the new spectorism, 10|04

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old phrenologies here

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Trompe Le Monde – Ca-p, Tribute to the Pixies

Still riding high on seeing two Pixies shows back to back. The first show you’re 15, 20 feet from the stage maybe, perfectly centered, unobstructed view. A show miracle. Between the earplugs and the not-smoking you feel like an old man but you come out bouncing off the walls. Even better than the ’91 show. The second show, you and X. see ‘em in Columbia in the basketball stadium. You head far, far away, figuring you can’t beat the first show so take it easy. You’re a million miles away, watching the whole thing. Kim Deal makes fun of you and X. from the stage, and just like that the second show becomes better than the first.

For some dumb reason, the thick Japanese accent of the guy doing the “we went to the store and bought something great” line goes through your head.

Hash Pipe - Weezer, Weezer
Wishful thinking? No idea. It’s just there in the thick of it. You got your problems. I got my hash pipe.

Sunkeneyed Girl - Mike Doughty, Haughty Melodic
Keep the wrong hands of the biscuit fortune, Mikey. Keep the wrong hands right the fuck off.

Frijolero - Molotov, , Dance and Dense denso
You, SAND!, and Hector get together and work at the Green Door for a long Sunday afternoon. You get the rest of Juarez plotted out in a notebook and on scraps of paper splayed out on a big table, moving forward and back again and again until you’ve got three parts sitting right there in front of you. Hector’s playing a bunch of stuff, but this one— Don’t call me gringo / You fuckin’ beaner / stay on your side / of that goddamn river / don’t call me gringo / you beaner— seems like a theme song for Lex if there ever was one.

The song is kind of awful except that part.

BLOODSUCKER and Hector's book THE LURKERS comes out on the same day.

Pictures of Me - Elliot Smith, Either/Or
The last Elliot Smith record came out. This one’s better. Goodnight and goodbye, you sweet, stupid man.

Dancing the Manta Ray - Pixies, Complete B-Sides
This is the point in the list where X rolls his eyes and shakes his head in embarrassed, scolding shame. You ride the Pixies wave all month until Memphis finally knocks it out of your head. Like, if you had a themesong for when you would do nothing but walk, this would be it. Babum. BUM! Babum BUM.

I’m Only Sleeping - Beatles, Revolver
You absurdly force yourself to listen to, in this order, Revolver then Pet Sounds, then Sgt. Pepper’s… all as an absurd lead-up to finally getting inside SMiLE. After you’ve let SMiLE wash over you a couple dozen times, I’m Only Sleeping still sticks. You’re up in the office cranking along on something when it starts up in your head. Wishful counterthinking, I don’t know. Odd coincidence, though- you’ll meet Marc English in a few days and he, I think it’s fair to say, is Revolver-obsessed.

Be My Baby - The Ronettes, Presenting the Fabulous Ronettes
Back and forth with Ellis- Phil Spector and Andrew Loog Oldham. Riffing on macrocompression. It feels like a conversation you’ve been having for a year, because it is. It’s taken this long to get it boiling. He cranks out some stuff, saying as much as he’s not saying. You and him swap Wall of Pain for 2Stoned. Between that and hearing Just Like Honey at Hector’s, you get the idea to collate a mix of songs that begin with the Be My Baby drum riff, the Surfer-Killer, the paean to the Mind Gangster. Boom, ba-boom, KSSH. Boom, ba-boom, KSSH. Gabriel’s trumpet was a drum. Who knew?

You Are The Generation That Bought More Shoes and You Get What You Deserve - Johnny Boy

Garage Spectorism.

Surf’s Up - Brian Wilson, SMiLE
Robert Moore plays a few tracks on Sonic Spectrum and that shatters your self-imposed SMiLE embargo. You’re in the kitchen and you stop in front of the radio, you turn it up and sorta brace yourself, head down, against the counter, and listen. It’s not the Beach Boys, which is sad, but if you didn’t know about SMiLE you might not miss them, it’s hard to tell. There are horn parts that are new, new string bits, too. Most of all it’s his voice. Brian Wilson, fragile casualty and brain-busted genius, sings with a weight and sorrow his twentyish pipes lacked. He can’t hit the high parts anymore, but you can only tell if you know what a Brian Wilson high part sounds like and it doesn’t matter anyway. He sounds fragile, you can hear the weight that thirty years of damage has done to him. It gives this, already a song pregnant with all sorts of emotion, a haunted magnitude it never had before. Brian himself is the father of the man and his life one big SMiLE-shaped fugue.

Hang On To Your Ego - Frank Black, Frank Black
Well, if this doesn’t tie this whole damn month together in a nice little package, nothing will.

What the fuck does this song mean? Trying to figure that out occupies the drive home for a couple-three days.

Like A Rolling Stone - Bob Dylan, The Rundown Rehearsal Tapes, Vol. 1

Dylan’s autobio comes out. Warren digs this disc up and sends it along. It’s pretty great; they keep doing first four bars or so over and over again until everyone gets on the same page and then go tearing off into it, mean and messy. Dad always said he knew how to play this song. You never heard him actually play it, but by god he’d say he knew it.

Red Right Ankle - The Decemberists, Your Majesty, The Decemberists

Arguing with Laurenn over dinner with Kel and Xtop about this foppishly precocious band. Regardless of the flinch-worthy tracks on this disc-- which are abundant-- you can’t imagine what it must feel like to be the woman this song was written about. How could you break up with someone after they gave you something like this? You couldn’t. Like, ever. It’s just too perfect, too beautiful, too human. You can almost smell the girl he’s singing about, it’s that good.

But, hey, a track or two later and you got a bunch of “chimbley” bullshit, so maybe breaking up with him wouldn’t be so difficult after all.

Common People - William Shatner, Has Been

My god. This record is—it’s actually—I mean, it’s really good. Full of sad dignity and sharp sense of meta-irony and laughing against the gallows. Everyone you play the track for gets the same expression on their face—it’s the expression that says “My god. This record is—it’s actually—I mean, it’s really good.”

I Believe - Stevie Wonder, Talking Book
It’s awesome being married.

Kelly Watch The Stars - Air, Moon Safari
How much of a genius are you? So much of a genius that you almost erase Kel’s iPod. By almost, of course, I mean you erase Kel’s iPod partially. You’re able to restore it all, which is good, but still. You find the Stripper Music folder and this is in it. You go out to smoke and notice just how much fall has started its hard creep and the trees all change. The Japanese Maple in the back yard looks like it’s on fire; you’re staring up at the night sky through the branches of that weird tree right by the back door with the pink and green leaves. Kelly watch the stars, Kelly watch the stars, the stars, the stars.

Help Save The Youth of America - Billy Bragg, Must I Paint You a Picture?
Election’s comin’ up. Hoo boy.

Life Is Grand - Camper Van Beethoven, Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart
In some beautiful and lucid moment of clarity and freedom, you check out from the poll sites and op-ed pieces, from the Sunday news shows and the blog-counterblog white noise and, somehow, have a whole night of peace. Oh! It was leading into the Memphis trip. Ha ha.

Hold On - Tom Waits, Mule Variations
You don’t meet nice girls in coffee shops. That’s the line, like a string hanging off a sweater. You pick at it and pull and it unravels on into November.

Mystery Train, Elvis Presley, Elvis at Sun
I Love You Because, Elvis Presley, Elvis at Sun
Blue Suede Shoes, Carl Perkins, Matchbox

You hit Memphis and go hardcore tourist. It’s a fucking blast and fuck anyone that says otherwise.

That’s Right, You’re Not From Texas, Lyle Lovett, Road to Ensenada
You fight off that vile Walking In Memphis shit with this. Probably because “Texas” almost rhymes with ‘Memphis.’ I’m tired and this is long and I’ve decided I’ll write more about the trip in the November phrenology.