tea for two. or three.

(l to r) keith cross; peter dunton; bernard jinks. To more or less quote Johnny Thunders verbatim:“Do you want the ‘lectric shit ? Or the hippie shit ?“ I had not heard T2 previous to the inclusion of “No More White Horses” in Emmett’s October playlist. From their sole album, “It’ll All Work Out in

saturday maybe

ahhh… Recorded on the 9th September, 2009 – 9/9/9 to those of you with a morbid fascination for emergency services numerology – “The Grass is Always Greener” is the second EP release from Nashville’s Max and the Wild Things. Something of a minor cause for celebration in my own household, it further cements my partisan

white horses

The act of wielding even a virtual pen can be cathartic, for sure. The act of discharging it like a weapon – a greasegun – might even be exhilirating. But. We all pay allegiance to a nominal form of self-censorship at the very least. I falter with a foot in both camps; less is more,

not a leg to stand on…

you’ve got a lot of nerve… I remember reading somewhere, vaguely, that Bob Dylan once attempted to make a go of it peddling bespoke wooden legs. Handcrafted prostheses, to be more precise. Is there even a splinter of truth in it, does anybody know ? Or is the tale entirely apocryphal ? I admire the

ticket to ride

II. I am LAYZEE BOY, lionhearts; crusaders. Furious as a pope. Flaccid and prone. occasionally rampant. # 1 with bass from Albert Dennis. # 2 performed with friction:Sue Schmidt: Guitar, Violin;Peter Laughner: Guitar, Vocals;Debbie Smith: Bass ;Anton Fier: Drums. ▼ PETER LAUGHNER: BAUDELAIRE from “Take The Guitar Player For A Ride” 2 x LP (Tim/Kerr)

transcendentalist

ohm It has been a whilesince I had any truckwith gurus. The wheelscame off, then, andI don’t intendto begin fiddling witha socket wrench now. Not in this lunchtime.ohm Of course,I am not suggesting thatnot one of those fΩckerscan be trusted. (we all need a little help,from time to time,just to join up the dots…) ohm

chicken little & the morning which wasn’t

Right now I am hanging out my window, gasping for air. Well, alright. Not right now, eggsactly, but somewhere between pulling on a cigarette and banging on this keyboard. The still life looking west along the river is cast in grey. If it were not for the ever incipient rain I might describe it as

crumbs of discomfort

illustration by robert crumb, garish colour by siblingshot. I see from the Sunday papers that wayfaring Clevelander, Robert Crumb has now illustrated The Book of Genesis: “All 50 Chapters!“. I may get around to perusing it in the near – to middling – future, but that will be as close to Genesis as I shall

young team revisited

Two fairly early soundscapes from Glasgow’s Mogwai which run together almost seamlessly and build on the spidery experimental elegance of Tom Verlaine at his most concise, or Chicago collective, Tortoise. It’s a Sunday thing. Rebus on a bus pass; a restricted service. The first cut – recorded by Andy Miller – was released in January

brain negatives / black holes collide

Klaus Dinger: japanese banjo, drums, guitar, voice; Michael Rother: guitar, deh-guitar, bass, double bass.Recorded over 4 nights in December 1971; Windrose-Dumont-Time-Studios, Hamburg.Engineered by Conny Plank.▼see below. ▼ NEU!: NEGATIVLAND from “Neu!” LP (Brain Metronome) 1972 (Germany)

90% dark matter

or, negatives, doctoring the tardis. I took our three kids to this science fiction exhibition. All summer they had begged me to take them. Andfinally I am motivated sufficiently to plan an outing.Finally, here, I have change enough to rouse myself. They seem a little hesitant. Smiling and laughing as we walk to the subway,

for n-one

Kim Gordon: bass, vocals; Thurston Moore: guitar, vocals;Richard Edson: drums;Lee Renaldo: guitar. The 80’s may have begun blandly, and gotten progressively blander still, but there was still proof positive under the swab that not everyone hankered to collaborate with Trevor Horn’s bloated vision of a new era. A choreographed jackboot dance of all singing extras

just do it

A re-up, to those in the loop, from July last year.“…If The Stooges and MC5 were progenitors of punk in the U.S., then Pink Fairies were sperm donors who refused to fuck about.”illustration ™ NibE AIR.▼ PINK FAIRIES: DO IT from “NeverNeverLand” LP (Polydor) 1971 (UK)

paperwork

The steam locomotive whispersup to the platform,and we disembark. A littlesheepishly.Beyond the clock, the panesof glass,it looks a lot like a gymnasium. A football stadium. There are rows of benchesand the grasson the pitch is bald where westand; patiently,bellies knotted and growling. On either side,climbing up from the dug outs,we are separated –wheat and chaff,

emotion tree

She sat barefoot in the middleof the floor,on sunlit boards browningin late afternoon.Surrounded by lengthsof copper tubing.Attaching paper notesto curling brancheswith surgical precision.Tied off with string. Wire. “How do you like my emotion tree ?” she asked. I licked the gummed marginspilling tobacco,and spoke out the cornerof my rolled up twist. “It looks like it

sliding windows and moonbeams

Taking up the slack from a recent post by Sheridan Dupre III, stepping off sun dappled kerb into twilight, here is a positively chilled vibe lingering in the shadow. Because less is more, and I’ve been feeling a mite agitated of late. Spiky. Lonnie Liston Smith: keyboards;Donald Smith: flute;Cecil McBee: bass;Lawrence Killian: percussion, congas;Art Gore:

why balk at dressed crab ?

A third rate actor poses on the White House lawn on January 20th, 1981. The grocer’s daughter seeks a second marriage. Fittingly, Ronald Reagan was born in an apartment above a local bank in a red brick building in Tampico, Illinois. The nest he was spat into, then, was literally built on nickels, dimes and

travelling with demons, 5:9 – 8:34

for the record: Protect me from the mangled utterances ofwitchfinders and the convoluted,the diapered rebuke of incontinent dribblers.Flycatchers and the sanctimonious; “My name is Legion, and we speak for the many.” Protect me from rulers smiting down the left hand.Churchwardens waxing promiscuously.Deliver me on those days when the postman strikes,dyslexic, slovenly and ambidextrous. “My name

grease monkey

Take that thumboff your clitoris,the gym skirtto your stick shift,and jamb it Straight up –under the hood –your stalled anddragging tail pipe.You give me gas. engine block photograph found trailing on a thread.

under the floorboards

A swaggering Jagger & Richard composition from their fabulous “Aftermath“, this is proto-punk ‘1-2-3-4‘ at its most infectious. Restricted by the limited coverage independent distribution allowed- or, more prosaically, confined to minor celebrity in their native Pennsylvania – Bob Hocko’s Swamp Rats gnawed their way into the daylight of small town McKeesport in 1966, gravitating