chthonic [2021)

So Pauly Deathwish comes out with a Sonic Youth cover.

“Schizophrenia”.

Sounds like Sade and Yoshimi-era Lips.

Like mental illness is no big deal.

Strange.

Almost bossa nova.

Like an elevator music rendition.

I dig it, though.

Bachelor pad music for hipsters.

Sounds like the chord progression is totally different.

This bloke gonna be locked up with Stravinsky in Boston.

Kinda Herbie Hancock doing Nirvana.

William Shatner.

But then that fucking piano comes in.

Like “Time” from Aladdin Sane.

Fucking hell.

Beautiful and fucked up.

Ratchet up Conlon Nancarrow.

Something Charlie Parker about this.

Impossible arpeggiator.

Talking the Kim Gordon lines.

Muted.

Lou Reed.

Leonard Cohen.

This is good shit.

Gets all ’80s.

Public Image.

Finally Thurston and Ranaldo drop in.

Shit gets real.

The harmonies on this song are insane.

Like Messiaen.

Definitely fits the scordatura.

Something Brian Wilson about this progression too.

Like fuzzed-out Smile.

My fiancee dumped me 12 days ago without even telling me why.

Four year relationship gone.

NEXT SONG!

Suzanne Ciani.

Real guitar?

Sounds a little Built to Spill.

Very circumspect.

Great harmonies again.

This dude didn’t cheat his Fux.

Creeping automation.

Ambient.

What will it do?

Some sad shit like Godspeed.

Silver Mt. Zion.

Hats get going.

In a Silent Way.

Bass drum drops in.

It is obvious Pauly loves “A New Career in a New Town”.

This vibe resurfaces in many of his songs.

But THIS song!

Very “Mayonaise” by Smashing Pumpkins.

Like Glenn Branca with a better childhood.

A long instrumental.

Slow, simmering fire.

Anger.

Sadness.

Mixed together.

Catharsis.

SLOW-LY building.

Arpeggiator about to get wild again.

Mothersbaugh.

Fuzz bass drops in.

Soft Bulletin.

Wow.

What a guitar tone!

Sounds like a fucking harmonica.

Great lo-fi…Devendra Banhart vibe.

But this is straight Velvet Underground.

BRMC.

An instrumental with ooohs and ahhhs.

Bottom drops out.

Drums chugging away like Primal Scream.

Fucking glockenspiel!

A’ight, mate.

Interesting touch, there.

Little bit Mercury Rev.

See You on the Other Side.

Chugging away.

Guitars enjoying themselves.

Ghost of Sterling Morrison.

Tune called “Catharsiss” [sic].

Must be some weird Godard reference.

And the last song of this maxi.

Similar start as track 2.

Strange flange/phase Shepard scale weirdness.

Truly chilled-out, mellow bathtub guitar.

Like Yo La Tengo.

Those fucking pricks.

Why did they block Pauly Deathwish on Twitter?

That’s uncalled for.

Bloke’s just a struggling musician.

But they are holier than thou.

Well, Pauly’s played Maxwell’s in Hoboken too.

YLT never hit a vibe this good except on “Pablo and Andrea”.

Fucking unblock Pauly Deathwish, you losers.

Twitter.

Cymbals Eat Guitars vibe.

Very chilled out.

A little “All Cats Are Grey” feel.

Good guitar noodling.

In a Verlaine/Lloyd way.

Why did my fiancee dump me?

She won’t even tell me why.

12 days ago.

The day before thanksgiving.

Drums kick in.

Good beat.

MBV would have gone for this.

Similar guitar underneath.

A little J. Mascis.

Living with my parents.

Are you in therapy?

Haha.

FUCK THAT.

Yes, I review my own albums.

Because no one else will review them.

And because I have put out 16 albums in one year.

I don’t have time for people to catch on.

I worked hard on this shit.

I’m the same age Alan Vega when he started.

About to be 45.

Old as fuck.

So, I have a lot in common with Pauly Deathwish.

I feel his pain.

His fiancee dumped him too.

12 days ago as well.

She also didn’t tell him why.

She just started ignoring him like he was some piece of shit.

So I feel totally justified in helping Pauly out with this review.

To help get his music a wider audience.

Young Heart Attack feedback.

Radiohead clank.

“Creep”.

Back to the Badalamenti synths.

She just turned off her heart.

Maybe she doesn’t realize how much she is hurting me.

But I think she’s just a vindictive bitch.

-PD

41020 [2021)

A silver mt. zion.

Montreal.

Hotel tango.

Sighing synths.

Leonard Cohen.

Getting cold.

Lee Hazlewood.

Arizona into the Rockies.

Wyoming.

Road music.

Music of wide open spaces.

Charles Mingus checks in.

Bob Dylan.

Tumbleweeds.

Was QAnon bullshit?

WFMU seems to think so.

And all their hipster listeners.

Missing the Godspeed You! Black Emperor.

Chris Isaak.

My Bloody Valentine.

R.E.M.

Automatic for the people.

Rightly asking if this guy, Pauly Deathwish, is Borat.

Elvis working at the truck stop.

Nevada.

New Mexico.

Into French philosophy at a Barnes & Noble.

Film criticism.

Cinematic music.

The great philosophers.

Taking on Philip Glass.

Rachmaninoff.

Swedish version.

Poor girl with grey teeth.

Dirty bra.

Addicted to Kardashians.

And meth.

Smoking candy cigarettes.

Brutal, cold world.

No fall back.

Withdrawal back.

Wanna lock me for blood pressure.

It ain’t no cakewalk.

Ripoff.

Tech moves fast.

Write anything.

Better than nothing.

Bad press.

No press.

You have a printing press.

The Innocence Mission.

Miles.

Porgy and Bess.

A thousand planes.

Two ambient instrumentals to start this album.

Setting an amber tone.

Pensive.

Ex-pensive.

Time is a luxury.

And Miles comes in.

Bending notes.

Sighing again.

Like music from Big Pink.

John Simon.

Leonard Cohen.

Very much of the Deserter’s Songs type.

Song cycle.

Van Dyke.

And Coltrane leaps in.

No bends.

Solid sax.

Honky.

Low mids.

Leaping up.

Transposition.

A little noodling.

And WHAT THE FUCK.

Now we are in Blue Hawaii.

On a jukebox in Nashville.

Sawdust on the floor.

Just spit that tabaccy anywheres.

It really is Elvis.

Loaded.

Lou Reed.

Doo-wop.

We’re in east Texas with George Jones.

Straight country.

Classic country.

Bona fide redneck interpolation.

“Daisies on Your Doorstep”.

Troubled relationship.

Robert Altman.

Nashville.

Hitchcock.

Traut.

Birds.

Grandaddy invades!

Modesto!!

And back to EXPANSIVE verb.

Cathedral.

Serious shit.

Country gothic.

Phil Spector would have loved this.

The plandemic that killed Phil Spector.

Biggest celebrity to buy the farm.

Buy the farm?

Or sell the farm?

During this whole plandemic.

Write copy.

Boilerplate.

You have no publicity.

I block all reposts.

I wanna EARN it.

Organic.

Diminished 7th.

Dissolve into what?

More Mercury Rev homage.

Drums from “Desperado”.

Another lonely bloke ended by “Holes”.

Favorite song ever.

Happy end.

Drunk room.

Tom Waits.

The chord.

Spring.

Le Sacre.

Back to regularly scheduled programming.

Knife in the Water.

Austin.

R.E.M. again.

Big Star.

John Cale droning away on the viola.

No tremolo.

Swing it.

Ragged time.

Texarkana.

Arkansas.

And Texas.

Definite Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci nod.

Nick Drake.

Again The Innocence Mission.

Birds.

Pink Floyd.

Fairport Convention.

Psych barn.

The Byrds.

Gram Parsons.

Neil Young big time.

Stooges meet Beach Boys meet Messiaen.

But the Bowie knife is orange.

Made in Germany.

Kanye West and Wayne Coyne drop in.

An anti-hit.

When you can sing, but you get raped by auto-tune.

Loosen that shit up.

Going all Arabic on me.

Raga.

Spinal Tap.

Clouds of sound on almost every track.

A very ambient album.

Mood set.

Mood retained.

Mature.

Duran Duran.

Peaches DJ Berlin.

Where’s Warhol?

Nigel Godrich.

Jonny Greenwood.

Thom Yorke.

Grinderman.

Roger Waters again.

Microtonal blues.

Straight into Bjork.

Does she umlaut?

Sounds of a Mac.

Swan.

Alarm clock.

Gentle waking.

Paganini.

Rachmaninoff.

Elton John.

Stevie Wonder.

Sly Stone.

James Bond in Rio.

Drax.

Os Mutantes.

Jobim.

Korean frogs.

Shinto.

Spy guitar for reprise.

Tom Verlaine.

Richard Lloyd.

Paul Simon.

Rhythm of the saints.

Graceland.

Beethoven emperor concerto.

Slow.

Beloved.

Tokyo.

Press roll.

Sushi.

Kill bounce.

Phil Selway.

Colin Greenwood?

A masterful track.

“Icelandic Pastiche”.

NOW WE’RE TALKING.

Papa Trump back in the house.

For the apocalypse.

Rocky Balboa.

L.L. Cool J.

Jesus fucking Christ.

Second coming.

To save.

Vengeance is his.

Everyone given a chance.

A fair chance.

NASA.

I hear a single.

“Landslide”.

Wisconsin decertified.

Ramthun came through.

About fucking time.

There’s a riot goin’ on.

Paperclip Nazis.

Eric Carmen.

Smokey Robinson.

Tears of a motherfucking clown.

Oboe.

Michael Stipe.

Gil Evans.

Having the French horns get groovy.

Amelie.

Sketches of Spain.

Sunday morning.

Loveless.

Kevin Shields.

Belinda.

The Soft Bulletin.

Christ coming down from the clouds.

Like a ton of bricks.

Anvil.

Don’t call it a comeback.

Not all the way.

Staple Singers.

Rick Danko.

Rocket pans across stereo field.

Jesus talkin’.

Crucified.

Died.

Buried.

AND ROSE AGAIN, MOTHERFUCKERS.

Jesus more space than NASA.

Really a masterpiece of sample placement.

Crystal-clear mix.

Clouseau.

Peter Sellers.

Bass solo.

Absolute Mingus.

Bloody jaw-dropping.

This is like a fucking lost Roland Kirk album.

This track!

Concerto for Booty and Orchestra.

Montreux.

Can never spell.

System hacked.

No more spelling.

Adieu au langage.

Flute loops.

Cocteau Twins.

Ties together album.

Last track coming on like Faust.

Built to Spill.

Silver Apples.

In memory of a bloke who bit it.

End of Night on Earth.

Real recorder.

Charity.

You will live forever, my friend.

I never knew you.

You aren’t forgotten.

Thought of you put in this track.

Catharsis.

Yerself is steam.

Smashing Pumpkins.

Siamese.

Great album by Pauly Deathwish.

Spotify.

iTunes.

Solid.

-PD


Cuban Fury [2014)

“You got no fear of the underdog/

That’s why you will not survive.”

Britt Daniel wrote that lyric.

And it’s the only song by his band Spoon which has even the most remote bit of soul in it.

Such a soulless band, Spoon…

The ultimate plastic hipsters.

A male supermodel and his gang of H&M monkeys behind him.

It would almost be artistic…in sort of an Andy Warhol/Factory sort of way.

Except there is no humor in it.

Spoon are dead serious.

The irony is (ATTN:  hipsters) there’s no irony here.

All that being said, Britt Daniel wrote one of the best songs I’ve ever heard.

And it’s the one I quoted above.

“The Underdog”

It doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t matter that my path crossed Britt’s path.

It doesn’t matter that I was invited to audition for his band Spoon as a keyboard player.

It doesn’t matter that he probably saw me in an outfit that wasn’t quite svelte enough and promptly canceled my audition before it ever happened.

Because he underestimated the underdog.

And that’s why he will not survive.

Last I heard, Spoon (or at least their godhead, Britt) relocated to Portland.

I suppose Austin wasn’t hip enough anymore.

Either that, or his shitty personality had shit off everyone in Austin and he needed a new lot of cunts to shit on.

But I digress…

Because, as stated, Britt had a point.

Once.

In one song.

[whether he learned the lesson he sang about or not is a different story]

But it is very much germane to OUR story–to this fantastic film:

Cuban Fury.

You almost always see Nick Frost in tow behind his partner in comedy Simon Pegg.

But not this time.

And so here we start a new investigation.

The test was simple:  could Nick Frost carry a film by himself (without the great talents of Simon Pegg)?

And the answer is a resounding YES!

We start all Billy Elliott (that one thing upon which Admiral General Aladeen and his presumptive torturer could agree).

Ass kicked.

Sequins eaten.

A future star quits mid-stride.

What could have been…

Have you ever had such a moment in your life?

I have.

LIFE beat me up.

In the span of a couple of months.

And now, instead of laying down tracks on 2-inch tape, I’m making songs solely with an iPhone.

You can feel the excitement.

It had to have been at least 20 years for Bruce (Nick Frost).

He gave up his passion.

Thought he would never cross paths again with salsa dancing.

He had been on the precipice of the youth national title in Britain.

Then his life went humdrum.

Works an office job for a company specializing in lathes.

The most nondescript industry possible.

But he gets a new boss.

Rashida Jones.

She is excellent here.

She hits just the right notes in her performance.

She is Bruce’s new boss.

But, as fortune would have it, she (an American in Britain) loves salsa.

Bruce is gobsmacked.

Enough so to turn his life around.

To attempt to reel in the years.

Equally brilliant as the first two players I’ve mentioned (Frost and Jones) is Ian McShane.

You might remember him as the head of MI6 in The Brothers Grimsby.

But ironically, his role here (as Bruce’s former dance teacher) is far heavier.

Think Burgess Meredith with an occasional lisping Spanish one would expect to hear in Madrid.

And McShane injects some Keith Richards pirate couture for good measure.

This is a HARD man.

Drinking tequila the whole film.

And he’s a fucking dance teacher.

A TOUGH dance teacher.

He’s tough because he sees the potential in his student.

And he won’t let his student half-ass this endeavor.

Either you go “all in”, or you go home.

Passion.

El corazón.

This film is truly a joy to watch.

…to see Nick Frost regain what truly makes him happy.

To dance.

It’s the story of someone reclaiming themselves.

Rewinding life…just enough to relive ones happiest former version of being (and relocate oneself).

But here’s the other part.

The ladies.

Or lady, here.

They just see Nick as a fat schlub.

No way this guy could dance salsa, right?

Every day suffering insults from a particularly nasty coworker.

Let me illustrate.

For me, supporting President Trump brings me daily grief.

Every day I am made aware (by “liberals”) that they hate me.

I am treated badly.

In person.

At work.

Online.

Simply trying to start my romantic life over and date.

I am very upfront.

Listed front and center:  “I voted for Trump.”

Kind of like an, “Abandon hope, ye who enter”.

But more like:  Let the Buyer Beware.

I lay it all out there.

“I live with my parents.”

etc.

And I get some shitty shit.

Which is why, every once in awhile, I think God is looking out for me.

I think maybe that God sees what I go through.

I’m not mean.

I’m not rude.

I don’t proselytize in a political sense.

I try to show warmth to others.

I try to show God’s love with my actions.

And boy do I end up throwing my pearls before swine sometimes…

Often, perhaps.

Lots of swine.

And it gets me down.

But I thought today was gonna be better.

Since last night.

Things had been going really well for me.

And now, here at 4 in the morning, I find myself back in a similar spot.

But it’s ok.

Because God loves me.

And if a bunch of braindead bitches wanna ignore the underdog,

then we won’t be surprised why they didn’t find happiness.

So this is a love story.

Forbidden love.

Nick Frost is in love with his boss.

Because his boss is perfect…for him.

It’s FaTE.

God puts us in the position to win.

But true winning is not always capturing first place.

“You can’t always get what you want…

But if you try sometimes,

you might find,

you get what you need.”

Where have I heard that song these past four years?

Ah, yes.

She was never supposed to lose.

Hillary Clinton.

She underestimated the underdog.

That’s why she did not survive.

Before this goes totally off the rails.

Love is the greatest victory there is.

But love has to be reciprocated.

If you’re a superstar (and I know you are, my dear reader), then you deserve AT LEAST as much as you give.

When you give love, compliments, gifts, affection, etc.

If you find yourself always to be the giver…and never allowed to be the taker (because nothing is given to you), then you just might be in the wrong situation.

I know I was.

And, praise God, I am out of that for the time being.

Except for at least one catch.

The world, our world, is primarily composed of takers.

Ingrates.

People without manners.

Humans unfamiliar with common courtesy.

Unpracticed at recognizing fairness.

People who have very little conscience (if any whatsoever).

And they are either unaware that they are such assholes, or they are aware and they simply do not care.

So again, it’s just me on this computer here.

Sitting in the dark.

Typing.

But that’s ok.

Because in this movie, a fat guy gets a beautiful girl.

And he gets her because he’s good at something.

Do you feel me?

But we must be righteous too.

Let us not underestimate OUR personal underdogs.

Let us not defile the name of God by letting superficiality reign.

God will show us the way.

Let us do what is just.

I ask that all who read this may be helped.

That each of them may know that God loves them.

And I ask this in the name of the Son of God.

I ask this by the power that is in the name Jesus.

God works in mysterious ways.

Our loving God will not be mocked.

God will not lose in the end.

We are entrusted with great responsibility.

But we know who wins.

And we know that the ending is magnificent.

And we know that all are welcome in the Kingdom of Heaven.

God only asks that we have humility.

The humility to ask forgiveness.

And God does not demand perfection.

The coin which God accepts, for eternal life, is faith.

And God charges no interest on this coin.

It is given freely, yet it is the most valuable thing in the universe.

Praise be to His holy name.

Indictments = start.

 

-PD