ghostlifeghostlife.

As some of you may know my Mom is currently in the hospital fighting for her life due complications from a heart condition that has caught up with her over the past years. Before she went into the hospital more than 2 weeks ago, I started a draft for this post in “tribute” to this wonderful song by Crystal Castles called ‘Suffocation’.  I’ve been obsessing over it for the past months for a few reasons.   At first it was because I just loved the sound, it’s just one these songs that builds and builds beautifully into this (and not to sound like a cliched rock critic) blizzard of digital white noise.  On top of it, because I’m not one to pay attention or care about lyrics whatsoever, the fact that you can’t tell what she is saying at all – while her voice is so peculiar  - it made it all the better for me.  But because it was so peculiar I decided to look up the lyrics and just loved what they had to say – in particular with the public’s fascination with image and the damage that can do to people in general.

Fast forward to a week ago where I was able to get my spirits up a bit and listen to some music again, and my first choice was this song.  I read the lyrics as I listened and due to my Mom’s ordeal it brought up a whole new meaning for me – specifically the lyrics about resuscitation and the consequences of such a decision, which is one of many conversations I’ve had to have with my Mom over the past years due to her situation. Hearing it this time was very emotional for me.

You may not like this song, and fair enough it may not be for everyone.  But it’s one that adds new meaning/love/appreciation every time I hear it, so I wanted to share.  I highly recommend listening to this song at least once without the lyrics, hopefully even twice, and as loud as possible to fully experience what’s going on in this song.  Then listen again and read along with the lyrics.  It probably won’t have the same meaning for you – understandably, but on a surface level it’s really interesting to hear how a song where all you can think is “she can’t possibly be speaking any language in this song” but then see she definitely is  when you listen again while reading the lyrics .  I love music like this, where every time you listen you hear something new.  Just a wonderful, lovely and beautiful song that I wanted to share.  And since my albums of the year list may be very very late this year (if at all) due to working with my Mom’s ordeal, at least I have one little bit of music to recommend this year.

We ignore refused consent
animals do not repent
courtesy to intervene
weathered down my selfish needs
I suffocate

And promise me you won’t resuscitate
and if I change my mind it’s far too late
I’m wasting my days as I’ve wasted my nights and I’ve wasted my youth
you’re waiting for something you’ve waited in vain because there’s nothing for you

Suffocation

Humility yet to be seen
models made of plasticene
morality disgrace us now
entertain and take a bow
I suffocate

And promise me you won’t resuscitate
and if I change my mind it’s far too late
I’m wasting my days as I’ve wasted my nights and i’ve wasted my youth
you’re waiting for something you’ve waited in vain because there’s nothing for you

Suffocation

love ALLways,

Andrew W. Bush
43rd President of the United States of America

For anyone who has spent any time listening to Throwing Muses, 50 Foot Wave, or any of Ms Hersh’s 9 solo albums over the past 25 years (and if you haven’t, you should, she is – as cheesy as it sounds – a real American treasure, one of the greatest, unique songwriters we have), you will have probably noticed she is a vivid lyricist.  Surreal, abstract, beautiful – take your pick.  With that in mind, luck would have it that when she first started out in the music business back in 1985 she was writing a diary of sorts, and now she has expanded that diary into a memoir that covers one year of her life – from 1985 to 1986 – including her battles with bi-polar disease, trying to make it in the music business, and becoming a new Mom. I’ve personally only just started the book, but so far her writing is as wonderful, funny and bizarre as her lyrics have always been, and I can’t recommend it enough. Neither can the …

New York Times Book Review

“At the Catholic university where her father teaches, Hersh befriends a student who turns out to be the old-time Hollywood star Betty Hutton, long past the glitter days of “Annie Get Your Gun.” In one of the book’s oddest moments, Hutton comes to see Hersh’s band in a sleazy club, bringing her priest along. She gives her protégée show-biz tips she claims to have received firsthand from Al Jolson. But her advice (don’t just sing, “fall in love”) falls on seriously deaf ears. “Betty sings about starlight and Champagne,” Hersh writes. “I sing about dead rabbits.”

Excerpt from Chapter 2:
“Before I disappeared into the Doghouse, the songs I heard were not devils, they were floaty angels. Gentle and meandering, interesting if you took the time to pay attention, but they wouldn’t necessarily stop you in your tracks. Now the songs I bring to my band are essential, bursting: harsh black-and-white sketches that my bandmates color in with their own personal noise. These songs grab your face and shout at it.

Do you want your face grabbed and shouted at? Probably not; at the very least, it’s irritating. But now that it’s happened to me, I know that music is as close to religion as I’ll ever get.  It’s a spiritually and biologically sound endeavor – it’s healthy.

Some music is healthy, anyway. I know a lot of bands who’re candy. Or Beer. Fun and bad for you in a way that make you feel good. For a minute. My band is … spinach, I guess.  We’re ragged and bitter.  But I swear to god, we’re good for you.“

The paperback is out now in the States with Penguin Boons under the title Rat Girl, and in January it will be released in the UK as a hardcover with the title Paradoxical Undressing. Both of the beautiful covers are below – both by long time Hersh collaborators.

www.kristinhersh.com

love ALLways,

Andrew W. Bush
43rd President of the United States of America

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TWINPEAKS IMAGEOFTHEDAY

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This Week’s Box Office Top Ten (circa 25 years ago)
Weekend of October 18-20, 1985

1| Commando
2| Jagged Edge
3| Back to the Future
4| Remo Williams : The Adventure Begins
5| Silver Bullett
6| Agnes of God
7| Better Off Dead
8| Sweet Dreams
9| After Hours
10| Invasion USA

* please note another new “feature” at the bottom of each post from now on. this time we present This Week’s Box Office Top Ten (circa 25 years ago). Because of my 80′s movie obsession, and because WE ALL MUST NEVER FORGET, this is necessary.  I strive to live in a world where once again movies like ‘Porky’s’ remain #1  at the box office for 2 months straight, and polar opposites like ‘Agnes of God’ and ‘Invasion USA’ battle it out for top spot.

Probably one of the greatest albums I’ve “ever” heard would be the 1998 opus The Italian Flag by English band Prolapse.  A pretty small band even in their home country, they released four albums during their tenure in the 90s that sadly went mostly unnoticed.  It’s such a shame because all their albums were an original, beautiful mix and take on existing styles like indie rock, punk, kraut rock, dub and the experimental side of shoegaze and “dream-pop” (yes, that is in quotes, but shoegaze isn’t, ok?) – but somehow taking all those influences and creating their own unique sound.  It was the truest form of art rock there was, while being free of any of the cliches that come when tagged with any of those styles of music.

As Stylus Magazine said in their 2005 “On Second Thought” article on the album, “There’s really nothing quite like Prolapse—too complex and hefty for punk, too bold and fast (and, to be honest, fun) for shoegaze, too fucking odd for pop. ‘Indie’ feels like a whole can of worms that doesn’t merit touching, but maybe that’s just what Prolapse were, a properly independent band who didn’t appear to give the slightest fuck for what other people thought of them (as opposed to the kind of band who repeatedly declare that they don’t give a fuck what other people think of them) because they were rather too busy being themselves.”

Unfortunately this album is out of print – but you can still get used copies on places like the Amazon Marketplace – and I’m pretty sure it is available on iTunes and places like that.  But here are two great samples from the album for your listening enjoyment, and if you’re not blasting these, preferably on a good set of headphones like Sennheisers, you’re really not HEARING it. It might be an acquired taste, but if you really listen, they were to me making pop music about 30 years ahead of it’s time. Hopefully in say 2028, they will reunite and get their due respect.

Enjoy (?) …

Deanshanger
Autocade

love ALLways,

Andrew W. Bush
43rd President of the United States of America

_______________________________________
TWINPEAKS IMAGEOFTHEDAY

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This Week’s Box Office Top Ten (circa 25 years ago)
Weekend of October 4-6, 1985

1| Commando
2| Jagged Edge
3| Agnes of God
4| Invasion USA
5| Back to the Future
6| Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure
7| Teen Wolf
8| Plenty
9| Maxie
10| Kiss of the Spider Woman

It’s hard to find a review that nails how good the self-titled debut album from Sleigh Bells is.  Pretty much every review is raving about it – and every review describes it perfectly but in their own and different way.  But for example, there is this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one, and on and on.  Sure this album may be a one-off – how this sound could carry over to another album I really don’t know.  But it doesn’t matter – this is one of those completely unique sounds that rise to the surface a mere few times a year and we should be thankful for it.  That’s right, THANKFUL! So sweet, yet SO loud and SO abrasive. Beautiful stuff indeed!