The Gumshoe Grove

May 17, 2012

“Life Quotes” Part 27 [Curiosities #174]

Words are good!

[First, check out "Life Quotes" Part 1, "Life Quotes" Part 2, "Life Quotes" Part 3, "Life Quotes" Part 4, "Life Quotes" Part 5, "Life Quotes" Part 6, "Life Quotes" Part 7, "Life Quotes" Part 8, "Life Quotes" Part 9, "Life Quotes" Part 10, "Life Quotes" Part 11, "Life Quotes" Part 12, "Life Quotes" Part 13, "Life Quotes" Part 14, "Life Quotes" Part 15, "Life Quotes" Part 16, "Life Quotes" Part 17, "Life Quotes" Part 18, "Life Quotes" Part 19, "Life Quotes" Part 20, "Life Quotes" Part 21, "Life Quotes" Part 22, "Life Quotes" Part 23, "Life Quotes" Part 24, "Life Quotes" Part 25 and "Life Quotes" Part 26.]

“Now we can go home.” [Twelve-year-old Alexandria Bain said this a day or two ago after FBI agents rescued her sister and she from Adam Mayes, who had killed their mother and elder sister a few days before and set off a hunt for Mayes that landed the murdering shit-stain on the FBI Ten Most Wanted list. Apparently, the girls didn't cry when they were rescued, only seeming relieved to be done with the ordeal. Tough kids.]

“Concerns about the overuse and abuse of painkillers have intensified in recent years. As sales of the powerful drugs have boomed – rising 300 percent since 1999 – so, too, have overdose deaths. Opioids were involved in 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008, more than cocaine and heroin combined, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.” [This snippet comes from an article about concerns that a "pain-advocate" group called The American Pain Foundation might have had undue influence on politics despite getting 90 percent of its funding from drug companies. The group was dissolved the very same day these concerns finally resulted in an investigation.

"Ahhhh yes, sarcasm: My security blanket." [One of my old guitarists from Nameless Numbers, Scott Johnston, said this once when I asked him why he said mean things.]

“I was very young and naive. I didn’t know at that point what I was going to be giving away. So If they put a contract in front of me, I signed it.” [Victor Willis, former lead singer of The Village People, said this recently as a ruling was going through putting him back in part-control of the group's hit songs. A law allowing songwriters to reclaim their signed-away copyrights after 35 years is allowing Willis to renege on a contract he signed in the '70s, giving away his rights. Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel, among others, are expected to eventually benefit from this statute as well.]

“We are very sad. We thought we would be acquitted.” [A man named Luis Alfonso Gonzales said this after a Malaysian court sentenced him and his two brothers to death for drug trafficking (a standard penalty for the crime). The trio were caught in a warehouse used to manufacture drugs, but said they were only cleaning the place. None had criminal records back home in Sinaloa state.-- Police found more than 63 pounds of meth worth 44 million at the factory.]

“We are left with an orphaned revolution. The people don’t know what the revolution wants to do.” [Rami Sabri, of the Popular Socialist Alliance, a newly formed party in Egypt, said this in frustration over the lack of orginization since Hosni Mubarak was ousted from office.]

“Well he said if you kick my ass, he’ll kick your ass.” [An old acquaintance said this to me on the phone. I had threatened to "kick his teeth in" [that's what he told me later; yep, embarrassing for me] because he had made sweet, sweet love to my girlfriend at the time, and he informed me that the dude who had spilled the beans on his improprieties (Matt Green) – and who was a bandmate of mine at the time – would nevertheless physically reprimand me if I took action. At this point it’s all just funny; plenty of egg-on-face to go around.]

“The central belief in the church is the pursuit of Slack, which generally stands for the sense of freedom, independence, and original thinking that comes when you stop worrying about personal goals. In essence, Slack is about finding satisfaction with what you have and who you are, as opposed for searching for satisfaction in accomplishment.” [I had to show y'alls this because it's one of the tenets of a "religion" called The Church of the SubGenius. I can't lie: This sounds like a wonderful organization, indeed, and they've apparently got more than 10,000 members.]

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Tagged as malaysian drug trafficking, nameless numbers band, prescription drug abuse, victor willis, village people

May 16, 2012

Borghesia – “Ljubav Je Hladnija Od Smrti” LP (red) – Dark Entries Records [Album As Art #188]

Borghesia - "Ljubav Je Hladnija Od Smrti" LP (red) - Dark Entries Records

Borghesia were singled out by Dark Entries for reissue because they invented a sound that only could have come from that particular era and even that particular year (1985). Or at least that’s how I like to envision it.

Ljubav Je Hladnija Od Smrti, which translates to “Love is Colder Than Death,” is a cold, calculating record that juxtaposes jittery rhythms with exceedingly glum/German vocals and glittery synth slashes. Thing is, you never know which way the duo plan to move. They might dart in the direction of pop or plunge into a coldwave ice bath or, better yet, detour into a cool, damp cave for some simple instrumental diversions … Hence the all-enveloping — or so they THOUGHT! — genre tag “Electronic Body Music.”

I’ve never used that phrase in my life, but I guess it’s a recognized thing now so god forbid I don’t mention it. And I guess I get it this time — dance music with industrial overtones absolutely, positively is the M.O. of Ljubav Je Hladnija Od Smrti with one caveat — there’s some noise boiling over in that pot, too, if you want to be picky about it.

Hell, it’s possible a lot of groups fit into the “ebm” category indirectly (i.e. if you ever called them that people would freak out, but it still applies if sound is all you’re accounting for, not trends, eras, etc.), and there’s even a chance not all of them are fellow Germans. But anyway BACK TO BORGHESIA:

Most surprising is the uptempo tracks, which peacock across the floor in bright colors with the steady hum of of four/floor drums, at least two layers of Casio and sirens/yells/samples filling the air. If love is cold, should we not attempt to make the best of being free? That might just be the question at the core of the album’s title (or not), as each cut cuts loose, liberating the listener and, likely, its creators.

Then again, a lot of dreams also are shattered in favor of robotic beats and vocals devoid of any glint of emotion whatsoever. This is where the dynamic gets interesting, the proceedings shifting from aggressive to passively nihilistic to macabre to searingly hot and rabid. As I mentioned, Borghesia are all over the map: At points these songs will fry your flesh; at others they’ll put your synapses into deep-freeze quicker than a polar plunge gone awry (I shouldn’t joke about that — so many lives lost needlessly.).

I find Side B to be particularly enlightening, as it dabbles in more noise-isms and seems to deliver more intensity to my door, but both flips are sure to trip the switches of those all yacked-up on Nitzer Ebb, Young Marble Giants, Cold Cave (to throw in a modern band beholden to this style), Front 242, post-new wave experimental electronic, several of the other artists on Dark Entries and exploratory music in general, though I would posit that you should have at least a mild affection for the greighties (term trademarked by Gummy Grove Inc. [wink]).

This is the 6-panel poster the jacket folds out into. Or onto. Or something.

W-H-I-T-E – “Sunna 1/3″ – Swill Children [Lucky 7-inch #87]

W-H-I-T-E - "Sunna 1/3" 7-inch - Swill Children

W-H-I-T-E (or White Horses In Technicolor Everywhere) is Cory Hanson, but that’s not important right now. What is? Well, listen to “Burn Towards the Sun” and you’ll understand. Go ahead, I’ll wait …

…

AND we’re back. What do you think? Are you ready to rush to Suicide overtures? Yeah, thought so, but let’s not go suckin’ each others whoo-ha’s just yet — there’s so much more to it than that you should be ashamed of yourselves.

W-H-I-T-E charge ahead much more violently — in tempo and in general — than Martin Rev and co., and they have this strange undercurrent of Beach House melody, Oneohtrix Point Never technicolor dreaming and skronk-fest noise running beneath the chorus of “Burn Towards” … If it seems like a reach it’s because I’m reaching, but I’m not going to just slap a Silver Apples bumper sticker to this ace-in-the-hole and saunter off; I want to understand what I’m dealing with here.

And yes, Swill Children are correct to mention Thom Yorke solo. A few of these melodies and drifts even smack-a-lack of Ganglians, while such razor-sharp electronics always seemed to haunt the more experiment-prone material of Wire. I can even say with complete confidence that Animal Collective/Panda Bear/Avey Tare, my old buddies, muzzle up to the end of “Burn Towards the Sun” like cuddling kittens. Yet nothing could be further from the melted mind of Hanson. While he delves in soulful expression he’s more of an abstractionist than a poportunist, if you catch my midrift (yikes!), and this tune gets even before it gets friendly as a result.

“Go On With the Gong” is much more syrupy and mellow, an easy slide into velvet keys drenched in bitter minor chords, ice-mist beats and wonderful vocals. I keep hoping that organ line will keep coming all day long, and it does; this is such an urgent song, but Hanson stretches the tension out, never rising above his usual temperament (desperate, though not-yet cracked) and riding that organ riff deep into eternity’s vagina.

Its stained-glass, church’d-up urgency actually reminds me of a band I haven’t favorably mentioned in years: Arcade Fire. Nothing about them applies to W-H-I-T-E’s music EXCEPT the deep emergency-light feeling of drama one gets when certain songs of theirs play through (you know, that one good song from their first record; one of the Neon Bible numbers was OK) — that and the pained yelps of both dudes. That doesn’t just happen.

The stylistic differences yielded on either side of this platter serve W-H-I-T-E so well I’m not sure which I prefer. As a newspaper editor once told me of his publication’s out-of-control growth: that’s a good problem to have. I won’t soon be forgetting these wonderfully sun-dusted tunes, nor will I stop until I find the prankster that ran off with my trailer hitch … daaaaaaagnabbit!

Tropical Trash – “Fear of Suffering” – Sophomore Lounge Records [Lucky 7-inch #86]

Tropical Trash - "Fear of Suffering" 7-inch - Sophomore Lounge Records

Tropical Trash – “Baltimore” MP3/download

Sophomore Lounge were responsible for that inspiring Fat History Month LP, and now they come forth with the “Fear of Suffering” 7-inch, by Tropical Trash.

Does it stack up? Surprisingly, yes, though TT reside in a different neck of the deep-country indie woods. Cuts like “Pentagram Ring Finger” cling to my ear like K.K. Rampage — by dint of the disturbing multi-tracked vocals and clean-but-dirty guitar biff-riffs — and more garage-rock-influenced fare, submarine-ing into Modey Lemon/Whirlwind Heat/Popular Shapes territory (I know at least a few Seattle readers will smile and nod appreciatively at the PS mention) with a low-end CRUNCH-’n'-MUNCH and aggressive drums, the weight of which bears down HELLA-HARD (though hardly Hella) on a frenzied math-punk template you’d expect from that last Refused album, or maybe Ambitious Career Woman. ARRRRGH! WHHOOOOSH! PFFFFFFFFLEKJFHS: Yep, it gets the job done, friends.

The four-songs-deep face-indenting on Side B flips my lid every time, the hard-charging instrumentals scampering through the door, one after another, like four rambunctious kids, faces covered in PBJ and vague smiles. Thank christ I won’t ever have to deal with that much insanity (we’ve decided to stop at two, if not one); in the meantime, these noisy mongrels are keeping me busy with their constant snare slaps and mutated slam riffs.

And yet there’s a titter of restraint keeping things classy; The WPP this ain’t, and it could be said that a lot of bands try their damndest to be much more extreme than this and wind up with that trying-too-hard sound (not that they’re related to this review but Poison The Well had that trying-too-hard thing going) that ensures no one, anywhere, will remember them. I envy the ability to carry a gun without brandishing it at all times; Tropical Trash are packing, and they’ve got their collective finger on the trigger at all times, but they rarely act out or flail for the sake of flailing. Most of the time they deliver a smoky shard of rippin’ rawk, undergo a transition or two, then drop out. Their instinct to keep things brief is almost always a good one, and when each track yields a totally different variation, all the better.

“Baltimore” is the exception to that rule, but it’s mapped out like the sketches of a city planner, with one main street forging ahead no matter how many sideroads branch out from it. Then the entire population drops out of site and their pets are left to whimper and whine like six-string tears cried by Battles and Spencer Seim.

Upstart bands like Tropical Trash and FHM should go even further with their post-what-do-you-got(?) brand of intricate rock, sort of where Shearing Pinx ended up (and that’s exactly where “False Crypt” is headed; it shreds) — though that is an ongoing story — or perhaps picking up where Ed Hall or Die Kreuzen left off (or not …) or some shit, or venturing to god-knows-where with a couple of pedals and a buddha box. It could happen … but if it doesn’t I won’t hold a grudge, as the art-punk is pure and truthful and brave and sincere as it is.

I also offer this thought: As good as 45 RPM can sound, I love it when bands cram everything they can onto a 7-inch at 33. These pressings ain’t cheap; when a band wastes 2/3 of its allotted time on a 7-inch I know it must be comprised of rich kids to whom money is no object (though I’m not a class warrior; I like The Strokes, Vampire Weekend, etc. despite their silver-spoon shine). Tropical Trash smash-cram four or five fuck-takes onto a single side, letting the listener in on more than the quick bathroom-bang many 7-inches turn out to be. (Not that those aren’t pleasurable in their own, brief way.)