Archives : all posts by Dan

Eternal Summers - "Safe at Home"

10 different hats, 8 of them are scoop cuts. 40 pairs of shoes, 33 are slip-ons. 99 dresses, only 3 aren't empire cut. 5 bikes, all with a basket, 4 have chain guards, a different 4 have plastic flowers in the handlebars. All this in a warm evening fog. The streetlights bloom and bead up like droplets. Figures come into light and drift out into grey. Not a single discernible face, only feelings, only drinks, only walks home.

This song is stretched, arms outstretched, tips of fingers touching summer and knuckles gripping grasping onto fall. [Buy]

The Donkeys - "Lower the Heavens"

Fall onto grasping gripping knuckles, and summer. Touching fingers of tips, outstretched arms.

And wool. My God, the wool in this song. [Buy]

Elton John & Leon Russell - "When Love is Dying"

Katherine and Michael
Lindsay and Kevin
Heather and Stefan
Ben and Sam
Trish and Trish
Jen and Neil are headed out to a birthday to-do for Jen's co-worker. Matthew. Gay Matthew, as Jen calls him. Matthew is having a birthday thing at a karaoke place right downtown. Not a stereotype, it just happens to be true. Jen and Neil exchange a look, Neil trots to a run, he's been parking the car and Jen looks at him like "come on." They go inside and shed their coats, bulky on the backs of small chairs. Order a drink, look at the singer, look at the bartender, look at all the mirrors and tinsel and dark carpets and the loud group in the booth. It seems in this bar, everyone is the loud group in the booth. Everyone except those few vocal snipers that sit alone, sipping a ginger ale, waiting to do their rendition of I Will Always Love You. Squirrelly dudes and older ladies with smoker faces. Smoke- smoke- smoke- smoke- smoker face. Matthew is doing Lady Gaga, and Jen is laughing. She looks at Neil like "this is fun" and he looks back like "good, I'm glad". Jen's co-workers are picking songs, songs like Love Shack, and U Can't Touch This and Achy Breaky Heart. A sniper gets up and does Everything I Do I Do For You. Jen is texting during that performance. Neil checks his phone, for no reason. Matthew gets up again and does Sex Machine. The girls are cheering, and Neil checks his phone again. He nervously swigs his beer, as the song finishes. "Neil!" He doesn't stand up at first, but then everyone stares at him. The music starts, he sings When Love is Dying by Elton John. No one has even heard this song before. Neil has never heard this song before, but he somehow knows how to sing it, and he looks into the small bright lights that shine right in his eyes. Two of the co-workers start making out during the performance. The bartender goes for a cigarette break. Matthew mouths along to the words. Jen grabs her coat and starts to cry.

[Buy]

Cousin Dud - "Crows"
Cousin Dud - "In the Fair"

I was born with the seal of Amathon, guild of the lucky and the kind. At age 9, having been spied by an elder, a wise elder with a long blue robe, I was branded with the seal of Bunubbin, guild of the cherubs, the sprites. That gained me a position as an assistant to a nobleman, and he forced me to do many things I'd rather forget. For those years I earned the brand of Galacia, guild of those talented with beverage and rich of story. For 18 guineas I bought the brand of Falnae, guild of the raucous and rebellious, I stole a weakling's purse and recovered my fee. When I passed through the city gates of Givent I was branded Hilisynct, and joined the guild of the emotional and loving. And still I sought a higher ranking, higher still than most other people dare to dream: I wanted to bear the brand of Juuni, guild of serenity and moisture. The Juuni were unlike other humans. They emitted a perfumed rank, and pinkish glow, a heavenly quality. They walked like floating clouds and carried weight as if it were invisible, they were supremely strong. They smiled kindly, they held eye contact, they greeted and spoke slowly and thoughtfully to everyone they met. They procured sighs and wistful purrs from most strangers they passed, they spread calm. I wanted desperately to be a Juuni, but I found myself in a complicated situation. You see, the combination of the seals of Amathon, the lucky and kind, and Bunubbin, the cherubs, Galacia, the story, Falnae, the raucous, and Hilisynct, the emotional, combined to form a kind of barrier from ever receiving the brand of Juuni. It was simply impossible to be all these things at once. I tried to scrape the other brands from my skin, I soaked in turpentine for weeks, I wanted desperately to be free from them, I wanted to abandon them all for a chance at being a Juuni. But none would come off, not even one, and I was stuck as this decrepit cocktail that strung along the narrative of my life like old telephone poles lift saggy wire. My body suddenly make-shift, my life pointless without any climax, I turned to despair, and I stood facing the edge of the Juuni cliffs, the ones that are meant to be walked along the edge by Juuni for studious thought. I wanted to leap from these cliffs, and as I tipped and fell, a hand grabbed my tunic. A large Juuni, much taller than I, held me fast. "What good can this bring?" he spoke deeply and his eyes were mirrored pools, shimmering in the wind of the cliffs. "Get away from me, blasted Juuni scum," I screamed, my jealousy and inner decay finally belching forth from within. "Very well," he replied, "I will leave. But I will write your life story, and I will perform it for years, and will receive much accolades for it. I do not know you, but I will make it up." This stopped me. I suddenly felt a kind of calm, despite the raging winds. "To hell with you, Juuni," I said, "I do not need you to write my story. I'll do it myself." And decided that the Juuni had beaten me on yet another level, they had turned my spite into inspiration. And I wrote my story here today.

[download EP]

Tjutjuna - "Mosquito Hawk"

I shaved this morning, it was cold and the water was clear and it felt as if I had tidied up, the way you forget what mess felt like. I sipped grapefruit tea and dipped bread in yogurt, stretched into socks and clothes, and felt the fall air in my eyes. By the time I had rounded Hampstead, my beard had already started to grow. I tried to avoid the sun, put my back to the cultivating wind, tried to hide it from children and animals (innocent gaze) but nothing was working, my beard was in a mood. It grew in wild lines off my chin and cheeks and slid down my chest. By the time I got on the 37c express, my beard was at my knees, and I already had to hold it down to breathe. By lunch time, as I threaded my hands carefully through the thick pelt to get down a sandwich, it had filled the cafeteria. I thought it best to get outside after lunch, it appeared this was not giving up. My beard grew to the size of a city park. Kites, dogwalkers, soccer practice, casual joggers, the odd cyclist. All stuck, somewhere in the labyrinthine hirsuteness. I lay beneath the locks, hidden of course in many layers of beard, and hoped for an answer to come. Razor rain, cut wind, an electrolysis storm. I began to think of all the things I thought I would be, thought I would do, before these sorts of days became all too common. I wanted to work with minds, I wanted to help people express themselves, drama therapy, music therapy, that's what I wanted. But lying cold without a jacket beneath four feet of beard, praying for something that could dissolve this disaster, it was all so far away now. You can't attend classes with a beard that would cover the overhead notes. Nor could you live with an older grad-student roommate with a kick-ass DVD collection when your beard was a buzz-harshing fire hazard. And you certainly couldn't treat innocent patients, help them paint out their issues or sing out their troubles, when they would literally have to machete their way into your office. No, none of that would happen now, best just to lie here, for eventually park maintenance would come for the final time before the winter, and at least they would find the body. [Buy]

C.O.C.O. - "C.O.C.O."

She. She, my my. She got hair like a soldier of fortune, she got mercenary hair. She, my heavens. Boots like drugged carrots, a walk like fresh-baked cigarettes. She wild, she know how. Clothes like pencil drawings, shaded and sharp. Hips like goji berries, all you need to survive and they only grow at night. She gosh. She very time. Very, very time. She frost fencing with razor wire, she croque-monsieur-ely you jest, she heavenly unclever, she pointed like a joke from Dennis Miller, like a missile. She beach, she beach and towel. She covered in cash, credit cards and laundry change, she basket, foul, free throw and dunk. She musical master cleanse. She lemon water and sun. She drum like drunk dancing, bass like old gum, sing on consignment. She. She gorgeous.

[K]

(photo by Catalina Bartolome)

"I promise to wait my whole life for a perfect love, but keep busy in the meantime." - St. Augustine

Tweak Bird - "Tunneling Through"
Heavy Cream - "Watusi"

I never want to leave, I don't ever want to say bye to Johnny Snarls, and Kats, and Bunchie, and Mark South, and Little Ben, and Tubby, and Heather S, and The Teat, and Newmarket Neil, and Gun Punch, and The Queen's Hangnail, and Littlest Big Bang, and Zaphod Beatles Box, and Holy Jones, and Innocent Infants, and Red Rotten Murder, and Hepatitis Pee, and The Mongol Loins, and Slash Factor, and Mixed-Up Cakes, and Vandalism, and Truth to Rejects, and You Turn, and Keith. Man, I'm gonna miss Keith. [Buy Tweak Bird] [Buy Danny]

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(thanks Meags, Vanessa, Ian, Stéphane, and Michael for these)

Khaira Arby - "Tarab"

I saw the great Khaira Arby last night. In little Club Balattou in Montreal, with its mirror mosaics and dark purple neon, she lit the place up. Dressed up in a big red dress, she wore a headpiece that started flat along the top of her head and then swooped up towards the sky, adorned in gold circles. And as she sung with smiling power in Sonrhai, Tamashek, Bambara, and Arabic, and her band changed time and broke laughing and shredded the shit out of their guitars, Khaira Arby would lean forward singing and the gold circles would shine bright gold light.

From the back of the CD, in reference to "Tarab":

Our homeland! If we work together we can build our nation. Patience my brothers! Nobility and progress only come from work. Like that great Mauritanian warrior of long ago, Gawad, who though mortally wounded in battle, ignored his wounds and kept on fighting until victory, may God help us work together for our future.

[Buy through MySpace]