Talk Talk for the win

as per usual listening to "After The Flood" for the trillionth time saxophone (i think?) solo on second verse is so sick

Allan Holdsworth, "Secrets"

Allan Holdsworth, Secrets (1989) This is a prog rock album - my first prog album review. All thoughts more or less unfinished. Help me Dear God. When I first heard the first soundwash on "Location", track 1 on Playboi Carti's self-titled 2016 album, I immediately liked it. The sort-of Clams Casino/Squadda B/Friendzone/Beautiful Lou circa-2012 production conjures Ghosts of Witch House Past, and that's a good thing. Weirdly enough, when I sat down to take a crack at deciphering Secrets, I was immediately drawn to "Endomorph (Dedicated to My Parents)" and in particular the section that would form the basis of Carti's song (produced by Harry Fraud). In general, I like dense two-hand chords full of MIDI information. I like that space between what Alice Coltrane, Ryuichi Sakamoto, and Robert Wyatt go for harmonically. What is most fun about a longterm wild goose chase after this peculiar apse of diatonic harmony is finding it in the wrong genre, achieved via insufficient means. It's like establishing intent through evidence that won't show any. I'll be clear and direct to what I mean here with Holdsworth: instrumental fusion rock, cerebral-leaning, with the whole of the 1970s behind it, isn't supposed to elicit plain ionian frisson of the monocultural vintage, not in 2018 to these ears anyway. And if it does, only through a lens of internet-adjusted irony. How about this though - when I say "irony" I mean "camp". Susan Sontag, John Waters, and Jack Smith. What are these polyester-clad, dust-caked, Berklee-schooled serious young male guitarists doing? Pat Metheny with "Icefire", Sonny Sharrock with "Broken Toys, Nik Kershaw with "The Riddle", Joe Satriani "Hill of the Skull", and of course Steve Vai "For the Love of God". Do straight men know they, in fact, ridiculous? Even if it's only when guitars exist... Because I know from experience and also watching without the agency to look away. It's not a sporting apparatus but equally cruel and ruthlessly intolerant of meaning: six string electric guitar. My Dad was a minor league baseball player - he will not let me or anyone else forget. But that's actually not true even. He pitched batting practice to the Brooklyn Dodgers before they moved to LA, in the 1950s. All of this is maybe not important except to say that when my Dad wears flannel and looks at me with intent, it has the same effect as Holdsworth on the Secrets album cover. The fire in the background and John Grisham-esque red and black typeface + layout pushes further still toward some private liminal common ground. I think manifestations of power-seeking enflamed masculinity have chased me my whole life. Quite often they were brandishing guitars. Legend has it Holdsworth is Eddie Van Halen's favorite guitarist. I could tell you Holdsworth's legato technique makes this an obvious, easy connection. __________________________________________________________________ The songs on this album are - City Nights - Secrets - 59 Duncan Terrace (dedicated to Patty Smythe) i'm assuming Patty Smythe is not Patti Smith - although, both working in Rock & Roll, around several guitars and numerous men with medium-long fussed-with hair, skinny from not eating and enthusiasm... ... the gaul - who would have the gaul to go by "Patty Smythe" in any variation Okay can i just say here - i just have to jump in, when Holdsworth fires on the synth guitar right at the top of Secrets - my God. It's such a beautiful sound, I love it. MIDI information forever. - Joshua - Spokes - Maid Marion - Peril Premonition you have to wear a flannel shirt when you listen to this. What is most fun about a longterm wild goose chase after this peculiar apse of diatonic harmony is finding it in the wrong genre, achieved via insufficient means. It's like establishing intent through evidence that won't show any. I'll be clear and direct as to what I mean with Holdsworth here. Instrumental fusion rock, cerebral-leaning, with the whole of the 1970s behind it, isn't supposed to elicit plain ionic frisson of the monocultural vintage. Not in 2018 to these ears anyway. And if it does, only through a lens of internet-adjusted irony. How about this though - when I say irony I mean Camp. Susan Sontag, John Waters, Jack Smith. What are these polyester-clad, dust-caked, Berklee-schooled serious young male guitarists doing: Pat Methany with "Icefire", Sonny Sharrock with "Broken Toys", Nik Kershaw with "The Riddle", Joe Satriani, "Hill of the Skull and of course Steve Vai "For the Love of God". Do straight men know they are, in fact, ridiculous? Even if it's only when guitars exist... because I know, from experience and from watching with no agency to look away. It's not a sporting apparatus but equally cruel and ruthlessly intolerant of meaning; six string electric guitar. My Dad was a minor league baseball player, he will not let or anyone else forget. But that's actually not true even. He pitched batting practice to the Brooklyn Dodgers, when they played there in the mid-1950s. All of this is maybe not important except to say that when my Dad wears flannel and looks at me with intent, it has the same effect as Holdsworth on the Secrets album cover. The fire in the background and John Grisham-esque red and black typeface layout pushes further still toward some private liminal common ground. I think manifestations of power-seeking enflamed masculinity have chased me my whole life. Quite often they were brandishing guitars.

falling in reverse "fashionably late"

belated appreciation of one of the great albums of the last decade

The Don Caballero of Country Music

Child's Play (1988)

Just watched the original and wow what a poised, gracefully thin metaphor for actual trauma. Bravo Don Mancini, God bless you for doing real work here. Can't wait to watch the next five movies or so.

rolling thunder review

i think whats cool about Bob Dylan is when he got famous he got access to all these really cool clothes and he really took advantage of that

The Crow

I don't think I ever actually saw The Crow until 2018. I had both movie soundtracks since the time they were released. This probably lays a nice groundwork for the fact that when I finally saw the movie there was a lot there 9 or 10 year old me would've missed. Right away we see images of a hospital that feel very real. This reminds me of Purple Rain which does a similar thing and I'll probably circle back to at least one more time. Initially though let's take a nosedive into the unreal. Sinister villains dressed like Streets of Rage non-playable characters seem to be both evil and victims of no circumstance whatsoever. They're just "bad". And exponentially more criminally insane is their boss, who dabbles in the occult, speaking of chaos for its own sake. Into this gothic bad boy fantasy arrives our hero - cursed, confused, grieving. A real jarring act of violence catalyzes this whole movie and before we know much else it crystalizes an idea: what if trauma is the fuel for ghosts, zombies, the undead, all forms freakish and forgotten? And not just *a* fuel - the fuel. The one thing that compels reality to change its mind. Because the violence in The Crow is so real, mostly showing people who've lost someone close, it's much easier than most texts to accept whatever magic fills in the gaps. Apparently in the comics series no real opposition is put up by the crime syndicate who murdered Eric and is now subject to his revenge. It really is devoid of what conventional wisdom says any superhero narrative needs... no super villains in sight or dreamt of anywhere near this thing. We just have Cursed Soul vs. Grief. That's it. That's the conflict. Weirdly, the movie adds 90s action movie tropes while somehow holding fast to this grand undefined core struggle. Eric, at the end of his revenge-focused brief second life, reallocates the 36 hours of pain his wife endured after being attacked by the criminal underground in this movie to their leader, all in one instant. I feel like 80s and 90s graphic novel plot lines love to prop up acts of ultraviolence with an almost oscar-bait seriousness. I'm thinking of A History of Violence and The Killing Joke (both of which I enjoyed a lot so who knows what that says about me). Probably just that I grew up at a time when even stories set in authentic goth subcultures could be told through and about fistfights. This was pre-Marilyn Manson but post-Christian Death/Rozz Williams. I guess I would just come right out and say I don't think there is such a thing as "criminal". The scariest most ever-threatening idea in play here is that. I totally believe trauma takes on second lives. It morphs into shapes we can't see and forms hard edges of reality you won't know until you bump into them. Maybe everything that happens in the immediate wake of heartbreak or loss is a weird kind of revenge against whoever or whatever is pulling the strings. . . .