Hey, Venus!
July 31, 2007
Beautiful. Simply beautiful. Out 20th August. Buy it.
Heat, Smog, Ultraviolet.
July 20, 2007
Daily poetry, on the subway system? Genius.
Undeterred by the warnings, we move
along the street, pushing against a wall
of dead air. There’s a homeless guy
on the corner, six white rats clinging to his coat sleeve.
His friend lifts a clenched fist to his ear: Look, I’ll call you back on the landline. This sends the rat man into convulsions, his laughter a hemorrhage.
Either side of us, office towers stand watch
like paramilitary police in mirrored sunglasses.
We walk in their shadow, we who are
so much shadow and ruin. We glance upwards,
all that steel yawing in the wind, and our hearts, cheap pocket watches, tick faster. This life we’ve built can’t bear its own weight.
(incidentally, compare this Japanese Double Dragon flyer released by Technos Japan to the one I posted a while back from the Taito America, who pubished the western version: http://incendo.wordpress.com/2007/06/07/abobos-revenge/ I’m not normally one to rag on westernized art for the sake of it, but man . . .)
Quick Toronto based musings
July 15, 2007
New Beastie Boys record – pretty good.
New Smashing Pumpkins record – better than I expected, but still vaguely rubbish.
Old fave album recently rediscovered – Chutes Too Narrow by The Shins.
Awesome band I had never really heard until now – Stars.
Fave band I want to hear but don’t actually have any of their stuff with me on my mp3 player – Super Furry Animals.
Ninja “MAGIC” can be used only once in every stage.
July 14, 2007
Broken flags can sing a little
July 10, 2007
It’s old? Shoot me.
Van Morrison? Van Cunt-Face more like . . .
July 7, 2007
A couple days ago I was invited to go and see Van Morrison play in Toronto. Free tickets, with a face value of $200 a piece? Can’t say no to that.
Now, I was well aware that in recent times his artistic vision has slipped a little, but still – it’s Van Morrison! The legend! The genius!
What followed was the biggest pile of shit I have EVER witnessed in my entire gig going life.
Sadly, he has reached that stage so many artists seem to hit when they get into their 50s and 60s where he feels the need to play with an unnecessarily huge lounge-jazz backing band (complete with female backing singers and keyboard player). Furthermore, he has quite clearly given up on actually caring about the arrangement of any of his songs, and has handed all such duties to this band of has-been’s and never-will-be’s, who naturally have turned every single one into an overly long lounge-jazz abortion because that’s all they can do. It gets worse, though . . .
The whole thing was then given a disgusting cabaret air by the fact that every song featured extended solo parts where a musician would work the scales in an offensively trite manner while a fucking SPOTLIGHT would focus on them, just in case the audience are too retarded to know what a slide guitar sounds like or a saxophone sounds like and need to be led by the hand. Worse still, even old classics from his back catalogue were turned into identical sounding eight-minute workouts, with more soloing not present in the originals.
This sort of thing would be degrading for a casino circuit band. In fact, it’s cruise-ship stuff, and even then – if I was in charge of any such ship I would sink it with everyone on board for the good of humanity. It’s also worth noting that despite the fact that the audience had paid hundreds of dollars (thankfully I did not), there was zero on-stage banter for the ENTIRE gig until right at the end Van Morrison mumbled “give a hand for the band” as he arrogantly strolled off while the rest continued playing hackneyed shite for another five minutes.
A couple years ago I was fortunate enough to see Arthur Lee play in Glasgow before he died. He played with the same amount of musicians as he originally did back in the 60s, there were no keyboard players or backing singers, and he stomped through all the hits like he was 20 years old and trying to get his first record deal. Furthermore, the cranky old genius was still offering hecklers out onto the street for a fight (and legitimately meaning it) despite being 60 years old and dieing of leukemia. Van Morrison sleepwalked his way through that gig and didn’t give a fuck about a single person who was there. Arthur Lee, you were a legend who cared about music till the day you died, and your music and legacy will inspire musicians forever. Van Morrison, you are a cunt.
New rule, folks – if you no longer care about your music or your audience, stop playing. If you have reached that point where you wonder what your classics would sound like with two middle aged female backing singers (something I have more contempt for than I can possible put into words) and a keyboard player, kill yourself.
Van Morrison, you are hereby struck off the legends list.
