https://open.spotify.com/episode/2kH9x7B9SVbefqjOXYeHdN?si=988594f5af8d40bd
Tag Archives: Daniel Johnston
Cinematic music 4/19 [2022)
https://share.stationhead.com/YR0XktxmyJF
“Flying Cloud”–Dinosaur Jr.
“Jealous Guy”–Roxy Music
“Clocks”–Coldplay
“Opening”–Philip Glass
“Spoon”–CAN
“Suite bergamasque: III. Clair de lune”–Claude Debussy
“Goodbye Blue Sky”–Pink Floyd
“Blue Clouds”–Mercury Rev
“Big White Cloud”–John Cale
“China Girl”–Iggy Pop
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4yJdVHveqwJvrXa5J946W3?si=be2007ca21c04142
Introversion [2021)
Teenage Fanclub.
That glow in The World’s End.
But a sadness.
THE sadness.
Emily Dickinson.
Unrequited.
Unattainable.
My Bloody Valentine.
Sloshy grunge hats.
Edge echo.
Chris Bell.
I Am the Cosmos.
Yerself Is Steam.
Slowdive.
Rutti.
Brian Eno.
The disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
Tom Petty.
You don’t know how it feels.
J. Spaceman.
Abbey Road.
Air.
George Martin.
Beck.
Badfinger suicides.
Loser.
Spiritualized.
Royal Albert.
I can only give you everything.
Rick Danko.
Loping.
The Delgados.
Dave Fridmann.
Black magic warded off by honesty.
Good timing.
Divine.
Sigur Rós.
Nigel Godrich.
Pocket symphonies.
Charlotte Gainsbourg.
Serge on the way.
Lenny Bruce, even.
Hit to Death in the Future Head.
Wait at least until track three to break it down.
Southern Harmony and Musical Companion.
Gorecki.
Arvo Pärt.
Deserter’s Songs.
Absolutely.
The confusion of ridiculous counterpoint.
Aaron Copland.
Tonal, yet dissonant.
Thick Billy Corgan.
Siamese Dream.
Definitely a sadness here.
Dawn Upshaw.
Tabula rasa.
Death.
Immense Mellotron.
Tchaikovsky.
Abrupt modulation.
Sugar plum.
Lou Reed.
Ennio Morricone.
Cinema Paradiso.
All you need is hate.
Upstate.
Chaliapin.
Basso profundo.
Jussi Björling.
Dvořák.
Memorial day.
The Inflated Tear.
Columbus, Ohio with duct tape.
Debussy.
Posing with a bass clarinet.
Primal Scream.
Get Duffy.
Rock ferry.
Smokey Robinson.
Sad clown.
Dead clown.
Kinks.
Grasshopper.
Suzanne.
Woodwind quintet.
Did I ever write one?
Yes, I did.
César Franck.
Saint-Saëns.
Organ symphony.
Or is it contrabassoon?
Nadia Boulanger can tell you.
My teacher’s teacher (twice over).
The Left Banke.
LSD.
Herb Alpert?
Hummel.
Handel.
Strawberry fields.
Stereolab.
Unequivocally.
Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements.
A little lo-fi.
Vocal doubled.
Vox continental.
Great hook.
Changes that pull at your heartstrings.
More melancholy.
A fucking marimba solo?!?
Are you kidding me???
Makes sense.
Pauly Deathwish collaboration with Gordon Gano of Violent Femmes.
Lost Bayou Ramblers.
Gordon knew him as Death.
I have become death.
96 Tears.
Farfisa.
Partials.
Tim Gane tone.
Faust IV.
Doogie Howser?
Scary.
Impending.
Suspense.
Rock bass.
Ozzy.
Black Sabbath.
Amazing Grace.
Pete Townshend.
Front.
Back to J. Spaceman.
Dirty ass rock and roll with pristine horns.
Expensive drugs.
Sophisticated changes.
Éminence grise?
Is this the artist we’ve been waiting for?
Rodriguez?
R. Stevie Moore?
Wesley Willis?
Sounds like Jack Nitzsche.
Major Velvet vibes.
Suck-ceed twice.
Dylan with P-bass.
Mick Taylor.
Too much attitude.
Keith Richards.
Let it Come Down.
Shakespeare.
Fucker kicked the bucket.
First to be vaxxed.
Maricopa.
First Suicide album.
Bossa nova.
The Soft Bulletin.
Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space.
Gimme some lovin’?
Steve Winwood?
How old?
La Monte Young.
Slow changes.
First rehearsal tapes.
Alan Vega.
Martin Rev.
New York City heroin.
Warhol Factory torn down.
Across from YMCA.
Trump dances.
Great throwaway lyrics.
George Harrison.
Sound of universe.
Spacemen 3.
Savage tone.
Revolution.
Direct into mixing console.
Fried signal.
White album.
Sonic Youth.
Derek Bailey.
Lou ecstacy.
Late Lou.
European son.
Blood pressure rising.
Brutal.
Frankie Teardrop.
I think I’m in love.
Dub bass.
Will the circle remain unbroken?
When I had dinner with Roky.
13th Floor.
First Velvets album.
Heroin.
Drug rush.
Invincible.
But you gotta buy it.
Dirty Baltimore.
Cop shoot cop.
Cheree.
On the jukebox.
Eat at the gas station.
On tour.
First time in Texas.
American Supreme.
Iceland.
13 Angels.
It’s definitely Bowie.
New career.
Same town.
New old.
Old is new again.
Mercury Rev.
Savvy programming.
Dynamics.
Break beat.
A fuck ton of flutes.
Flute loops literally.
Bowie sax.
Little fluffy clouds.
Every drop.
Gay glam chorus.
Tony Visconti.
Don’t underestimate.
Pere Ubu.
First album.
Méliès.
Boys peel out.
Boces.
Inspector Clouseau.
Phone.
French ambulance.
Pants.
Gives me pants.
Videogames.
Cutting hole.
Pink Panther.
Herbert Lom.
A Shot in the Dark.
Grandaddy.
Under the Western Freeway.
Weeping willow.
Under that.
With Sean Mackowiak.
Square waves.
WarGames.
Tympani.
Rollerskate Skinny.
Dublin.
Kevin Shields.
Comes back loud.
One song mastered soft.
Definitely Low.
The main influence of Pauly Deathwish’s debut album.
Honegger.
Pacific 231.
Chariots of fire.
Vangelis.
Such a groove.
Nancarrow.
Polyrhythm.
Immense sadness.
By the side of a freeway.
Under an underpass.
Not like RHCP.
Much darker.
Like Godspeed.
Philip Glass.
Eno.
Blackstar.
How did a Trump supporter make this album?!?
I thought all Trump supporters were redneck morons???
This is way fucking better than Ariel Pink’s dabblings.
This sounds like a debut album.
Songs saved up.
Like The Strokes.
Cinematic as fuck.
Glitch Radiohead.
Trail of Dead.
Makes sense.
Because Pauly wrote the string arrangement on IX.
Dark.
Killers.
Disco compression.
Distressed.
These lyrics!
Johnny Rotten.
Trump 2021.
Snot on the crowd.
Arcade Fire.
Makes sense.
Lost Bayou Ramblers lost sessions.
Montreal studio.
This was all made on an iPhone?!?
Guy Debord.
Aladdin Sane.
Time.
Rick Wakeman?
Olivier Messiaen.
Major 7ths in uppermost range of piano.
Almost indistinguishable from octaves.
Eerie.
Slight.
Only for the sensuous ear.
The Wall.
Waters delayed bass.
No nonsense drums.
Humble Pie reference?!?
Ha!
Great lyrics!!
Predating new Bob Dylan album.
Check SoundCloud timestamp.
This is definitely the QAnon anthem.
This hook should be on a million conspiracy videos.
“10 Days of Darkness”.
Tell ’em Large Marge sent ya!
My end is my beginning is my end.
Grinderman.
No pussy.
Early-’90s.
Nirvana’s wake.
Finnegans Wake.
Great debut album (if I do say so myself).
Usual suspects.
Spotify.
iTunes.
Pauly Deathwish.
-PD
Medianeras [2011)
Here is as close to perfect as I can imagine.
When I clicked on this film on Hulu (translated as Sidewalls), I just expected it to be another film that I would stop watching after 30 seconds.
It vaguely looked like it had Eva Green in it.
Or Natalie Portman.
Thank God it doesn’t.
Instead, it stars Pilar López de Ayala as Mariana and Javier Drolas as Martin.
Indeed, this is the second Argentine film I’ve found which borders on sheer perfection.
The other is El Crítico (which followed two years later in 2013).
It’s true.
Both these films are introspective and self-reflective.
In Medianeras, this is more subtle.
Martin carries around three Tati films in his backpack (the topmost [visible] one being Playtime).
But all of this is academic.
What is important to say is that Medianeras is a cosmic, transcendent romance for the 21st century.
The composition is taut.
The cinematography is deft.
The montage is formidable.
But equally, the writing by director Gustavo Taretto is pristine.
You can look him up.
He’s a big, bushy-bearded 53-year-old.
But I highly admire the mind which came up with this film.
And the eye which brought it to life.
Pilar López de Ayala is magical here.
So many beautiful touches of storytelling.
Sure.
Taretto owes a small debt to Jeunet’s Amélie, but it is ever so small.
Indeed, it is mostly the music (the precious, tick-tock minimalism of the harp) and a pair of sequences involving humorous litanies.
The latter is achieved through copious edits of visual images to match the speaker’s rather cumbersome list(s).
It makes sense.
Amélie was a huge hit on the international stage just ten years prior to Medianeras.
And it too was an excellent film.
So Taretto has borrowed from a source which also indicates his good taste.
But our director has gone much further than merely borrowing.
He has created his own coherent language.
There are amazing sequences with Pilar López de Ayala in her apartment as her next-door neighbor wades through Beethoven and Chopin on a hoisted piano.
It is such that Mariana’s isolated life becomes a sort of postmodern ballet.
Sans dancing.
More brooding than anything.
Playing.
But, above all, being lonely.
And that is what drives this home.
We have a lonely man.
And a lonely woman (Ornette).
And paths which cross.
It’s not just sexual tension, but philosophical tension.
We really don’t know if these two perfect lovers will ever meet.
They are so dangerously close to colliding.
Like electrons.
We want these characters to live forever.
And they do.
In that they are composed of real life foibles.
As both watch Woody Allen in the dark.
And cry.
[as I cry watching them]
And both turn up Daniel Johnston singing “True Love Will Find You in the End”.
As I live with my parents.
[as the late-Daniel Johnston lived with his]
I think.
But I do know this.
That the sidewall in Austin has said, “Hi, how are you?” for so long.
And I am stuck in San Antonio.
Probably a much shittier city than Buenos Aires.
No doubt.
But so achingly-close to my old haunts in Austin.
And I don’t know if I will ever see them again.
Because life is hard.
And my life is generally shit.
“Working” at Starbucks.
Soon enough.
Again.
Not sure.
If my fiancée is dying.
And I am weeping.
Because I can relate to Martin and Mariana.
I can’t sleep.
It is 5 a.m. and I am writing a movie review which probably no one will read.
But I am happy in a strange way.
Because I found a film that reflects my life and makes me feel like all of my romantic longings and eccentricities are not for nothing.
So thank you, Gustavo.
Amazing film!!!
-PD
paulydeathwish 