What Law?

Not much to say and not much time to say it, but Pretty Songs Week continues with this real nice John Cale cover.

• The Hope Blister, “Hanky Panky Nohow” (buy here)

The Cale original’s on Paris 1919 (buy here); the Hope Blister album is called ...Smile’s OK. And since this is also apparently Lyric-Quoting Week, well, I sure do like this bit:

There's a law for everything
And for elephants that sing to keep
The cows that agriculture won’t allow

The Hope Blister was (is?) kind of a This Mortal Coil offshoot, I think, so what the hell, let’s get to another real nice cover.

• This Mortal Coil, “You and Your Sister” (buy here)
  

It’s from Blood, which sits somewhere in my basement on cassette (!), and the original was by doomed Big Star co-founder Chris Bell (buy here). Bell’s version is rawer, rickety; the Coil version sounds beamed-in from some other, more blurry dimension. Which is cool too. (Oh, and that’s Kim Deal and Tanya Donnelly singing, by the way – or am I just being pedantic about things that everybody already knows?)

Can’t remember, is Blood the one with the Big Star covers, too, “Holocaust” and “Kanga Roo”? Ah. Nope, that’s It’ll End in Tears. Thank you, Internet. Oh yeah, and Tim Buckley’s “Song to the Siren” as well. They did have impeccable taste.

Another Thought

That Abernethy song put me in mind of this Arthur Russell one.

• Arthur Russell, “A Little Lost” (buy here)

And no offence to Joseph Abernethy, but more than any meditation on arrogant angels, this is the kind of lyrical refrain that gets me like a warm palm pressed to my boom-booming chest:

I’m so busy, so busy thinking ’bout kissing you
And now I want to do that
Without entertaining
Another thought

But that’s just me.

Russell reissues have been practically falling from the sky over the past few years, and he’s mostly celebrated for the disco stuff, and maybe that’s as it should be since the disco stuff is pretty great. But this is not a nightclub song, it’s one of his cello folk-pop songs. It’s an alone song, a song for pacing at four in the morning, all jittery, feeling scraped-out & exhausted, maybe happy too but that’s flickering, flickering.

Goes without saying that I think it’s fucking beautiful, I guess. Russell himself sounds so fragile & needy that it’s hard to listen to this without inferring a doomed-and-knows-it vibe (he was killed by AIDS at the age of 40, in 1992), but that’s probably just a trick of the psychological light.

(The song can be found on the excellent Soul Jazz comp The World of Arthur Russell, which nicely balances dance workouts & ballads. And read this, this is nice.)

Arrogant Angels

• Abernethy, “Ancient Lake”

If you had told me a few weeks ago that I would soon fall in love with a song that has the refrain “Who knows but that arrogant angels are fools” – well, I would have been skeptical. But the heart wants what it wants, as they say, and sometimes you find out to your own surprise that it wants something dramatically, self-consciously beautiful. The chamber-style arrangement here somehow sounds both lush & spare, and that thick-dark-honey voice settles on you slowly, from above, like a blanket laid upon you with loving care.

The album’s called College Grove, and the rest of it is growing on me with every listen, too. It’s brand-new and self-released and I don’t know if it’s on sale anywhere online yet, but go to the Abernethy Myspace page here. (Update: You can also buy the record here.)

I Want You to Float, Float On

One thing that always pisses me off is bands who do goofy covers for the sake of making fun of them – the message being, “Isn’t it hilarious that a quality band like us is playing this cheesy song?” I figure you should play a song because you like it, even if it is a goofy song.

(Wow, I just had a flashback to another thing that always pisses me off, which is when a band does the “Hello, Toronto, are you ready to rock?” thing all sarcastic like. Dudes, we long ago reached the point where doing that ironically became more of a dumbass cliché than doing it sincerely, for God’s sake. I can even see Lou Barlow doing it onstage, a bad memory from years ago, and oh, come on, now he’s even making the devil sign with his hands!)

Anyway. Where was I? Right, making fun of songs. So sometimes I make fun of songs around here, but only a little, and when I do I hope it’s clear that it’s with affection. I mean, that song from a couple posts back about the girl in love with the Hells Angel is funny but it’s actually a pretty brilliantly put together song, and the Sisters of Mercy’s “More” is ham-fisted but is also actually a pretty brilliantly put together song.

Which brings us to “Float On” by the Floaters, a huge hit from the late 1970s that popped into my head lately, God knows why. I feel a lot of affection for this one, believe me, but it’s also impossible not to laugh at it. On the other hand, I really do think it’s a song that everyone should hear at least once. (And everyone obviously has a devalued meaning in the context of this site; it’s not like I think the Floaters could bring about world peace or anything.)

It starts with that real nice silken soul vamp, which insinuates itself into your arms & legs but soothes you at the same time. Easy to see why this went to #2 pop and #1 R&B.

And then they have to start singing.

When that happens, each of the four Floaters in turn steps up to the mike and discloses their Zodiac affiliation, their name (in that order, which is a nice touch), and then a brief rundown of just what they’re looking for in a lady. Example:

Libra
And my name is Charles
Now, I like a woman that’s quiet
A woman who carries herself like Miss Universe....

The completed template is then followed by the chorus, which is, um, an invitation to Love Land. (The capital of Love Land goes unmentioned, but I believe it can only be Pleasure Town.)

An impressively detail-oriented transcription of the lyrics can be found here, and here’s the song itself:

• The Floaters, “Float On” (buy here)

There’s also an extended 12-minute version out there, with the extra eight minutes or so being largely vocalless & devoted to that real nice silken soul vamp. Seems to me that with a few fill-it-in-yourself fields and some text-to-speech software and some mixing-board type software and some technical ingenuity, someone (not me) could set up an interface that would allow anyone the chance to be a Floater, if only for a few minutes. Example:

Libra
And my name is Derek
And I like a woman who’s patient regarding my various neuroses
Oh yeah, and that Miss Universe thing sounds good, too

The Hallucinated World

From The Dodecahedron by Paul Glennon:

Newton invented a story of a college of shamans who lived on an island far to the north. These shamans, he said, invented history. As long as they lived alone and invented myths for the world, the world would go on. But they had been inventing stories too long now. These wizards were becoming increasingly sleepy, and the longer they slept, the longer the nights were, and the longer the nights were the fewer stories they told. It meant that the world is already exhaustive and exhausting. The shamans themslves were shrinking as the world shrank, and soon they would be too small to think anything but the simplest of tales. Later they would be feeble dwarves who slept all the time, eternal night would descend on them all and the world’s stories would come to an end.

And elsewhere in same:

On Tenebria the monks continued the work of their old abbey, transcribing church texts and chronicling the history of the world. The abbey’s northern location made this difficult. There were months when they were totally without light. This not only stopped them from writing, it also had strange psychological effects. During the dark Arctic winter the monks would hallucinate and imagine they were seeing events in the outer world. They emerged to light each spring to document these visions in their histories. If the message in this bottle is to be believed, there are some six centuries of alternative history inspired by the monks’ nighttime hallucinations.

From Clear to Higher Time by the Blue Humans:

• The Blue Humans featuring Rudolph Grey, “Clear to Higher Time” (19:51)

(Buy The Dodecahedron here and the Blue Humans record apparently nowhere.)

All I Know Is That He Needs Me Now

This mural’s been up at Carlaw and Eastern for months; I assume it’s a relic of the Hairspray movie having been filmed in town. Makes me happy every time I see it, and I finally got around to taking a picture the other day. So I’d say this calls for another song from the aforementioned girl-group anthology I’m enjoying so much.

Since the local Hells Angels clubhouse is just a couple blocks away from where this was taken, this hilarious little melodrama called “Daddy You Gotta Let Him In” seems appropriate. It really takes that whole “Leader of the Pack” trope to the next level:

There was trouble on the road
And they’re blaming him
Now he needs a place to hide away
And Daddy, you just gotta let him iiiiiiin

One of Hells Angels will be knocking at the door tonight
He’s one of Hells Angels, but everything will be alright

It’s all delivered in creamy-delicious tones, with a chorus that actually tightens my chest. (And not just because I’m laughing. Although I’m definitely laughing.)

• The Satisfactions, “Daddy You Gotta Let Him In” (buy here)

It’s Day 12 of a Goddamn New Year

Happy Day 12 to all! I’ve tried to mark this day in some way (well, OK, usually only in my head) ever since the San Francisco Seals’ great Nowhere, with this song on it, came out back in the mid-1990s.

• The San Francisco Seals, “Day 12” (buy Nowhere, aka Now Here, virtually here)

Lyric-wise, this one might seem like just some light riffing on a clever little dates/calendar motif. But I like the way the very motif seems to transcend itself – what it really suggests is a desperate wish that the singer’s anguish could be marked & measured by a simple number. When really it bleeds outside the lines, a dark spreading stain over time’s march and everything else.

All of which is even kind of mirrored in the music. It’s an urgent song but also a strangely tidy one, with the drums and then the loud guitars and then the instrumental freakout all showing up in good order, promptly & politely. But the finish is messier, contrary.

I believe I’ve mentioned this before, but the SF Seals were a vehicle for the amazing Barbara Manning. Her infrequently updated site is here.

I See the Nothingness Around Me

OK, after those last couple posts, who thinks we need something that’ll kick open the door and stand up & shout at all the bats out there swooping around in the night? Yeah, me too, and this’ll do it.

• Modernettes, “I Can Only Give You Everything”

It’s circa 1982 and it came from Vancouver. Big-sounding it is, and maybe full of itself as it works up its courage, but it’s never pompous. John Armstrong, who was known as “Buck Cherry” when he was in the Modernettes, (co-)wrote it, and frankly I’ve come to think that the world owes him a living for it. But since the world is a mess he still had to work for one: he wrote for the Vancouver Sun for years and wrote a memoir a few years back. Buy the rock-solid Modernettes comp Get It Straight here, and for a recent & thorough & very engaging update on what Armstrong’s up to lately, check out this Vancouver Courier story from last month.

Armstrong borrowed his title, of course, from that old garage stomp by Them, covered countless times by countless other garage stompers. Here’s a recent (i.e. less than a decade old) version by the Mooney Suzuki. Man, their mighty volcano roar out-MC5s the MC5, and I don’t care if that’s blasphemy because it’s true.

• The Mooney Suzuki, "I Can Only Give You Everything" (buy here)

Baby, You Ain’t Right to Stop Me

Speaking of calculated trash-pop, here’s the archetypal bubblegum record (well, one of them, anyway), and it’s about that rock & roll subject that keeps on giving, sexual frustration. It’s a punchy little tune – I like how the vocal lines seem to slalom apart & together – but it could have been a lot better in tougher hands, a real classic Nugget, even. Instead, the wet-noodle treatment here lets us all down: that organ should be on a game show or something, and the vocals simper when they should snarl.

Ah well. I still feel like there’s a great cover version just waiting to be made, but it hasn’t been yet that I know of. (Yeah, the Talking Heads used to do it live back in their early early days, but the bootlegs I’ve heard just sound kinda confused.)

• 1910 Fruitgum Company, “1, 2, 3 Red Light”

(Learn a tad more about the “band” here and buy a comp here.)

The Shingaling Ain’t the Thing

• Marsha Gee, “Peanut Duck”

Ah, let’s bring back the days of the attempted dance craze. It’s hard to believe anyone involved with this record actually thought the Peanut Duck had a chance of “sweeping the nation,” but God bless ’em for pretending, anyway. In many ways this is typical calculated trash-pop (which, hey now, is not necessarily a bad thing), but that shoulder-shaking piano riff is better than most, and plus, what the hell is up with the singer? I reckon she betrays herself as stoned out of her mind with her delivery of the line “Everybody’s doing the Peanut Duck,” not to mention all the laughing & the quacking. (That’s right, I said quacking.) And then there’s that – well, I dunno what that is that closes out the song. Some rough devolved form of scatting? Is she having a stroke? Whatever it is, it’s something to hear, and this is a song to listen to over & over.

It’s on One Kiss Can Lead to Another, a four-disc comp of girl-group singles from the 1960s, which was under my Xmas tree this year (thanks S!). You can buy it here. And you can read about dance-craze records in this here article, which mainly focuses on the classic “Land of 1,000 Dances.” (And I of course now have the urge to put on Patti Smith’s takeoff of same, “Land,” which blew my head into many small pieces when I was 16.)

One Kiss was reviewed on Slate by Charles Taylor a year and a bit ago, and he starts off by singling out “Peanut Duck.” It’s worth reading and it’s here. Taylor often irritates me, but I must admit that when he writes this –

the rock 'n' roll faithful understand that more of the secrets and the mysteries of the universe are contained in nonsense syllables ... than in third-rate high-school poetry like “I Am a Rock” or “Both Sides Now”

– I’m all right on, brother, testify. A wop bop a loo mop a lop bam boom.

Non Sequitur Corner: Ate last night at a fine hole in the wall on Gerrard called Simon’s Wok, a vegetarian Chinese place that quixotically insists on serving mock meat dishes of all stripe (mock beef, mock pork, mock duck, mock goose, mock scallops, mock shrimp, etc.). And when the fortune cookies came around other people got the usual vague aphorisms but I got the most weirdly specific fortune I’ve ever gotten: “A nice cake is waiting for you.”

Some People Get By

It’s 1990 or 1991 and I’m at the local student nightspot and it’s near the end of the night and the DJ is playing this deliriously cheesy Sisters of Mercy song (cheesy even for them: Sisters of Mercy + Jim Steinman producing = madness) and I’m probably leaning against the bar or something, zoning out, not doing much of anything, and next to me there’s this dude, one of those dudes you see around and nod at but somehow never really talk to or get to know, and at one point as Andrew Eldritch’s histrionics hit a highwater mark the dude turns to me and shrugs and says “I don’t want more, I just want some” and both of us laugh for what feels like a good minute or so. Still never really did talk to him much after that though.

• The Sisters of Mercy, “More” (buy here)

Yeah, She Got ’Em for Sale

I’ve had a hankering to hear this song again for a week or two now, can’t even remember why. It’s a song to lighten a black mood, at least a little bit – sly & spry, winking away at the appetites that make us us and the transactions we make to satisfy them. Plus the guitar playing & singing are startlingly nimble. And hey, who doesn’t love a song about tamales? Guess Johnson couldn’t fret about that hellhound at his hind all the time, even though it caught up to him in the end.

• Robert Johnson, “They’re Red Hot” (buy The Complete Recordings here)
  
  

The Wild Silence

From Faulkner’s Appendix to The Sound and the Fury:

QUENTIN III.... But who loved death above all, who loved only death, loved and lived in a deliberate and almost perverted anticipation of death as a lover loves and deliberately refrains from the waiting friendly tender incredible body of his beloved, until he can no longer bear not the refraining but the restraint and so flings, hurls himself, relinquishing, drowning.

From the Silver Jews’ American Water (buy here):

• The Silver Jews, “The Wild Kindness”