Said the Gramophone

Bad Future

Holy Data - "Bad Future" [New Album will be released soon]

I got a phone call from this number. Local montreal number saying, "I'm calling on behalf of RBC(Royal Bank of Canada)" which is my bank. He kept going on and on and on about "Identity Theft Protection service" they are offering.

I kept getting a phone call from this number before with same thing and I googled the number and people are claiming that is a fraud, trying to get your info and identity, steal your money from your account etc.

I just imagine these bro con artists got together and would be ironic and funny to call people claiming they are offering "identity Theft Protection" and steal money. They planned their script and practice how call operator speaks and trained themselves to be believable as possible. They probably got together and had a team building workshop. "Close you eyes and fall backwards! your co worker will catch you. Do you trust them?" as their $120 per hour team building expert, former failed motivational speaker who now only works for start-up fraud call centre around Eastern Canada.

They probably visited a lot of office space for rent. They picked this office with nice light and exposed brick wall. One of the guy said, "I love the brick wall! We can put industrial piping rustic barn wood shelves!"

They worked probably so hard to get their first success fraud come through. That night, they celebrated at Keg, eating medium rare steaks. They went to pub and things got carried away, some of the con artists hooked up. But the thing is they both are married so they had to pretend that it never happened.

I wonder how many people fall for this scam. These con artists probably work 9-5 sometimes, overtime.

Adam Edwards(one of the con artists) : "I'm sorry, honey. I have to work little bit late."

His wife, Brenda : "Noooooo. You've been working too much! You said we are gonna finish watching last two episodes of Stranger Things, tonight!"

Adam : "Sorry. I really need to get these things done."
Brenda hangs up.

Adam hasn't told Brenda where he works and what he does. In fact, Brenda thinks Adam is working at his start up company, Air brb which is an extension for firefox or facebook messenger or gmail chat, where it can type "brb" to the person who keeps talking to you on chat, that you are annoyed.

After Brenda hang up the phone, she just went for a walk looking for rare pokemon. She is level 32 and almost caught all the pokemon but she hasnt found her husband yet.

to be continued...

A'S MOTTO

Buck 65 - "Food"

There's nothing my co-worker A loves more than free food. He often regales me with tales of meals past. One day recently, as he was heading out the door to an event, he told me "I hope it's catered. Sometimes I go to these things and they give me a big plate of food. One time I got two full plates!"

"My motto in life is don't mind if I do!" he told me another time. "When I was working at the bank we had great Christmas parties. One year, when I got to the front of the buffet line, the guy asked me if I wanted chicken or steak. I said 'Can I have both?' and he gave me both. Sure, some people shot me dirty looks, but it doesn't hurt to ask. Don't mind if I do!"

And then there was pizza. "We used to have pizza days at work once a month," he told me. "So I'd go down on my break to get a slice, then go back for more at lunch. On my way home I went back and took some leftovers for lunch the next day. Don't mind if I do!"

[buy Square]

COP A FEEL

Beverly - "Crooked Cop". It was probably not the best year to release a jangly love song called "Crooked Cop". The song's central metaphor hadn't bothered me until I sat down to write about it; until that moment its red and blue lights just cruised on past. It's been on for months, casting starbursts round my rooms, bittersweet as a teenage mixtape. Yet if Beverly were led by a man, I'd probably be saying that I'd heard this kinda thing before. Glittering guitars, handclaps, reverb - we know all this, right? We already have a (teenage) fanclub for it. But it's Drew Citron's singing that changes the foreground of the music, linking it across time and space to something as far-away as Sandy Denny. (In this she reminds me of Alvvays' Molly Rankin.) The singing is something else - at the front and in harmony - like the song's feelings are fraying and a moment later, in nostalgic retrospect, getting woven back together.

[buy]

hot today.

Carsick Cars - "Zhong nan hai" [Bandcamp]

It's really hot today.

Ate too many ice creams this week. I tried to cap it at 5 ice creams per week. I used that up already before the weekend with soft serve last night at drive-in theatre.

I think I can get away with sorbet or gelato since they are different from ice cream.

that's all for this week. take care and have a great weekend!

A FEW SCRAMBLED THOUGHTS ON SMERZ

Smerz - "Because". Smerz are two women, producers Henriette Motzfeldt and Catharina Stoltenberg. This song seems founded on the unsaying of something, the unsaying or unsinging. The same line repeated, sampled, cut up and clipped. "Because we said the same thing so many times." That line, uttered by either Henriette or Catharina. "Because we said the same thing so many times," said, unsaid, repeated. Eventually she explains the "thing" that was said so many times. It was this: "I was thinking of leaving."

Perhaps this is a song about a break-up. Perhaps the shame is that doubt was said and said and said; that it was going on all the time. Not just thought, once; said, "so many times." In lightninged nights and safer ones.

But perhaps this is a song about something else. Those nauseous synths pour folds into the song, places where the fabric of it seems to slip. It slips and there's an ugliness underneath. A violence, maybe. Smerz's singers do not try to unsing the thought that they should leave. What they try to unsing, deny, is that they said it, out loud, "so many times". They said it so many times; they knew it; they knew they should go. And perhaps they didn't.

[soundcloud]

Circuit Break

Ben Babbitt - "Xanadu"

Sometimes in the summer I get to have my best recurring dream: the one where I just walk around the city swallowing points of light like Pac-Man picking up pellets. The constellations in me getting more crossed-over, the strings of fancy tungsten bulbs all slung across each brand-new try-hard bar along the main street trembling like shook leaves in the complexity of my glow.

[buy]

Awkward Silence III

Traces - "Imaginary Life"
Traces - "Crystal Clear" [Bandcamp]

There was awkward silence. We were in the kitchen. Party of 5 or 6. I don't remember exact number but it doesn't matter. We ordered 2 large pizzas and just eating them as we chat like any high school kids do. But all of sudden, there was this silence. It only lasted about 5 seconds but I could tell what everyone was thinking and everyone could tell what everyone else was thinking.

There was a last slice of pizza.

We resumed talking about dumb stuff like one of us who loved Marilyn Manson but he looked so much like the lead singer of Hanson so we gave a perfect nickname, Marilyn Hanson.

But we all kept that last slice of pizza in corner of our eyes.
We all wanted it but didn't want to sound greedy. We were polite but hungry and greedy high school kids.

Then, my friend's older brother came home. He didn't say anything. At that time, he was scary looking. He is really really short but chunky with shaved head and death metal shirt all the time. He also wore this tight seashell necklace from Mexico when he went one winter. It was really really tight for his short chunky body. He did looked like a sea turtle trapped in a plastic.(so sad) Only a couple years older but he looked like he sailed ocean back and forth. He also had this really really thick neck. Thicker than Henry Rollins' neck. I remember I saw him at local junior hockey game and he was wearing a toque. He was really into the game and wasted perhaps. Little red from booze and his tight seashell necklace. He looked like a fully erected penis and condom is almost coming off.

Anyways, he just didn't say anything to us and he ate the last slice of pizza which solved this awkward silence between us.

UNCANNY VOLLEY

Agnes Obel - "Familiar". "Love is a danger," Obel sings, and here she seems to be singing the contours of that trap - its rough sections and mirrored ones, the way you can be lured by a reflection. There is nothing more sinister than an almost, a not-quite; here she hides the uncanny behind walls of glossy strings, columns of harp; here she hides it behind another Agnes's face. The cello's a compass-needle pointing back toward safety, back toward home. Don't gaze too long into the chasm. Don't gaze too long into the other Agnes's eyes.

[official website / european tour this fall]

All The Boys

PWR BTTM - "Dairy Queen"
PWR BTTM - "All the Boys"
PWR BTTM - "West Texas"

Someone RT'd this video of PWR BTTM into some feed of mine a couple weeks ago and what a relief, for the first time in a while, to feel that thing you feel every new time you find the band you're going to listen to exclusively for the next week. Two brand new imaginary best friends! A whole new kind of swagger to wish you had yourself, a whole new kind of sympathy you didn't know you needed. Who are these glittering humans with their sky-big riffs? What the fuck have I even been doing this whole time?? These songs are sweet and tough and kind and unbending; sun-dappled, loud enough. Music by best friends for being yourself to, music that shines, that's best kind of funny, the kind that's no joke.

[buy Ugly Cherries]

8.8.8.8

Durutti Column - "Sketch for Summer" [Buy]

Weird, my computer couldn't get on certain websites.

I could log into facebook and gmail but I couldn't get on STG. I couldn't log into my bank site. Maybe parental control? my mom lives in Okinawa and my dad lives in afterlife. Is it my dad telling me something from up above??

If internet is all you can eat buffet, it felt like I could only eat fried rice(facebook) and chicken balls(gmail). What about some seaweed salad(STG) nutritious to my soul and garlic stems and onions with oyster sauce!!!??(onion.com) I need them for my life!!!

I googled "can't connect to certain websites." and google search shows up but if I click on it, it doesn't work.

I used my phone to search and finally found out that I need to type in 8.8.8.8 in DNS settting on my preference on network.

What does 8.8.8.8 mean!!!!!?????

turns out number 8 is a lucky number in Chinese culture.

wow! I was right! Internet is like all you can eat buffet!!

the end.

prenez congé!

The Breeders - "Cannonball"

When I was fourteen I convinced my parents to drive me and my friend James to Montreal so we could go to Lollapalooza. That hot day left a number of indelible traces on my mind. I remember the blue sky and wispy clouds as we drove through mysterious Quebec, and then seeing the streets of Montreal for the first time. They were so busy! My parents let us off on a street corner and pointed in the direction of the Metro, reminding us to change trains "at Barry YOU-kwam."

On Ile Sainte-Helene there was a long line to get in. We could hear the music muffled by wide open space. When we got to the front of the line and gave them our tickets, they searched our bags, adding our bottles of water to the pile of frisbees and even cameras that had been seized. It seemed unfair. Once inside, we sat in the dusty field and walked around. Most of the crowd was older than us; I remember a lot of topless men wearing shorts and backwards baseball caps and a few topless women wearing body paint.

I liked all the music, especially this song and the Beastie Boys's set. Also Nick Cave played "Red Right Hand" and A Tribe Called Quest played "Scenario."

After the concert James and I went to the train station with the big Canadiana friezes in blue and white, where we were supposed to meet my parents. They were an hour late when I called my grandmother, our contact person if anything went wrong. What was going to become of us? I woke her up and felt bad. My parents had died in a car crash and now I was robbing her of a good night's sleep. It was turning into an episode of Degrassi. I guess I would have to live with her now. (My parents eventually showed up, two hours late.)

[buy]