor be something I cling to and put on for friends who want to know where you go after you've already heard the Congos and Dead C. Then again, I've got a ton of stuff like that. You know, sometimes you're hungry, but not just for anything. And maybe the spot you find the most fresh-dipped is closed for remodeling or the line's around the block. So you take a walk down a street that's kind of familiar but you don't recognize a single face. You see an open booth through a window framed with patterned curtains and you go inside and sit down. The menu looks appealing, nice layout, staff is mint, floor's pretty clean. Food arrives quickly. It doesn't change your life, but it's not cloying and now you've assuaged hunger. Doesn't mean you'll be back, but who can say. Who can say?

Davenport Family - At the Foot of Zodiac Mountain (Meu Dia De Morte 2007)

The Korean lady at World of Beverage tried like hell to convince me the 8oz flask I was buying was lined with glass inside so the hooch wouldn't taste like steel. And the whole time I'm waiting for her to bag my shit up, some round-faced greasewig is asking me what part of CT I'm from. New Haven, I say. Might as well be from Harlem, he says. I laughed right in his face. What else was there to do? Anyhow, I didn't buy the glass-lining bit for a second, but I did buy the flask. Astounding what someone will convince herself so she can convince you to drop eight more bills. Round here we call that carny.
The Davenport Family sure is trying hard to get the money of many a bearded, fussy-shoe-wearing clown on a fixed gear. Go ahead. Judge the cover. If you must, you can even put it on and revel in the unexciting, aping, gaping, yawning smudge upon your boombox. Jackie-O Neck Blues Band of the Occult Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants.
Available wherever v-neck t-shirts and things with stripes on them are waiting outside. Or hoof on over to Fusetron, if you must.

FEEL THE MEDIOCRITY