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


Ordet [1955)

I’m so scared of life.

So scared of death.

And everything in between.

And so I thank the God of all religions.

My God.  Whom I do not own.  Not mine alone.

Once, an old lady in a corner taught me how to pronounce Søren Kierkegaard.  [Kierka Gourd]

And I delivered a speech of mere seconds…in Denmark…extolling Ordet.

And now we have come full circle.

What was living has died.

And in the spark of a moment is alive again.

That is the miracle of cinema which the auteur theorists captured.

It’s not just the story.  It’s how you tell it.

That spark of manipulating the mystery…the seventh art…cinema…that is authorship.

The breath of life.

Magic.

Yes.

Anything can happen in the movies.

Everything is possible.

The mutants receive new life from David Byrne and Luaka Bop captures a situation à la Yves Klein.

Johannes will often spout out nonsense.  Seemingly.  The insanity of religion.

But few times has the essence of faith been so lovingly portrayed as here.

Certainly Francesco, giullare di Dio.  Rossellini.  Five years previous.

Yes, the jester of God.

I am here for you.  For that very purpose.  My sermon.  Amen.

Now that we finally have a Pope who espouses omnism.

And there are those who would call him antichrist.

Rubbish!

Be like Peter.  Peter Peterson.  Reread the words of Jesus.

It’s all a bunch of unimportant bollocks over which we are arguing.

And meanwhile propaganda puts truth at the service of falsehood.

But I’m just a messed up kid.

I’ve studied too much.

Like Johannes.

I’m delusional.

Especially insofar as thinking I can change anything whatsoever.

What faith!  What insanity!!

No.

I merely have the heart of Mikkel.  The doubter.

And I grow into the form of Morten.  The pessimist.

But what about that magic?

That electric guitar with a lightening flash?  Perfectly synchronized.

Those behind-the-scenes meanderings of God.  A humble god.  Not drawing too much attention.

Yes, that is the sentiment of Inger (Birgitte Federspiel).

Everything we have ever loved.

Taken from us.

Goodbye.

And all the while Preben Lerdorff Rye wanders around as if in a trance.

Exactly like Nicolas de Gunzberg in Vampyr.

Exactly like Falconetti in La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc.

And exactly like the mad saints who penned the great maniacal books.

The Gospel of John (Johannes).  The Word.  Ordet.

And the Book of Revelation.  Dangerous plaything of the lonely.

Harmless psychedelia taken literally.

So obviously a bad trip.  And what a perfect exclamation of fear to finalize the canon.

And how ironic that the futurists have never heard of Giacomo Balla or Carlo Carrà or even Marinetti himself.

Yes.  Not at all ironic.

Dialectic.  Socratic method.  Devil’s advocate.

Unity of opposites.  Heraclitus.  Logos.

I say, my good man…  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Harrumph!

Is the auto-antonym flammable or inflammable?  Make up your mind!

And cleave TO or diverge like cleavage (literally)?

Which is to say, “defined by its opposite”.

Leadership><Followership.

You’ll end up hating algebra (wink wink).

iff!

(~)

ñot!  Borat.

Bathetic (!)

+ or

with black pieces, mind you:

“1.e4 e5 2.f4 Bc5 3.Nf3 d6 4.c3 Bg4 5.Bc4 Nd7 6.h3 Bxf3 7.Qxf3 Qe7 8.a4 a6 9.b4 Ba7 10.Na3 Ngf6 11.f5 c6 12.d3 h6 13.Nc2 Rd8 14.Be3 Bb8 15.O-O Nh7 16.Qg4 Qf8 17.h4 Ndf6 18.Qf3 Qe7 19.g4 d5 20.Bc5 Bd6 21.Bxd6 Qxd6 22.Bb3 O-O 23.Rad1 g5 24.Ne3 Kg7 25.h5 Rfe8 26.Rf2 Nf8 27.Rb2 b5 28.Ra2 d4 29.axb5 axb5 30.Nc2 Ra8 31.Rxa8 Rxa8 32.cxd4 exd4 33.Kg2 N8d7 34.Qf2 Nxg4 35.Qxd4+ Qxd4 36.Nxd4 Ne3+ 37.Kf3 Nxd1 38.Bxd1 Ne5+ 39.Ke3 Ra1 40.Be2 Rb1 41.Nf3 Nxf3 42.Bxf3 Rxb4 43.e5 c5 44.Bc6 Rb1 45.Ke4 b4 46.Kd5 b3 47.Kd6 b2 48.Ke7 Re1 49.f6+ Kg8 50.Be4 Rxe4 51.dxe4 b1=Q 52.Kd6 Qxe4 0–1”

Will easily lead you to a rather insignificant Rousseau.

A social contract for the turnstiles.

“the things that you’re liable/to read in the Bible”

And yet the tearstains remain on my glasses…

Like a day at the beach.

Long ago.

Salty.

I pray this that and the uttering.

The word.

If it be possible.

 

-PD

SNL Season 1 Episode 18 [1976)

When you set the time machine to 1976, it’s a pleasant buzz to come face to…face with Raquel Welch.

What…rather, who could sum up that time quite like her?

Her feathered hair.  Her overly-tanned (golden?) skin.  Her bellbottom jeans.

There’s something fizzy about the experience.

A starlet now faded.  A human sequin.

I previously wrote about Welch’s 1967 film Fathom.

Aside from base titillation, it’s a pretty lame affair.

But here on Saturday Night Live she gets to show a bit more of her talent.

Not much more.  A bit more.

For instance, Raquel sings on this episode.

The monologue-substitute with John Belushi as Joe Cocker is pretty fantastic.

It’s a comedy piece.

Later, Welch actually does share the rarefied air which Marilyn Monroe breathed when she sang “Happy Birthday” for JFK.

I’m speaking of Raquel’s rendition of the Gershwin tune “It Ain’t Necessarily So”.  Few microphone techniques can be said to carry such sexual import as Welch’s on this number.

And the subject matter…for God’s sake!

It ain’t Sportin’ Life from Porgy and Bess.

No.

It’s Raquel singing, “The things that you’re liable/to hear in the Bible”…[what a rhyme!]…”It ain’t necessarily so.”

So.  You get the picture.

Welch is steamy as a Manhattan manhole cover in winter.

One particularly great sequence involves Welch as Jane Russell on the set of The Outlaw (1943).  Dan Aykroyd plays Howard Hughes.  It is pretty priceless!

Aykroyd is also great in the sequence about applying the metric system to the English alphabet (the Decabet).

What’s bad about this great blast from the past?

Phoebe Snow.

I really don’t want to hate on this lady, but it’s a combination of snoozerville and overly-precious musicianship masquerading as talent.

Snow has that horribly indiscreet application of wide vibrato which always irks the bejesus out of me.

And the songs…for christsake!  “Two-Fisted Love”?!?  Are you fuckin’ kidding me?  How does an MOR artist do a song like “Two-Fisted Love” with a straight face.

And so Phoebe Snow is godawful here.  It bears mentioning because (for some [un]mysterious reason) she was back on the show for a second time [here] in season one.

But let’s dish some more.  John Sebastian also sucks on this episode.  Trying to cash in on his Welcome Back, Kotter theme song.

Likewise, somebody in charge of sound for this episode adds to the lameness of Sebastian’s performance.  Or, from another perspective, the only good thing about John Sebastian’s performance here is his microphone feeding back during his aborted intro.

Ok, there.  I’ve let them both have it.  Snow and Sebastian.

What else is good about this episode?

Let’s end on a high note.

Lorne Michaels’ solicitation of The Beatles (for a whopping $3000) is goddamned brilliant.

Ok.  So there you have it.  Oh…and Belushi as the high-strung meteorologist during Weekend Update is damned good as well.

Cheerio!

 

-PD