Jack White interview

Excellent interview:

Part 1:

Part 2:

We No Who U R.

 New (lyric) video from Nick - We No Who U R.

When I first saw the title and its 21st century spelling, I thought this was going to be a Grinderman song, really, something veiny and pointy and venomous like "Heathen Child" or "Evil" or "No Pussy Blues". I thought Nick was gonna tenderly run a stake through the heart of today's bloodsucking youth.
But no, this is indeed a Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds song - a melancholic, hopeless, quiet little anthem.
So then I am confused, why the shitty spelling?

Anyway, more on Nick Cave's new album "Push The Sky Away" and its surprising cover later, when I will have received the insanely expensive super deluxe box set from nickcave.com. I get insane like that sometimes, music goodies and memorabilia are for me like chocolate cat-shaped shoes are for single women.

Straight To You

I got this here, this "Straight To You: Triple J’s Tribute to Nick Cave", listening now.

Sounds like they had a lot of fun. It's a concert and I haven't heard many live tributes in my life, they're usually cooked in the studio or bedrooms or cellars by awkward little fellas who often think this is their one and only shot at universal stardom and so they massacre perfectly great songs by adding that personal touch, which sometimes feels more like a limp dick rape than a mere touch.

I don't mean that in a bad way.

This one's different. It's more like "I'm your man", the Leonard Cohen tribute concert, in which Nick Cave took part, singing, of course, "I'm your man", because he is. The Straight To You concert does have its weird parts because, hey, some personal touches are just limp dick rapes. I still don't mean that in a bad way. Even a limp dick rape shows commitment to the task, even more than a regular one I'd say. As I've probably said before somewhere, in my opinion a cover should do one of two things: either keep the feel of the original and simply underline its beauty - a simple hats-off gesture - or it can approach the song from a different angle which adds something new and good to the song, like Manson doing the horror version of "Sweet Dreams". But different doesn't necessarily mean good, does it? It may be a carnival of fun to see what "The Weeping Song" would have sounded like if composed by Bob Marley, yet I somehow feel this kind of frathouse stoned dementia would be best kept indoors and hosed thoroughly in the morning. But that's just me. See, the thing is, the way I see it is that "The Weeping Song" is a sad and sorrowful song and that's a huge part of its personality, beauty and charm. It wasn't meant to sound stoned and funny, see? Who the fuck really listens to Beethoven's 5th techno rave extravaganza? And "O Children" gangsta style? How very edgy. What are you, fucking deaf? I must restrain myself from using the word sacrilege, because these people are not gods, but the word respect doesn't feel like such a stretch: these people deserve a lot of respect (not humility, respect) for things that go beyond their music.

On the other hand, what's the harm, eh? Express yourself. I may like it or I may not, it's my choice just as much as it was your choice to turn a beautiful melody into a shitty hip-hop bark. To each his own. It doesn't really matter at the end of the day, it's been fun.

Some good ones here as well, it was bound to happen.

I love Abbe May's "Depth Charge Ethel", it ceaselessly kicks various butts.

I was surprised to catch myself enjoying Lisa Mitchell's "Ship Song". I usually turn a deaf ear on frail women with faint little voices talking to their guitars about how life is big, and scary, and furry, and has a mauve tint around the margins which may well be an infection. But Lisa Mitchell's got such tenderness and longing in her voice that I had to put the bazooka down and be nice.

Johnny McKay's "Nick The Stripper" (not your usual first choice of song to cover, I have to say) is surprisingly good. Surprising because this is not a song you can easily tame and own. This song is a blood-thirsty pitbull pissing on your leg before he eats it. I don't think there's any real way in which you can actually make this song your own, but they did a nice job of it, every verse stabbing as it should. And nice going on keeping that fucking weird rhythm.

Well, all in all this is a good listen. It made me miss Nick and love him even more. I know he's not dead or retired, he's got a new album coming out in February, which I'm gonna pre-order the fuck out of. But by hearing so many people, new voices singing his songs it reminded me how strong his grab is, how far and deep it reaches, how handsome his sadness.

You can check the track list here, not bad choices at all. 

So here we go, some good, some bad, all Nick:

Depth Charge Ethel - Abbe May


O Children - Urthboy



The Weeping Song - Jake Stone



Stagger Lee - Urthboy



Nick The Stripper - Johnny Mackay



The Ship Song - Lisa Mitchell

THE FLAMING LIPS

 

There are several bands squirming around in my head these days, all old ones. The nineteens, if not earlier. Out of laziness I was tempted by the idea of merging them all into a single post. But then I thought, what an asshole.

One of these bands is The Flaming Lips. Huge history there, I'm not even gonna touch it, mainly because I don't know most of it. What I knew about them until very recently was "She Don't Use Jelly", from the Batman Forever soundtrack, I think. Cute song, but nothing gasp-worthy, yes? They've done much, much better.

So anyway, I bumped into them again, after all these years. Long story short, they're fucking amazing. I've watched "U.F.O.s at the Zoo", the concert, and my god. Ok, there's this one point in the show where Wayne says that the Flaming Lips audience is the best audience in the world ever and he gives a couple of reasons. First reason was that the Lips fans, no matter how crazy they get during the concert, they never get harmful, you're safe with them. And second reason being that, if there ever happen to be sad people in the audience, people who have come to the show to forget some misfortune, some crisis in their lives, they can rest assured that the Lips fans create the sort of vibe that keeps you going and give you a reason to fall in love with Life all over again. Cool. And true. But I frowned: what about the Ween audience? And that's when it struck me: it's a fair comparison. I'm a die-hard Ween fan, but the Lips are as good as when it comes to live shows. Forget the balloons, the confetti, the spaceships and all that; although they do help, the real juice is the music itself and the relationship this band has with its fans. The attitude. It's fucking amazing. This is what music should do.

You are not allowed to miss this one. I repeat: U.F.O.s at the Zoo, The Flaming Lips.

And another thing. These people had the balls to cover Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" in its entirety. Not only that, they also brought Henry Rollins and Peaches to help with the vocals. If you had to pick two singers you would NOT EVER think of when Pink Floyd is mentioned, these two would be a fair choice, I think. And yet it works. It's a whole different album, and Floyd hardcore fans probably cringed and bled at the very idea, but it's a veiny one this one. It's like Sex Pistols doing a Portishead cover, you must be at least curious.

So here's three songs that I carefully picked at random:

The Flaming Lips - Free Radicals


The Flaming Lips - The sparrow looks up at the machine


...and with incredible shrieks by Peaches which would make Blixa quit drinking:

The Flaming Lips feat Peaches & Henry Rollins -The Great Gig In the Sky (Pink Floyd Cover)

The Sandman's mud

I miss Mark.

I dug up this cd, their Detroit Bootleg from 2000. Turns out, silly me, that it has two videos on it as well. So here you go, Mr. Sandman leaving his Mark on our eyelids and our souls:

Morphine - Saddest Song (live Montreux Jazz Festival 1995)


 
Morphine - Cure For Pain (live Montreux Jazz Festival 1995)


+ Can't wait for the "Cure For Pain: The Mark Sandman Story" DVD to arrive.

INTELLIGENT D...IALOGUE

This is not a musical post, strictly speaking, but I'll bend it into shape somehow. This is an interview. And I love and admire both participants: Derren Brown and Tim Minchin. Derren interviews Tim, I don't know why, it doesn't matter, it could have easily been the other way around as well, but it's the way it is and it's fine. 

Alright, since these two guys are British (well, they both live in London, but Tim is Australian), people in the US might have some trouble placing them or caring. So, for those of you who don't already own and worship every little thing either of these guys ever did, a brief history:

Derren Brown - he's the cutest dementor out there. He'll play with your mind like it's plasticine and build beautiful and scary things out of it. He had started meekly, using just playing cards and usually a parrot on his shoulder. He's moved on, put the cards aside, immersed himself deeper into the murky dungeons of our psyche and then surfaced with amazing information about how fucked up, yet lovable, we really are. He's been called a mentalist, but he and I agree that that term is simply ridiculous. His live shows are amazing and his TV shows oscillate between weirdly funny and outright disturbing. People in real life tend to (or used to) avoid him because they think he's got demonic super-powers. They're idiots, he doesn't. He's actually quite shy. He's a taxidermy enthusiast and he also (fucking) paints. Oh, and he doesn't play the Messiah anywhere outside the US. 

He's a skeptic. 

Tim Minchin - don't be fooled by his Shirley Manson appearance, he sings better than her. He's what I would actually call a sit-down comedian, because his particular brand of comedy involves a piano. Also a very bright young man (he's my age, the fucker), therefore his shows are also, as are Derren's, not recommended to ignorant numskulls. He's been criticized (to say the least) for using the word "nigger" in a song, when in all actuality the song was against racism. He's not the first and won't be the last. He can look sheepish and shy right up until he opens his mouth and becomes lethal. I particularly like his bit about Tony the fish and how he got his legs, but there are too many other brilliant bits to mention. Ok, I'll mention "Storm" and "Angry (Feet)". 

Also a skeptic.

So there you go. Two smart and overall coherent men having a chat and a laugh. Too bad it's only in audio format. Had it been video, your screen would turn red (yeah, sorry Tim, I know, "only a ninja can sneak up on another ninja")

So here's the INTERVIEW. 

And this is a musical post because usually Tim plays piano, yeah?

Ok, here's a song, to make it right:

Tim Minchin - Prejudice (live)

THE REVEREND HORTON HEAT!

So these guys have been around for 25 years. I've only just bumped into them. That's because I honestly don't put the hours in any more. Don't do my homework. I figure, if keeping a music blog alive becomes "work", then fuck it. I'm trying my best to put exciting stuff here. The trouble is I'm not as excitable as I used to be. Finding the good stuff means you gotta shovel heaps of shit for days and I'm just sick of that. I pretty much have come to the point where I stick to what I know and I let the billion glittering & crazy or sensitive & boringly insightful newcomers parade before my ears like fish in a fish tank: absolute silence. If you're any good, I'll hear about you 25 years from now. Otherwise my fifteen minutes are best wasted on other stuff, such as cutting my toenails with my cat's teeth.

But! The Reverend Horton Heat is exciting. Woke me up, the fucker. I don't know how I found him (I do, but it's boring), but I instantly knew I was on to something tasty. Here's the overly elaborated and snobish-as-fuck comparison I've come up with so far: if Ween's "12 Golden Country Greats" was actually a Moistboyz album recorded on Jon Spencer Blues Explosion's equipment, it would probably sound NOTHING! like these guys! Exciting stuff, eh? I've been listening to them all day (a lot of albums to take in, mind you) and I didn't skip one song. They're all great. Not one bad one. Okay, some you like more than others, but you don't tell them that.

The music's got juice, it rocks, it's funny, it just jumps at your neck and playfully sticks its (plastic!) fangs in it till you bleed forever and die one happy mother of a pinkish death. It's just like farting in a public pool, is what I'm saying.

So I don't know what to tell you, if you like "12 Golden", Moistboyz, Grayson Capps (you know who you are) and good, kick-ass rockabilly fucking punk in general, here you go, have a bite:

The Reverend Horton Heat - Yeah, Right



The Reverend Horton Heat - Marijuana



The Reverend Horton Heat - Where In The Hell Did You Go With My Toothbrush



The Reverend Horton Heat - Eat Steak




P.S. Shit, I just listened to "Gin And Tonic Blues" and my brain is dripping out of my ear. I love it!

NADA SURF

Nada Surf - Popular


Remember them? I missed this song. I didn't really pay attention to it back in '95, it was typical, just one of the many indie bands with a hit out there. But now the good ones have become so rare that this one sounds perfect, a real gem. Plus I miss the 90s.

FAMILIAR SOUNDS

Check this out, Pink Floyd doing a Placebo cover, muahahaha. Waaay before Brian even had lungs. Too bad that changed... along with his taste in men.

Pink Floyd - Let There Be More Light

HAPPY DEATH DAY

THERE'LL BE NO MORE AAAAAAAH!

This is what God looks like, if you insist on calling it that: an amazing moment created by mere mortals, leaving aside all conflict and creating something unbelievably beautiful. Put this on the wall and kiss it.

SUBCONSCIOUSLY, I RULEZ

So here's a funny one.

I don't listen to hip-hop, I'm just white like that. But I accidentally stumbled upon Die Antwoord and they got under my skin.

I'm also not into sports much. And of all the sports, boxing would be among the last options if I were ever bored enough to watch sports on TV. And yet, again, accidentally I stumbled upon one of Mike Tyson's fights (by way of Richard Pryor and Muhammad Ali) and I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. So I watched his entire career, bout by bout. Loved it.

So here we have two very different things, and while they're being different from eachother, they are also the total opposite of what I would normally listen to or watch.

And yet:

Ok? Now listen to this:

Die Antwoord - DJ Hi Tek Rulez

DIE ANTWOORD

This shit ain't music, but I can't stop listening. The videos are incredible, though:



Plus, I can't stop fucking listening to this one, which doesn't have a video:

Die Antwoord - Fatty Boom Boom



And, uuuuuh uhh uhh, check out the cover for their new album:

NEW dEUS ALBUM - Following Sea

Meanwhile.
Following Sea - the new dEUS album out today. Watch the above video till I give the album a fair good listen. It's the first single, "Quatre Mains", which I think literally means doggy-style (quatre = dog, mains = style)

AARON INTERVIEW

There's a bit of "Drifter in the Dark" in there, a song I've never seen or heard live. He also talks about "Pushing the Clouds Away" a song which is not a song, but a poem and with which I do not resonate at all. It's not the lyrics ( I can resonate with some of them, if not all), but it's this affectation of poetry, of spoken word, that just kills me. The level of kitsch and sentimentality is just too much, even though you'd think a devoted Ween fan might have developed some tolerance for those, but no. I'd much rather push some daisies instead of clouds, thank you.
But I do like the way he speaks about his/their fans.
However, that doesn't change the fact that this is bullshit...Ok, so Aaron's the sensitive, fragile one, he likes cheesy music, among other things. Fine. That's always been part of Ween. But Mickey's got Moistboyz as an outlet and that's never stood between him and Ween. Why can't you do that same, Aaron? No one's stopping you from doing your solo projects, man. Take your time, no rush (5 years since the last Ween album, but who's counting), it's fine. Take all the time you need to start missing Ween. Cause now you're all clean and smell like baby farts and that's great. I'm serious, that is great. But don't act like a freaking Reiki diva, like you have seen the light and felt the energies and smelled the auras and shoot crap with fat little angels. It's just an overreaction. It's normal, but that's all it is.
Get a glass of water and think, dude.

EVERYTHING IS TURNING BROWN

"In order to more fully explore and pursue my solo career, I've decided to end my musical relationship with Ween. I want to personally thank each and every fan for all their love and support through the years."- Aaron Freeman - 29.05.2012

Hardly the best start of a Thursday for me. Apparently the Mayans were right: it's 2012 and some worlds are indeed ending. But let us not allow the mucus to trickle down our chins for too long before realizing that, among other things, we've always loved Ween because they did exactly what they damn well pleased all the time and this is exactly what they are doing right now. Well, at least Aaron is. Judging by Mickey's reaction on Facebook - "This is news to me, all I can say for now I guess." - he hasn't been part of the decision-making process. You catch some, you lose some, I guess.

The thing is, without Ween around, the musical scene is really really boring. God only knows if I'll still be around to see another band like this ever emerging from this dyslexic gooey mush. But hey, we'll always have Berlin, where Aaron asked me up on stage and I didn't hear him. That was particularly special for me and my special fucking needs.

The first song I ever heard was "Spinal Meningitis", back in 90-something, and the chills down my spine have never ceased since. I have preached the Boognish dogma for as long as I can remember and have even converted a few adorably misguided individuals to the Brown Belief, some of whom still percieved Goran Bregovic or any DJ as musical history's most tumescent pillars. That is quite an achievment, if I do say so myself. It was amazing to watch the transformation, the eyes getting rounder, the grin getting wider, the mud getting hosed off the brain, a new world unfolding and all that. It's a beautiful thing.

Ween is the only band I have ever held "close to my chest". I wouldn't share Ween with just anybody. I felt you had to earn it. I would go absolutely crazy when some random douche would just name-drop Ween 5 minutes after I'd mentioned them to him, just to impress some random chick with a pink straw up her face. And - this actually happened - the idiot wouldn't even manage to say the name right, he'd say "When". My mind just fills with bazookas and pirahnas in moments like this.

On the other hand, I feel like a thousand doves and butterflies when I play a compilation with various artists in the car and some unsuspecting passanger (whom I suspect is prone to brownness) will invariably ask "Who's this?" when we get to the Ween song. Someone always will, because it's that kind of band.

Fuck it, I don't wanna keep this long and cheesy.

Aaron, Mickey, Dave, Claude, Glenn, dudes, be happy. Do your own stuff, go fish, do whatever you want. You've given us a lot already and we (yes?) are more than thankful for these past 25 years. I just ask for one thing: be a rock 'n' roll cliché for once and reunite sometime in the future. I'll do the album cover for free as promised. Thank you.

Oh, and I hope you'll find this funny:

Rod McKuen - If you go away

NEW PRIMUS VIDEO

The boys are back in town:

OH, RIGHT...

Almost forgot. I've also listened to this:

aaaaaand...it's boring. As much as I admire Brian and his mind (or used to, anyway), and as much as he was a pretty big part of me growing up, a part I'll be forever grateful for, I think now I've also grown out of this whole angst scenery. I'm not zen, but my anger needs more subtle outlets, I guess. The whole bloody, trashy, infected needles and razorblades thing is a bit tired, as far as I'm concerned. See, that's the problem with being a "born villain", as he claims: you can't stay mad forever, can you? You can't without seeming childish, anyway. It's either revenge or forgiveness, but after that the waters clear.

And Manson's won a lot of wars, with the church, with the press, with the government and so forth. Who's he gonna fight next? Himself, mostly, but that can often be confused with someone chasing their own tail. That quickly becomes funny and then redundant, or at least not very entertaining for the listener. I'm not saying I aprove the whole media frenzy of turning a man's misery into a freakshow for our own amusement. I find that quite disgusting, actually. But Manson is an entertainer. And this album is...not entertaining. Same images, same teenage rape, same thing. The music is a bit more vigorous and juicier than his last two efforts (EMDM and HEOL), but, let's be honest, it's not hard to top those. So what you get is louder guitars, childish drums / drum-machines, "shocking" lyrics and no trace of actual creativity, genuine spark. It's like he's turning into his copycats. Maybe there's no more skin to shed. Maybe he should give painting a real shot.

No song here, they're all so great, I just couldn't pick one.

BLUNDERBUSS

I've been listening to this one for more than a week now. Weirdly, not because it hit home with me, but quite the contrary. I didn't know what to make of it, so I had listened and listened, hoping some sort of overall feel might come forth eventually. Admittedly, musically speaking I've been in an eerie zone lately, what with all the classical stuff pouring into my ears and the desperate need for calm and silence. So, yeah, "Blunderbuss" came as a bit of a cold shower and a nail on the glass when compared to, say, Satie's piano. Which is, of course, an unfair juxtaposition, apples and pears. So I gave it one final, hopefully objective listen before opening the gap in my face commonly known as mouth.

So we're talking about Jack and his first solo album. I needed a starting point, so I tried to triangulate: The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather. Ok, so it sounds nothing like The White Stripes, that much is obvious. "I'm shakin'" comes as close to the Stripes as this album will ever get. But it does contain traces of the other two bands. For example, I could easily see the song "Blunderbass" on a Raconteurs album, or "Sixteen Saltines" on a Dead Weather album. Right? I'm not just imagining it, yeah? That's fair enough, though, Jack's mind being behind all of these projects, it's only natural that some familiar sounds would leak through this project as well. And we love those sounds anyway.

One thing I did expect, to be honest, were more guitar-driven songs. I was looking forward to some brain-melting solos, and there are a few, but no "Blue Veins" here, I'm afraid. But there's lots of piano, hardly a song without it. All the songs are well-crafted, carefully structured and arranged....well, what did you expect, really? It's quite redundant to point that out in Jack's case, isn't it? The man can write a song.

As far as the lyrics go, from what I've been able to gather (haven't looked them up on the internet), it's mostly about relationships gone awry, the battle between sexes, stories / confessions , sometimes appologies and regrets, sometimes cusses and bile. It's autobiographical without a doubt, his break up with band-mate Meg and then with his wife, Karen, must have left him with some internal inquiries, as these things usually tend to do. And sometimes the songs sound like an autopsy (quite literally in "Missing Pieces"), and sometimes like a brief glance through the mirror and into the past.

All in all, this album certainly grows on you, even if your expectations were somewhat different, "rockier" perhaps, as mine were. The rock is there, the blues is there, but there's also a streak of childish insanity, the kid who wants to break stuff and pour gasoline on everybody's favorite cats.

Jack White - Freedom at 21


Jack White - Weep Themselves to Sleep

MARVELOUS CLOUDS

 

Right. I've been pending this for too long now.

So. After I got the pretty little vinyl (it's not little, it's normal size. But it is pretty, it's got clouds on it) and put it on the shelf for further analysis, I had forgotten all about it. The clouds on the cover are now part of my psyche just like the striped socks discarded in a corner for weeks. How reckless of me.

As this blog often confirms, I am a devoted Ween fan and have been for more than 15 years. It's my favorite band, and that's not an easy statement to make for a 36 years old male with an obssesive interest in music. You eventually grow out of such labels as "this rules" or "this sucks" when it comes to music, as you realize that you can be subjective in more than one way and that different musical genres bring different types of butterflies in your tummy. It's all good, as long as the soul is there in the end.

Aaron Freeman is a wonderful man. The chemistry between him and Mickey Melchiondo (and eventually the rest of the guys) is, by now, the stuff of legend, as far as I'm concerned. Bands like Ween are very rare, precisely because the members of the band seem to be communicating on a different, higher level than your everyday assemble of Four Fabulous random guys that form many other bands today. Many bands have the enthusiasm and maybe even the talent, but very few have the vision and the guts. And I know that sounds pompous, but, as the keen fan will know, Ween are actually a very deep band. But in a fun way!

Anyway. Back to Aaron.

Aaron is perhaps the more sensitive, therefore the more damaged half of the original Ween duo. The guy's been through a lot. Drugs, alcohol, scarring relationships, rehab, your usual rock star resume. The whole thing peaked in Vancouver last year, where he fucked up the show and the rest of the band were forced to abandon him on stage, and that was, as far as I know, the first and only time that's ever happened in the history of the band. It was funny, but really really sad.

But Aaron has come out of that murky dungeon, it seems. And I couldn't be happier, even though this change in him has apparently put Ween on hold for an indeterminate period of time. Sob.

But Aaron's been busy with his first ever solo project - Marvelous Clouds - a collection of Rod McKuen covers. I've talked about Rod before, so I'll skip that part. Well, I've talked about Ween before, countless times, but that's the advantage of it being my blog.

Marvelous Clouds is, quite simply put, a splendid thing. I'm sometimes gay like that. I like beautiful and simple things, things that are, like, so totally uncool nowadays: love, sentimentalism, honesty, the kitschy kind of melancholy you get when you see two strangers falling in love or simply getting along. That old rubbish. And I think Rod is like that. I also think that Aaron is like that deep down, as well. Romantics. Sorry I haven't had time to dust that word off before putting it here, it just popped into my brain like a rock through the window.

Anyway, I'm not gonna go through the album song by song, partially because it should be seen as a whole, but mostly because I can't be bothered right now, as I'm actually supposed to be working.

The thing is...this album sounds old and new at the same time. Which I think is awesomeness itself, because this kind of approach - let's call it romantic - should be made new again. You don't have to be stupid to be romantic, although I am aware that the two can often be mistaken. But the album isn't just sadistically corny, it's also funny here and there, sad here and there, but always gentle and marvelous, as the title suggests. Rod's beautiful, simple lyrics are delivered by Aaron in a most direct and tender manner, his voice stripped of all Ween-y shenanigans with which we've been used. The instrumentation is as clear and delicate as the morning dew falling into a baby deer's nostril. The whole thing has this aerial, puffy clouds feel to it, as indeed it should.

So have a listen and do try to recall things as they used to be. I'm merely suggesting that uncool is so totally the new cool, bitch.

Aaron Freeman - The Beautiful Strangers