Midterms are over, hooray!

I had to catch an early bus to school this morning. Luckily the bus stop is 5 minutes from my house and there's a Tim's across the street, so I could grab a muffin because I overslept and didn't have time for a proper breakfast. I got a chocolate chip one, but I could tell it was touching a banana muffin, which ruined a solid half of the muffin top.

Anyways, it's about 6:55 AM at this point and I stand around the bus stop, waiting for the [always] late GO Bus to arrive. The stop is on a fairly major street that runs through the whole city, and connects to two highways and most of the major roads around these parts, so traffic was pretty dense come 7. I'd been standing around eating for a solid 5 minutes before I notice a dead cat on the road, next to the curb. It looks fairly intact considering how dead it is.

Now every time a car goes by I cringe, because this well-preserved dead cat is about 3 inches away from becoming decidedly less well-preserved. I turned up my music because the only thing worse than watching cat brains paint 5 of an 18-wheeler's tires, I reasoned, would be the sound of cat skull cracking, or worse, of not-quite-dead cat screaming (though I was confident it was thoroughly deceased.)

The bus came eventually (late) and it too managed to miss the cat. I got on the bus and gave the driver my overpriced ticket, sat down, and didn't hear any cat-crushing as we pulled away from the curb.

It wasn't there when I got off the bus 8 hours later, nor was there any noticeable pool of blood/sinews/bone fragments, so I assumed all went well.

What I'm trying to get at is I'm done midterms now, so things should be picking up here again. And to keep things relevant to this post and this blog, I'll probably post some Birchville Cat Motel when I get home from work. Sound good?

Midterms

I'm balls-deep in midterm essays right now, but that should wrap up by the end of the week & I'll be back on the ball. Sorry for the lack of... anything.

Put My Dream on This Planet

If you're not familiar with Jandek, I highly recommend reading the Wikipedia article on him, because it's one of the more intriguing stories in contemporary music, especially since rock and roll has lost much (read: all) of its mystique.

A quick run-down: a man (herein referred to as Jandek for convenience's sake) release a bunch of outsider folk albums in the late 70's/80's, disappears for a while, comes back with a trio of spoken word albums, experiments for a while, then randomly plays some live shows for the first time... ever in the mid-2000's. Why is this so interesting?

Well, we barely know who Jandek is.

He releases his own albums (on a label called Corwood Industries, which, in addition to being owned by Jandek, releases only Jandek material), has offered only 2 official interviews ever, and makes only sporadic, largely unannounced live appearances. During his hiatus, it was assumed his output was a result of a manic recording session resulting in over a dozen albums, but then he came back, decidedly older sounding, and we're led to believe he's still at it. Hell, there was no way to confirm that he was even the gentleman that appears on almost all his album covers until he played his first live show nearly 30 years after releasing his first album (which itself was released under a different pseudonym, under the guise that it was a band that released it).

Put My Dream on This Planet is one of his "experimental" albums: almost an hour of unaccompanied voice, half-singing and cripplingly depressed. "I Need Your Life" is a 28 minute plea of uncomfortable desperateness, that might be laughable if it weren't so serious and, well, sad, in every sense of the word.

I don't even care if I'm in a wheelchair
Or in a bed
Unable to move
For all I know
It's better than what I did today

"It's Your House", likewise, is a grovelling mess but a bit more poetic, as The Representative from Corwood demands a house made from granite and iron, denying all frills and extravagances in his quest for solitude and stability ("no glass, no wood, no plastic, no brick, no shingles, no aluminum siding, no syn-thet-ic [dramatic pause; our narrator desperately trying to find what he doesn't need] fibres") until he surrenders the building (presumably to whoever's Life he Needs), turning it into a symbol of commitment. Or trying to, anyway. Sad, really.

"I Went Outside" clocks in at only 1:18; for most of the song, he tries to find his shoes, and when he finally gets out, it's only snowy and cold.

Call it a sad mess of regrettable poetry or a brutally honest account of a personal crisis, either way Put My Dream on This Planet is enthralling, though difficult to listen to in terms of subject and presentation. Are you man enough?



Jandek - I Need Your Life
Jandek - It's Your House
Jandek - I Went Outside [COMING SOON - my internet's being a bitch]

If you want to buy some, check out this flyer and mail the man a cheque.

FORMER GHOSTS NEEDS YOUR HELP

I was incredibly psyched to see Former Ghosts (aka Jamie Stewart + Freddy Ruppert + Nika Roza, aka Xiu Xiu + This Song Is A Mess But So Am I + Zola Jesus) this Friday as a treat after a week of mid-term essays and non-stop reading, but alas, they've had to cancel because for reasons unbeknown to the public, the venue pulled out leaving these folks stranded.



Right now, they're looking for a place to play, otherwise there will be no Toronto show at all. So if anyone out there in the blogosphere can lend a helping plan, PLEASE contact ryancraven@theagencygroup.com .

This is guaranteed to be an amazing show, so someone, please, throw a bone to the fine folks in Former Ghosts.

Thanks

Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits

I'll just come out and say it: Richard Youngs is probably my favourite contemporary solo artist. He's been releasing music pretty much nonstop since the early 80's, and has dipped his feet in enough to genres that I suspect he'd have to graft a third foot onto his left ankle to become any more diverse. From drone, free jams and noise to minimalist folk and half-hour piano ballads, this guy's got his bases covered. And just to make sure he's got even non-existent bases covered, he'll quietly throw out some completely left-field albums. So if you aspiring free-acoustic/kazoo artists have something planned, just know that Youngs beat you to it with New Angloid Sound. And watch your back, Jandek: Summer Wanderer is stiff competition in the "Best Independent A Capella Album (Male)" category. And if any of you motherfuckers are planning on recording over an entire album with an alternate take of that entire album, you'll probably kill yourself after listening to Autumn Response, because you won't do better. Sorry.



Basically, every time you pick up something that says "Richard Youngs" on the cover, don't think for a second you can even guess at what you're getting. The only constant is his consistently high quality of output; this may be total fanboyism, but Youngs hasn't really done any wrong.



So what are you to make of Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits, then? It's synth-pop. Of course.

Incredibly lush synth-pop at that. Layered synths, twittering drum machines, and, of course, Youngs's brillaint voice, dubbed and sounding more majestic than ever. It's a charmingly simple album, too, contrasting sharply with some of his more multi-tiered epics like River Through Howling Sky: simple melodies looped and piled on to each other, catchy choruses... really, it's just a great synthy/poppy record.

And y'know what? I'm gonna give you the whole thing. This was released in only 2 pressings, each tragically limited to 100. It would be an absolute shame if more people didn't get the chance to hear it.



Richard Youngs - Beyond the Valley of Ultrahits

Since you can't buy this album, show some support and buy some of his back catalogue from the fine folks at Jagjaguwar.

Enjoy, and feel free to comment.