Various Artists: Jazz Lounge Volume 1

The blue was almost overbearing. The sky and sea were cartoon clear, mid-June in the Ligurian Sea, just off the coast of Corsica. The sun drenched everything in sight, pulling the teak oil out of the wood of the rented speedboat and shooting it right up my nose full speed. It was competing for space in my senses with a myriad of other smells, sweating skin, the remnants of dockside lunch, blood and the jasmine bouquet of Angeline's shoulders. My god, she really is perfect, I reflected as we hit a wave full force and she launched off the deck ever so slightly, grabbing my arm and smiling. Her teeth were what caught me first. Odd to say, but a woman's teeth speak for her, in more ways than one.

Three days ago I had been lying in a hospital room looking at the mountains surrounding Castiglioncello and wondering just what in the hell had gone wrong. Bryan and I had come to the south of France for two weeks of relaxation, food and serious beach time. It's almost impossible to not have a good time in Marseilles. Especially when you're loaded from a fresh job and with a clean alibi trail leading all the way back three months. It's a shame those plans had to be put on hold. Bryan had clued me into the deal back in March and it sounded fucking perfect. One nights work, thirty years of pay. I had been squeaking by with small time hustles and part time work for a while. Nothing big ever panned out but it never stopped me from dreaming.

The deal was straight forward. Well, as straight forward as these things ever are. African diamonds going to Ukrainian black market dealers for some RPGs and a grab bag of AK47s, pistols and whatever else the Soviets left behind. The buyers were some little known radical faction from a tribal hot zone in the west of Africa. I'm almost certain they were the "Democratic Liberators of Something or Another". They always are. Anyway, the deal was being brokered by some of Bryan's old friends in Amsterdam and for a thirty percent cut, they would let us know where the exchange was and help us find a new buyer in the area. Lawyers. I hate fucking lawyers. But whatever I felt had to take a backseat to these particular lawyers, they were about to make me a very happy and wealthy man.

The one thing I'll give lawyers is that they're detail oriented. We had verified employment in Japan for one of their shell companies, alibis who would swear that we were at their hotel and the receipts to show for it. While our ghosts were working in Sendai (evidently we were contract IT) Bryan and I were mapping Amsterdam and setting up the job. Bryan had lived there in his early twenties so it really helped having him on this. That and his locals kept us in a steady supply of information and good hash. It made for a very pleasant stay. But we weren't here for the weed, not yet anyway. We had work to do.

The plan was simple. The buyers were coming in on a train from Paris and taking a taxi to the hotel a day before. The meet was the next afternoon with our boy so we had about a 12 hour window to relieve them of the diamonds. Hotel security was a joke and the police were far enough away that we could get clean before they arrived on scene.

We walked through the back door courtesy of a very disgruntled and now significantly wealthier cook and made our way to the emergency stairs. Changing into the masks and stripping off our street clothes on the landing, Bryan and I exchanged nervous looks. I hate to disappoint people, but it doesn't matter how long you've been doing this kind of shit, you're always nervous. Professionals just don't let it affect their cool. The door to the room was as promised, unlocked with the master key and opened with a slight click.

Two very surprised looking men were locked into that position permanently as the clack of two silenced pistol rounds opened their minds to the world. Such dirty business. We moved quickly then, scooping up the briefcase, grabbing the keys off both men and re locking the door. Back into the stairwell we headed, pulling back on the tourist outfits and filling our backpacks with the weapons and masks. Thankfully no one was awake and roaming the halls, I hate having to kill innocent people.

Out in the alleyway we met our waiting limo driver and headed off to the train station for passage to Marseilles. I never breath a sigh of relief until the job is done and we were only halfway there. Sitting underneath my feet was about $30 million in blood diamonds and some very bloody keys were jingling around in my pocket. The lawyers were sending their guy to meet us at a resort, Kalenda. A nights ride later we checked into our rooms at Kalenda and I started to sweat.

All that was left now was waiting for the agent to get in touch with us and collect our money. Bryan headed to the hotel bar and I stayed in the room with the briefcase, watching my cell with anxious twitching. I have always hated that part. Sitting, waiting, not knowing what's going on. I like the action. Put me in a firefight and I know what I'm doing. Make me sweat in a hotel room and we've got a problem.

The phone rang, Belgian country code, unknown number. I picked up and listened. "We meet in the restaurant at the docks, Une Table au Sud, 19:30. I will be wearing a white tie." "Alright." Well, there was about three hours to kill so grabbed my cargo and joined Bryan at the hotel bar for a while, clued him into our dinner plans and grabbed a glass of wine. Hotel bar crowds are the same every where, business types, tourists and the occasional local cruising for visitors. Time stood still for a while, chatting up a corporate raider from America about the growth of the Euro. Damn, I should have gotten our cash in Euros. Too late now, I bid farewell to my new friend and headed back to the room to change.

I slid the key into the door and heard the click of a gun one second too late. That's all I remember until the bright sunlight of the Italian morning and some serious fucking pain in my shoulder. Angeline was my nurse and over the next few days I managed to get in touch with Bryan through some contacts in Italy and convince Angeline to help me out. She helped me get out of the hospital without too many uncomfortable "gunshot, found on the beach" questions. Let no one ever underestimate the power of persuasion.

Persuasion, and about three grand in bribes. My pocket money was running low, my shoulder felt like someone had dropped it in lava and I had some double crossing bullshit to wade through. Bryan was in the clear, he had been shot three times in the leg and one to the chest, left for dead by these pricks. The only other person that knew where we were was that Belgian phone number.

A short shopping trip to pick up a new cell phone, call Bryan and give him the new number, find me a boat and we were on our way. Angeline and I were off to Corsica to meet up with him and find out exactly who I needed to punch holes through to get our payday. It was going to be a long summer.

Listen to samples at Amazon.com

Soel: Memento

The constant vibration of the road had jarred my soul awake and sent my ass to sleep by the time the skyline of the city finally revealed itself. I felt like someone had shot me with a tranquilizer dart about 50 miles ago and it had really sunk in deep. Motorcycles are sexy in theory and even then only for short rides. The blessings of a parking lot were just off to the right of the highway exit so I pulled in and put my feet on ground for the first time in 300 years. Sweaty is the natural condition of riding gear, I think it comes pre-loaded with some abnormal funk that grows progressively nastier with every mile. The helmet came off with an audible slorching sound and all I could think of was escaping the tyranny of the Flame Lord so evident outside.



Sweet air conditioned salvation lay only feet away from me and I fell through the front door of the bar into the crisp cool air. Or at least I thought. My brain tricked me for a moment, imagined fresh air wafting over my sore and sweat soaked body. In reality the muggy air was hotter in the bar than it was outside. My skin quickly realized what my brain refused to believe and sent the "resume sweating" signal rushing through my nerves. The look of incredulity on my face must have triggered some deep running sympathy in the bartender as she smiled and told me "Sorry, A/C's busted honey!" What cruel fate had led me to Hell?



Seeing no sense in trying to find another place to sit and rest this far out in the country, I pulled up a seat at the bar and ordered a beer and whatever shitty bar food was available. To my surprise the food was better than most bar chow, plenty of vegetables and fresh food on the menu. Fuck it, I ordered a hummus platter. Who knew thatbumfuck Virginia had vegan game? Delicious hummus platter filled every sense I had and the fan cooled what it could off of my head and shoulders. As I sat back and pondered the ceiling I could hear the door opening and closing behind me, noises of people coming in and ordering drinks. Typical bar chatter, I thought, I delved back into the book I'd brought along for times like this. About three chapters and two beers later I looked down at my wrist and cursed loudly. 8 o'clock at night! Shit, I'd gotten there at six and I still had three hours on the road to get home. I reached back to grab my wallet and pay up when the room came back to me all at once.



This place was packed to the rafters, past the rooftop and reaching towards the rising moon. Everywhere I looked there were people dancing, bodies flowing into one another and becoming a blur of limbs and sweat. At first I thought there was no order but as I watched and listened I could barely hear the slinky beat riding behind this mass of grooving flesh and salt water. Something down by my stomach clicked on and my feet started tapping out the rhythm. Senses started melding together, I was feeling bass lines across my flesh, watching pheromones dance in front of my eyes. The gravity well of bodies pulled me forward into the teeming, humid mass of humanity and that's really where the story ends.



Or begins, if you ask me. I don't really recall anything after that until I woke up. A stray dog licked my face as the grainy film vision of hangover revealed me to be laying stark naked in the middle of a field behind the bar, my clothes lain out as bed and pillow. Whatever had happened after the black hole of bodies sucked me in I had been laid mightily.Every muscle in my body felt like it had been through it's own personal triathlon of Kama Sutra techniques and I don't think their was a part of me that didn't reek of sex. A brief survey of my possessions found everything in order so I started the trip back to the parking lot, trying to simultaneously smoke a cigarette and pull my pants on at the same time. I stood next to my bike, stubbing out the last of my smoke and staring up at the sun. If I could remember what the fuck they were playing last night I'd have the most dangerous sexual weapon ever conceived. As I turned to walk back to the bar and find out I stopped dead.



The place was full of cobwebs, door hanging on for life and gently swaying back and forth in the early morning breeze. It looked like no one had been here in at least 20 years. I have seen too much weird shit in this life to start questioning good fortune and if demons stole my soul last night, the dance had been worth it all. I walked back towards the bike and slid my helmet back into place. The familiar heat overtook every pore and that's when I knew I was still alive, still in this reality. No imagination, no dream, no layer of Dante's hell can properly simulate a Southern summer and no devil would ever be so cruel as to subject someone to it. I knew it to be as real as the rumble under my bones as the road stretched out in front of me. That, and the fact that my ass was still as numb as roadkill.


Good for: Losing your mind and your pants. You didn't need them any way.

Get the sexy at Amazon.com

The Raveonettes: Pretty in Black

There was darkness in the air, brimming over the window and flowing around my legs that night. As the endless fields flew past my eyes, I reached down to crank the radio up once more. The speakers and engine were groaning under the weight of the sky but I could not hear their cries. The only thing that played out in my mind was the runny eggs, weak coffee and sobbing confessions of the early night, the diner and its insistent cheerfulness. One side of my quarter was hope that the song in the jukebox could change my life. The other side of the coin was her face broken into a thousand fragments of regret and pain.

I could still smell the metallic sweetness of the coin, feel the textures on my fingers and hear the mechanical clicking of the record player near the door. Each memory was as sharp as a steak knife, clearer than anything that came from her mouth. There was something about the slightly damp table; the way the napkin clung to its home reminded me of her. The way I found her arm around mine a pair of handcuffs, a napkin determined to stay.

As the confessions of sobbing infidelity spilled out of her mouth, I sat numb and listened to everything around me; clinking coffee cups, yelled orders, the constant buzz of busy short order cooks and the jangling guitars radiating from the jukebox. There were words spoken, but they sounded so far away. Should I feel bad about that? The eggs and runny grits seemed more real than anything I heard.

So the night rushed in with its unfolding darkness outside the front door, the smoke from the diner mixing a greasy odor with the fresh smells of grass and starlight. I felt cold door handle, squeaking vinyl and the numbness of the night wrapped tight around my heart as I slid into the seat. The crunching gravel turned to gasoline fumed roaring as the rubber hit pavement and I poured out onto the road. Endless fields, they spread out in front of the hood like waves of ocean tide, topped with reflected moonlight and swirling with the possibility of relief.

The radio was my saving grace, the hand reaching out from the glowing dashboard and steadying my grip as I pushed the needle past 100 and into the grey zone between a death wish and a new life. I was speed itself, I was the wind. There was no difference between the ground rushing outside the windows, the roaring eight cylinders in front of my feet and the pain deep inside my chest. The driving guitar melts inside my eyes and I feel each drumbeat on my skin.

Everything leading up to this moment was necessary, the total loss of self in wind and steel; the sobbing lies echoing across a Formica table; tasteless runny eggs and lifeless grits; grizzled truckers and the constant flow of coffee brought by the waitress; teenagers sneaking cigarettes and glances at each other from grimy booths; everything is in its place. The Raveonettes led me past the pain, past the bullet riddled state line sign and into comforting darkness flowing around the car and into my lungs; salvation and temptation in every chord; the joys of love and the bitter taste of loneliness were mine for the taking. Dawn found me stranded without fuel 300 hundred miles from home drinking a bottle of cheap beer, laughing at the sun and at the happiest place in my life.



Listen to samples at Amazon.com

Dirty Three: Ocean Songs

Home is not a place. Home has never meant that to me. It is an idea, a fraction of myself told in bedsheets and cookware. So when the time came to leave it all behind and journey across the waters to a new life, I jumped at the chance.

The ship was tiny, cowering in the bay next to the gods and giants moored near her resting place. No matter. I wasn't looking for a luxury berth, I wanted to know the ocean like my ancestors did. I wanted, above all else, to feel the ocean in my bones and etch her songs upon my heart.It is a young man's game, I suppose, to throw oneself against the elements: to test your will against the cliff faces of reality.

A cry on board cracked across my reverie and I stowed my gear near the storehouses in the stern. For the next three months this cramped and fetid hole in the bottom of a cargo ship would be my home. Nested deep within the pile of clothes and notebooks was my most cherished possession, the icon of this journey. A violin. I had never been a rich man and this fragile piece of wood had cost me nearly every penny I had. If you want to know the core of yourself, it is best to strip off everything you drag around.

I lived and breathed salt air for endless days, hauling lines until my hands bled and eating the stale iron rations stacked high in the cargo holds next to barrels of tobacco and cotton. Each night I would secret away to my corner of the hold and coax my hands warm until I could feel my fingers playing upon the strings of my violin. It was the entire reason I found myself a thousand miles from the land of my fathers, blasted by cold waters, wracked by fevers and so tired that I could hardly sleep at night.

I sang with Poseidon, played symphonies of delight with the Sirens and conducted the winds to the call of cat gut and rosin. This was home, this was the sliver of myself that could never be found in cities or distilled from pastures overgrown with arrogance and the tyrannies of petty men. At last my home, sweet Atlantis.

I found myself at the end of my journey too soon. So that no one may forget this communion of wind and water I have recorded every note, every nuance, every endless storm of my life. May
it stand as a sign post on your journey home.

You may also try Rachel's, Godspeed You Black Emperor and Mogwai to bring you a step closer to the truth of life.

Good for: Being wholly transported to a vision of storms on the horizon and seagulls in the air.
Samples at Amazon.com

The Be Good Tanyas: Blue Horse

The trip to Canada was not my idea. My life had sunk low into a haze of depression and drinking and nothing would drag me out. Well, no amount of bitching and whining would get me out of this one. My brother had made this very clear. By the time I woke up in the back of my car we were stopped at the border station just north of New York. Hill Island. The air had changed so subtly I hardly noticed.

I was still drunk from the night before so I crawled back into the nest of coats and pillows and dipped in and out of sleep for another couple hours. The world started shaking and I snapped out of my dreams with a start. Jim was shaking me, telling me we had arrived. "Where the fuck did you take me?". "Smiths Falls, now get up. We're getting coffee" I grumbled my way out of the car and into the sunlight. Sobriety is a bitch and this cold wind and clear sun was not making it any easier.

The cafe was a good ten yards from where we parked, but the parking lot stretched into the horizon in my eyes. Damn this place, damn these smiling Canadians and damn you Jim. I slapped my hand against the door hoping I'd hit someone coming out. Damn again, no one caught the door in the face. Jim shoved me forward and into the nearest booth. "What can I get you boys?", a tall pleasant looking face said somewhere above the rim of my sunglasses. "Double Maker's Mark neat and an ashtray" I grumbled. "He'll have coffee" from the other side of the table. Damn you Jim.

The coffee arrived in a carafe, the scent burned it's way through my nose and straight into my brain. Canada has coffee game. Jim and I started the ritual of coffee, passing sugar and cream back and forth in a game as old as our brotherhood. Over my shoulder I heard the drone of tuning and the clicks and rustles of busy stage work. "What the fuck is this Jim? You drag me all the way to Canada to listen to a fucking band?". "Shut up Eriq, listen."

The Be Good Tanyas sung me into salvation that night. I was their willing captive for the entire performance. Delicate strums on acoustic guitars drove sweet spikes of remorse deep through my festering wounds. The aching arch of fiddle danced with all of my fears, putting them to bed with understanding and compassion and vocal harmonies that gave me hope for the first time in years. These girls had found the best of America and distilled it with pure Canadian glacier water. I cried the entire night, drops of my past falling into the coffee held in front of me.

As the band wished us well upon our way, I wiped my face dry with the remnants of the napkin and ran for the door. The night time air slapped me in the face hard enough to lose my balance. The stars and I stared at each other for hours. A cruching of snow wakes me from my communion. "Do you get it? Are you ready to go?" "Sure."

I saved this in my photo album with Langhorne Slim, Po' Girl and Uncle Earl

Listen to my journey at Amazon.com

Radiohead: In Rainbows

We're proud to announce our latest Series 7 android. Here at Radiohead Industries we have always striven to bring the greatest sense of authenticity to our flagship series of androids and the Radiohead Series 7 is our greatest achievement by far. In this series we have brought elevated the principles of techno-organic synthesis to an art form, transcending the barrier between artifice and the natural world to bring you emotions that humanity cannot describe in words.


The Emotional Cortex of the Radiohead Series 7, nicknamed "In Rainbows", is built around our proprietary recordings of your life and surroundings. We have been observing you for some time and we feel like we can describe you in greater detail than you know. As an owner of the Radiohead Series 3 (nicknamed OK Computer) you may be familiar with many of the themes this new version will play upon. Perhaps you feel alone, perhaps the cold lines of modern living leaves you feeling hollow at the end of the day and you feel as though you will never connect with another human being again.


Good news! Connection with other human beings is within your grasp once more! The "In Rainbows" progressive reconnection sequence is designed to enhance your ownership experience through the selective upload of images directly from your subconscious and transmission to pre-screened mating selections on our Reconnection Database servers. We can feel your pain and we want you to know it's alright. We love you. We here at Radiohead Industries have been studying the separation between people and the rest of the world for a long time and have found a unique solution for our customers.


Thank you for selecting this product, it will keep you sane in the endless tides of noise and confusion. Please check our website for our other offerings, British Sea Power, Broken Social Scene, Tool and Nine Inch Nails.


Good for: Contemplating your life, sitting on a wall in the middle of the street.

Picnic Time at Byrd Park

Unfortunately the rain has come and this event has been postponed, but I'll be heading to the revised picnic and I'll keep everyone up to date.

Greetings,

You are invited to the first Basket Head Productions gathering of Picnic Revolution. This first gathering will be on April 27, 2008 on the north west shore of Swan Lake south west shore of Shields Lake (along Shields Lake Court) in Byrd Park from 11am to 3pm.

Picnic Revolution is Richmond's local, sustainable, and mobile food celebration. Picnic can be defined as 'a pleasure excursion at which a meal is eaten outdoors, ideally taking place in a beautiful landscape'. The focus of Picnic Revolution is to promote and support our local food and park systems.

Who's invited? Everyone! Spread the word.

What to bring? Food- local, fresh, and ready to eat. Beverages. Flatware. Blankets. Games.

For more information stay tuned to www.basketheadproductions.com

Sincerely,

The Basket Head Staff baskethead@threemiles.com

New contributor: Allison Lott of Musical Moxie

We here at A Fresh Cup of Awesome are thrilled to bring you a new contributor to our blog, Allison Lott. Her tastes in music are different than any of ours are so expect to see a new blend of Awesome in your cup in the days to come. She runs an excellent blog over here at Musical Moxie and I'll be putting some posts up there so be sure to check in and see what's new. On that note, we're always seeking more contributors so if you're excited about your music collection, listen to it obsessivly and want to tell the world all about it, drop me a line. ellummoxo(at)gmail.com

Youngblood Brass Band: center:level:roar

Imagine a brass band let loose upon the imagination of Brooklyn. No limitations on technique, no barriers on form and a musical director with tastes that range as far as the eye can see. That is what Youngblood Brass Band has brought into the world.

This is brass as weapon and salvation, the two edged sword of judgement in the hands of disciples of the beat box. Sonic poetry that ranges from the subtle to the thunderous graces each track as I feel the ground beneath me shake. I cannot listen to this record without finding myself whistling the tunes for the next few days. It will infect your head, shake your ass and move your soul. Best listened to on an incredibly loud stereo, preferably on a sunny day in the summer time.

There is this positive energy that flows out of this band, like they've tapped into the source code of the universe and found the spirit form of Stevie Wonder. If this album doesn't get you wide open, then you're a corpse. They spin destruction and resurrection in a spell of interweaving melody and complex harmony, a complete phase of life in a song. When I die and my jazz funeral is under way, these are the guys I want to boom bap me into the next life. We're on a train from New Orleans to New York with The Roots. They're covering the Duke Ellington songbook and picking up every funky motherfucker with a horn from the South on up.

Good for: Blowing the doors off of your car with a horn section the size of Mount Olympus.

Check them out on Last.fm!

Yann Tiersen: Amelie: Original Soundtrack Recording

The fog parts just long enough for me to see the street lights flicker off as the wan sunlight peeks through the haze. I've been walking through the alleys and behind the buildings of this city since sundown the night before, looking for fragments of human life left fermenting in the secret parts of this vibrant, pulsing entity known as civilization.

The ache in my feet matches the tone of my mood, worn and thin, searching with desperation for meaning in the endless brick and mortar night scape. As the sun burns the night into dust a waft of accordion and violin passes by my face, just out of reach, just out of hearing. I follow the Sirens call down a flight of cobblestone stairs towards a golden glow crawling out of a doorway to greet the sun.

A cafe, brimming with energy. Two women waltzing through the crowd escorting coffee and pastry salvation to sleepy eyed patrons. I stumble through the entrance and find the closest seat. The noise and rush threaten to dispel the illusion that the night has so carefully wrought upon my senses and I careen around the smells and brightness of it all, clinging desperately to my last cigarette.

The crescendo of this morning peaks and just when I think that all is lost, I see the man in the corner with his accordion. Tall and thin, he coaxes the stillness back into my world, bringing this long and strange night to it's perfect culmination. I relax and listen as the piano player joins in, entrancing the very walls of the cafe into a moment of utmost pleasure at living, loving and losing. I head back out towards the endless sidewalks of my city and join Brad Mehldau, Bill Evans and Nobuo Uematsu on their journey between worlds of sorrow and joy.



Good for: People watching from the corner cafe, chain smoking and writing.

Suburban Kids With Biblical Names: #3

There is a secret world between your childhood dreams and your adult disillusionment and this is the native tongue of the creatures that live there. It is a language we learn in the free floating space between birth and knowing the world and we tend to let it slip past us the older we get. You and I, we need a guide. Someone who lives there still, dancing under a digital sun with an acoustic guitar who can see marvel in every part of life and still keep one foot planted in the things we've learned.

Suburban Kids With Biblical Names are here to show you the way back to yourself. It's OK, we all need to relax and have some fun at a certain point. They treat music like it's fun, which it is! It takes so much of the burden of complex meaning and obsessive craft of so many musical styles and turns it into a joke that somehow comes out sounding more real than all of the things they make fun of.

So grab some headphones and a portable music thingy and come with me down to the park on Saturday, leave all your mortgages, cars and way too complicated relationships at home. We can play some Frisbee golf and feed the ducks. While we're there we can eat a picnic lunch with Kimya Dawson, They Might Be Giants and the Aquabats.

Good for: Remembering why you started listening to music in the first place.

Iron and Wine: Tonight at the National

Iron and Wine is playing at the National on Broad tonight, 'round 8:00. Who wants to go? I'll be there.

1:00 4-17-08 Good lord. That was a fantastic show.

Hope Sandoval & The Warm Inventions: Bavarian Fruit Bread

The blinds are shut against the setting sun and the dust floating around the room is dancing it's seductive dance against your eyes. Every curl of smoke drifting up from the bed is a testament to flesh, a poem written in the air. Angels sing the song of lovers and beg you to stay here, stay in this perfect crystallized Sunday moment. Each breath you take is a photograph of seduction, passion and the empty bottle of wine rolling softly across the wooden floor. Why should you leave?

Hope Sandoval is telling you not to. This record transcends sexiness into something closer to divinity, the perfected art of early morning lovemaking, a gentle caress of an album that doesn't want you to leave for work.

It is the whispered word at the end of a long night out with friends, a more comfortable place to relax and be alone together, a chance to peer deep into the mysteries of sunrise from the other side of night. This is a world full of warm guitar tones, gentle harmonica trails and the light touch of drums and organ all coming together to get through your pants and into your heart.

There is a leather bound book I keep in my room full of loves lost and found, of dreams and hopes that never came to be and the yellowing notes from lovers past. I keep this album there with Keren Ann, Jose Gonzalez, Mazzy Star and Damien Rice.

Good for: Playing songs on the skin of your lover, treating every touch like a chord.

Manuel Barrueco: Nylon and Steel

Dark clouds gather on the horizon, trading secrets of quiet rumbling and flashes of insight. Soon the storm is fully formed and racing across the plains towards you, words of sonic titans falling down from the sky. But then it is no more, a clear sky, the sunlight bathing you in warmth and love. This album has summer storm moods, fresh and alarming folding gently into clear skies and pure guitar tones.

Every note of this album is exactly where it needs to be and it doesn't feel like it was programmed to be there. A great number of classical performances come off too stiff and mechanical for my tastes and this is not one of them.

It reminds me that the term "classical" is like any other genre tag, an approximation at its best and a limitation at it's worst. This is the bridge for two purists to meet in the middle of, enjoy an album together and expand their musical horizons with storm clouds of emotion and form. It takes people by the hand into new lands with Manu Chao, Run DMC, Daft Punk and Norah Jones.

Good for: Breaking down the walls between emotion and logic, between structure and intention and the wall between you and me.

Leonard Cohen: Death Of A Ladies' Man

There is this heavy air in the hotel lobby. All of the dreams of afternoon lovers are pooling here at the entrance and threatening to choke off your air. Lost in a haze of emotion and unsure of each footstep you stumble further through the red and gold wallpapered pathways of midnight hell towards the record player casting shadows out of a doorway.

There are memories tied to every note, remorse on every staff line of this ode to the moment you're in. Vision blurred, stumbling towards the song floating into the room you fall into the bed in slow motion. Leonard Cohen can seduce you in ways you never thought were possible. He has forgotten more about being spiritually and physically naked than most of us have ever known.

This is definitely not music for listening to at work, in the car or any time you're not able to grab a bottle of wine and take off your clothes. If you have someone to share this album with, you're in the place he wants you to be. Leonard Cohen is a poet of the highest order, sparing with his words and generous with emotion. But don't listen to me, listen to him. I lock this album up in my liquor cabinet with Nick Drake, Ani Difranco and Joe Henry.



Good for: Melting the clothes off of your lover with poetry.

Built To Spill: Keep It Like A Secret

Built to Spill loves you. They want you to have a good time and think about how you're living all at the same time. Imagine if punk rock wasn't screaming in your face about your TV habits, more sidling up next to you at the bar to have a nice long talk about it all. There is social critique here, but it slides past your defenses and makes you think you're listening to pop music.

Mind you, it's not too cute, Keep It Like A Secret has an edge of sorts, but I think they keep it in their back pocket folded up. This collection of songs is the score for people watching in the suburbs, the endless milling of the masses around shiny new things. Here the food court anthem, there the trendy store sonata.

Some songs are human, beating the point home with driving beats and thick bass lines, others floating above you like seagulls in the parking lot outside. It is full of hope and a chance for living outside of the rules we pretend to obey. This album is trying to help you down the road with Modest Mouse, The Get Up Kids and Jets To Brazil.

Good for: Wondering what the hell post-punk is, staring longingly at open fields though plate glass windows.


Listen to samples at Last.fm!

Awesome things tonight!

Come out and celebrate RVA Magazine and Gallery 5's 3rd birthday tonight! The festivities will begin around 7 o'clock. Tonight is First Friday as well, so there's many other wonderful happenings in the area as well.

From RVAmag.com:

WHAT: Gallery5/RVA Mag 3 Year Anniversary Benefit Party!!!
WHEN: 7PM - 2AM
WHERE: Gallery5
DETAILS: First Friday, April 47PM - 2AM $5Gallery5 turns 3 years old April 4th! Come join us as we celebrate three years of hard work, frustration and sleepless nights.On April's First Friday we do battle with our crib-mates RVA Magazine (also turning 3) in a mural competition. Artistic gladiators include your local favorites Jim Callahan, Oura, Adam Juresko, Bizhan Khodabandeh, Ross Trimmer and a secret special guest. Great live music from Fight the Big Bull, Prabir and the Substitutes and cabaret sister act, Vermillion Lies. The high energy antics of G5 Fire Performers will be outside spinning, spitting, twirling, and breathing the hot stuff. Late night brings DJ sets from the Party Liberation Front starring DJ Reinhold and Discotizer on the second floor and local unstoppable sonic sensations, SoulPower downstairs. As if that were not enough, Sailor Jerry Rum, Level Vodka and Richbrau Brewery will relieve you of your inhibitions.Take part in our Silent Auction with entries from Firehouse Theatre Project, TheatreVCU, Henry, Rumors, Ian Graham, Ken Howard, Revolve, Chop Suey, Tagur Shoes, Sticky Rice, Taboo, OPUS and others.Raffle Tickets will be available for purchase. 3 Lucky winners will receive tickets to EVERY Gallery5 and RVA Magazine event for a full year!!
URL: http://www.gallery5arts.org

See you there!

Angelo Badalamenti: Twin Peaks Season One OST

Twin Peaks was a romp through the dark and twisted paths that follow David Lynch wherever he goes and the score reflects that. It is a ghost of a score, touching down for only a moment in your mind and then floating off on a breeze. I'm pulling into a parking lot just this side of the state border. 6 am, no one here but I need gas and more smokes.

Where the hell am I? The interstate signs said there'd be a rest stop and store somewhere around here, but I can't see a damn thing. I feel the sunlight whisper through the branches of this autumn day as I start walking towards the abandoned roller coaster just on the other side of this run down building, I think it's a restaurant.

Flashes of something following me down into a stream bed and staying just out of my sight. Son of a bitch! I head back to the car, watching the edges of my vision and cram the keys into the door as fast as I can. I point the nose back towards the interstate entrance and stuff my toes into the floorboard.

Fuck! Weird little place, no wonder it wasn't on this map I picked up. No one ever comes back. I wonder how these places come to be...... I keep a close watch on this album while it plots with Chet Baker, Akira Yamaoka, and The Black Heart Procession.

Good for: Setting up detective fiction in your local coffee shop, making everyone suspicious as hell.

Listen to Nightingale on Last.fm!

Panthalassa - The Remixes: Miles Davis

We start this evening in a downtown lounge, sipping a drink and listening to the traffic roll by in it's muted thunder. The glasses on the bar start to shake along with the rhythm of the train passing overhead. Mystery surrounds you in an ever growing shroud, each tendril of brass an invitation to slip further into the embrace of endless dusk.

Soon, the scene drops you to street level, harsh lights passing overhead one after the other, the frenzied pace of a Saturday night. Every man and woman trying to get as much pleasure out of these brief moments that life allows them, wrenching out emotions strained under the weight of their own self doubt. Now this narrow beer soaked road spreads out into a broad street and the sheer size of the night becomes apparent to you. It is immense, and we are very small.

Miles Davis was relentlessly experimental in his musical career and this remix sounds to me like what the man would be doing if he were still around. He would be moving forward with the force of a typhoon and leaving most of the world confused in his wake. This album has beats the size of skyscrapers laced on top of some of the slickest tunes ever to grace my ears. Imagine a secret meeting between Bjork and DJ Shadow on top of a building in the dead of winter, exchanging vinyl like secret agents. I keep this one stacked in my secret vault of Forbidden Beats with Saul Williams, DJ Krush, Yuki Kajiura and a bag of instrumentals from MF Doom.

Good for: Plotting the getaway plan, smoking a cigarette in the moonlight from the veranda of your penthouse.

Man, this took some looking. Check out samples at Amazon.com (you'll need the Realplayer plugin to listen.)

Maceo and the All The King's Men: Doing Their Own Thing

Do you own a pin stripe suit? No? You should. This record would complement your new suit perfectly and I wouldn't steer you wrong. In fact, I know a guy who can get you into a gold pocket watch and suit this afternoon, real cheap. Some cologne too I think. Well, thank you sir, it is funky as hell isn't it? Indeed. You too. Goodbye.

Maceo Parker was born to light your ass on fire. This is fact, I can prove it with data and I've got a lab full of funky motherfuckers in lab coats that will back me up on this. Think I'm wrong? Nope. James Brown had faith that Maceo Parker was bad enough to lead his band and that's about all I need to know. Besides which, all you really need to do is listen to this album and let your hips do the voting.

Even among the least funky of crowds say, a retirement home in Ohio, the head-nodding quotient is higher among Maceo Parker control groups than any other listening segment. It's science bitches, and it works. This album is the King's Men at the height of bad-assery and it they burn it up through the entire album. This is melting a hole through my laptop with Breakestra, James Brown, The Quantic Soul Orchestra and Parliament.

Good for: Lighting you up when the world really wants you down.

Check out some tracks at Last.fm!

Neko Case: Fox Confessor Brings The Flood

I'm watching the stars glide past my eyes in the back of a 1976 Buick station wagon, the smell of the vinyl seats mixing with the pine trees flying past. This is a late night trip down an ancient road past the city lights and noise. Here is the sound you need while you watch moths struggle to join the fluorescent oblivion of a gas station parking lot sign on the road back from a place you never wanted to be.

Neko Case weaves your desire for a better life around a rusted state road sign and wraps the whole thing in an old newspaper before passing it down the bar to you. This album exists in that incredible undefined space between country music, indie folk and singer-songwriter material. It makes me remember why I think genre is bullshit. It's so hard to pin this album down and it's even harder to try and put a label on Neko Case.

Her work has ranged significantly since starting out and it just keeps getting broader and better the more she works. On another awesome note, she grew up in Northern Virginia which is none too far from my own city of Richmond and knowing a bit about the area gives me an understanding of the musical authenticity she's seeking. For those who don't know, Northern Virginia is like Disneyland for conspicuous consumers. It's ridiculous, trust me. This album is rocking me gently with Ryan Adams, Nick Drake, Gillian Welch and Ron Sexsmith.

Good for: Watching blue smoke curl off the bar in a Waffle House just down the road from the dump.

Listen to samples at Last.fm! I recommend you check out Star Witness, soooo awesome.

Fleet Foxes: Sun Giant EP

If we were a tribe in a Zach Braff's head, this is what we'd be playing every night around the fire. There's this other worldly thing floating around Fleet Foxes, like the monsters from under your bed have all come out to join the band. I'm standing in a field watching a faerie tale evolve in front of my eyes and I cannot move. Fleet Foxes play what they describe as baroque harmonic pop, but I think it sounds like the Doors have come floating down through the ages to sit in on a Decemberists session and play the tambourine.

There is this amazing vocal harmony work running throughout the album and other passages that hit a simplicity that I really only find in traditional bluegrass and the like. This EP is their second and I'm really looking forward to going back to their self titled EP and being just as mesmerized by these shining strands of hope and loss that they call songs.

This EP is glittering in my mind with TV on the Radio, The Flaming Lips, Broken Social Scene and Neutral Milk Hotel.

Good for: Watching birds dance high above the tree lines, smoking a pipe and thinking it might rain.

I don't normally do this, but they don't have anything on Last.fm.
You can hear a few tracks on Myspace.com

I Muvrini: A Strada

I have to admit, I don't speak Corsican. Until I listened to these guys I didn't even know that Corsica had it's own language. Not that any of that really matters. The spell that they weave transcends language and enters that rare realm of communication without words. Which is kind of strange, considering that the Corsican tradition they're pimping is primarily vocal.

I think that they're trying to tell us that language doesn't mean a whole lot, and I agree. Corsica, for those who don't know is a tiny Mediterranean Island south of France and their music doesn't sound like anything you've ever heard before. Sweeping melodic structures are built like cathedrals only to fall into this sea of harmonic drone that is trying to sweep you away into the night.

You can get lost in here, it's an open invitation to fall completely into sound. There's hints of North Africa, touches of France and a healthy line of Latin liturgy running throughout the album and it takes you to a place so unique that you might not want to come back. It is levitating through the air with Sigur Rós, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Tony Scott and Tool wondering when you'll be joining them.


Good for: Meditating on top of a mountain during a thunder snow.

Listen to samples on Last.fm!

Sun Kil Moon: Tiny Cities

Sometimes a collection of covers reaches so far beyond its source that it takes on a life of its own and takes you by the hand to the place where it all began. I had never really listened to Modest Mouse until after I heard this record played. You say "Surely you'd heard some Modest Mouse!" I had, but it never really got under my skin the way Sun Kil Moon did.

This collection takes what are now very familiar tunes (Modest Mouse now lives happily on my iPod) and turns them into haunting epics of failure and regret that spin off of steel strings in slow waves, reaching deep inside to turn that knob that keeps you cool about music.

There's something about Mark Kozelak's voice that makes it impossible to keep your distance from him. All the better, I think music is best when experienced directly and that's what this album delivers. This is an old pair of jeans and a dog eared book. These songs are the faded memories of lovers, drifting to the surface on a lazy afternoon. I keep this one right next to my heart along with Iron & Wine, Hope Sandoval, Keren Ann and Elliott Smith.

Good for: Thinking long and hard about the world, looking into mirrors.
Listen to samples at Last.fm!

Thanks Randall, I've been through this with my film scores

From xkcd

If you think this is bad, have the theme from "Conan the Barbarian" play during cuddle time.

The Twilight Singers: Twilight As Played By The Twilight Singers

If you ever needed an excuse to wear black suits and sunglasses, this is your chance. Not that anyone needs an excuse really, more of a score for drinking in an empty bar on a well lit city avenue. The Twilight Singers started as a side project of Afghan Whigs frontman Greg Dulli and several friends that evolved into his full time band. "Twilight" was reworked and co-produced by Fila Brazillia which is one of the reasons that it sounds so different from their later works.

This is such a supremely melancholy album that it makes want to cry. If it weren't for the nice fat Big Beats propping it up, it would be a suicidal depressing endeavor. Instead it comes out as emotionally sincere, darkly sexy and extremely listenable.

This is a fine wine of an album, layers of flavor requiring the utmost attention to gain its full impact. This album is writing poetry and crying with The Postal Service, Portishead, Massive Attack and Radiohead.

Good for: Driving old cars down new streets, singing fresh lyrics over new beats.

Morphine: The Night

Morphine has one of the most unique sounds I've ever heard, a baritone rumble of a band with and endless supply of spectral, seductive lyrics. If I had to make up my own term, it would be Rock Noir. It sounds like your sub-woofer has caught a terminal case of the sexiness and it's not gonna survive.

So quick, get yourself a bottle of whiskey and join us on a trip into the underworld. This is what Bruce Wayne listens to after a long night beating the crap out of psychos, smoking a cigar on the veranda of Wayne Manor, watching the sunrise glint through the remnants of a twenty year old scotch sliding down the side of a crystal glass. The Night is watching you from an alleyway with Robert Rodriguez, Graeme Revell, Chet Baker, Akira Yamaoko, David Lynch and Trent Reznor.

Good for: Watching the city slide by on a rainy night through the window of a broken down, filthy train.

Easy Star Allstars: Dub Side of the Moon

I can't really think of an album that goes this far into stoned out. I feel like I lose my bones every time I put this on. This is the soundtrack to taking a long slow ride through the solar system riding shotgun with Willie Nelson and a seven foot long purple iguana navigating. There's a lingering smell of that vile green reefer you picked up off a chick near Venus and the stars in the viewport are wavering back and forth to the beats flowing past your face in waves of color.

That's just when the slinking snare of "Us and Them" sidles up with the sax line and smoothes your ride out into a nice seven minute weed nap. It's not so much of a tribute or cover of Dark Side of the Moon as it is a re-imagining of the concept filtered through some damn fine production and performance by NYCs Easy Star artists and friends.

Most tributes are bland redubs and new performances of old material, it takes balls to lay an album like this down. I'll definitely be checking out "Radiodread", a re-interpretation of Radiohead's seminal work, OK Computer by the same group of solid dudes. This platter chills with Spacemonkeys vs. Gorillaz, Niney the Observer, Pink Floyd, Thievery Corporation and the biggest joint you've ever seen in your life in the back of your van.

Good for: Watching the sun go down over the Earth from your personal space station.

Guest post by Jerry Vaughn! Meshuggah:ObZen

Consider ObZen a mathematics puzzle. If you add the complexity of Tool, multiply the brutal vocals of Lamb of God, and divide by the square root of death metal, the answer to the equation is Meshuggah. The 5-piece poly-prog metal act from Sweden is back with yet another journey to confuse and astonish their fans. These guys never cease to amaze me with their impeccable sense of timing.

There were occasions that I had to stop head-banging just so I could find the beat again. Quite a few of lead guitarist Fredrik Thordendal's riffs are the sickest I've heard in ages. Drummer Tomas Haake continues to deliver his sick combination of standard and polymetric beats which sound like an orchestra of machine gun fire at times. Jens Kidman's vocals seem as sharp and focused as ever. The rest of the gang delivers a phenomenal performance this time around as well. All in all this is, in my humble opinion, their finest effort since 1998's "Chaosphere".

Good For: Kicking old ladies, road rage, breaking shit, and 52 minutes of mathematics.

Count Basie: Breakfast Dance and Barbeque

Imagine the most pimped out breakfast you can. Eggs stacked to the ceiling, fresh orange juice and mountains of fluffy pancakes, pastries of every description threatening to topple over and crush you. Coffee so fresh it looks like an oil slick on tar. Serve it all on fresh linens draped over card tables set up in a park, beautiful spring morning, fresh green life everywhere. Now add yourself in formal wear, smashed on mimosas at 7 am, Sunday. That's what this album sounds like.

I found it on a random journey through Basie's work and I think it stands tall in a damn fine collection of works. Especially nice for me is "In a Mellow Tone", track 3 on the cd release. It's great for waking up in the morning, a real mellow slow start that builds up to a swinging ass brass wall that'll knock the fuzz right out of your head. Damn that's nice. This platter snaps its fingers with Duke Ellington, Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra and the crew while picking out a fresh suit at the department store, winking at your mom.

Good for: Searching for that mythic middle ground between elegant, wasted and waking up.

Strung Out: Twisted by Design

If Me First and The Gimme Gimmes are punk rock in clown shoes, then Strung Out is punk in a tuxedo, all washed up and ready to meet your mom with a dissertation on sociology. They make what is at times a formulaic and simple genre something incredible and new and have done so without sacrificing what most people listen to punk for, energy and lyrics.

Twisted by Design is Strung Out's 3rd album released on Fat Wreck Chords and I think represents the perfect mid point in the bands growth into a progressive punk rock force. The lyrics are a well balanced blend of failed romance, social critique and pure poetry. There is one song on here that is pure inspiration to me. "Reason to believe" is an anthemic rant about modern living that anyone born in the last hundred years should feel deep down in their gut. Or they're dead inside. Or apathetic. Meh.

This album is trying to start a revolution with The Refused, Pennywise, Good Riddance, Bouncing Souls and Rancid in my record crate.

Good for: Getting pissed off about the world and your ex and heading out to tell them both off.

Bill Frisell: Blues Dream

I've rarely listened to an album so aptly named. Blues Dream is exactly what you get here, a sublime journey through misty fields and abandoned railroad yards, always watching your back. A mood of danger and uncertainty lingers in every track. If I had to walk through all of Alabama in one night, this is what I'd listen to. Bill Frisell has consistently produced instrumental albums of superior quality and awesome range in his equally stellar career. It's good to see a guitarist who is willing to step outside of a "signature" sound and get down in a whole new way. I'd equally recommend East West to the eager listener, a Bill Frisell album of different style but similar scope covering jazz in dreamscapes the way Blues Dream does the blues tradition. This album hangs out with Little Axe, Slang, Eric Clapton and Joe Henry in the corner with a bottle of booze.

Good for: Walking down railroad tracks during a steel grey morning, regretting last night.

Iron and Wine: The Shepard's Dog

I started listening to Iron and Wine a few years back, and every time they release a new album I love them a little more. The Shepard's Dog is a direct evolution from In the Reins, an album produced and recorded with Calexico.

The influence of those sessions is all over this album, larger arrangements, more complex harmonies and significantly more vocal presence than earlier albums. I appreciate the stripped down ballads of earlier works, but this albums dynamics gives it a little more room to wiggle. I've always thought of their earlier works as late night blueberry wine, crickets in the yard, summer breezes and lamenting loves lost.

This album finds me enjoying an afternoon with friends, driving down dirt roads to secret places and washing my face in sunlight. It lives in my iPod with Jim White, Damien Rice, Elliot Smith, Sun Kil Moon and Calexico.

Good for: Making out on the banks of a river, drinking beer in the sun. Going back to your place for dinner and undressing by the ashes of the fire (from Resurrection Fern, Track 8). It's like that.

Nujabes/Force of Nature: Samurai Champloo Soundtrack, Impressions

I am constantly impressed with the evolution of anime scoring in my lifetime, watching it migrate from classical cues mixed with J-Pop to this hybrid of incredible depth and innovation. Don't get me wrong, Samurai Champloo isn't the first anime TV series to blow my face off with it's scoring (Cowboy Bebop wins that honor), but it is the latest and greatest.

Impression sways between the spectral and the concrete with ease, leading you down the road without feeling forced. It makes you nod your head, which is what good hip-hop should always start with, then it starts to tickle your soul which is where great hip-hop begins. In my collection it plays well with Blockhead, DJ Shadow, Harmonic 33 and Cut Chemist.

Good for: Driving down the road feeling bad-ass in your Honda.

Tonight

I'll be at The Flying Brick, 506 S, Pine St. watching Pedals on our Pirate Ships play live, at 19:00. You should come on out, free show! Your mother would approve.
3-10-08 Update.
It took me a while to get here and update. I'm lazy, it's how it goes. POOPS (love the acronym) put on an awesome show. There is nothing in the world better than direct song writing, no bullshit and no masks up. Matt Seymour writes songs about his life, no filters. The Flying Brick is a tough venue for me, living rooms aren't well designed for watching bands, but it still did the trick. I caught the first couple songs from Ghost Mice before I had to leave and I'm going to hunt some recordings down. Think old school folk and bluegrass wrapped up in modern aesthetics and songwriting techniques. Ahhh, acoustic goodness.

Public transit

I spent the better part of my 20's sans car and I rocked GRTC back and forth to work at Tower for most of that time. Taking an hour to get up Broad St. every day was a real pain in the ass when it took less than 10 minutes by car or scooter. I'm almost certain that anyone who's relied on GRTC for their livelihood has developed a deep and abiding hatred for it. That's not really why I'm here. Bitching about a thing really does very little to end the problem. It does make you feel better though.

I've been thinking of ways to improve the public transit around here and I think there's a few ways to do it without creating tons of waste or costing obscene amounts of money, further indebting our municipal government to private investors. I think a lot of the problems in revitalizing Richmond city's economy can be traced back to the influx of private capital into public coffers and the kind of closed door meetings where public policy is dictated by private investors. Anyone want a baseball stadium in Shockoe Bottom? I thought not. So when we approach creating a functional public transit system that is affordable, scalable and sustainable the first thing we must do is keep investment interests the hell away from it. Public transit has never been, nor will it be, profitable. So why do people keep investing in it? I have no idea, perhaps political weight, perhaps a tax shelter, the methodology and reasoning of investors is beyond me. I'm certain of one thing, it's either fear or greed.

Reusing existing byways seems like the best way to get people around the city. We've done enough blowing holes through neighborhoods (read: Interstate system) in our history as a modern city. I'd say the best bet in getting light rail between the city and its suburbs is the abandoned rail lines and tramway paths that cover the entire area. Richmond is one of the biggest rail centers in the country and the very notion that we don't utilize it to move people around the area is laughable. I need to spend some time researching the existing right of way agreements between local municipalities and rail companies before I'm certain, but it seems like a good idea to lease access to the local lines for commuter traffic. Look at the map, CSX lines mirror 64 and 95 quite nicely.

Light rail has done incredible things for other cities, my favorite is Portland for its use of mixed service transportation. The real problem is getting Richmonders and Suburbinites interested, or dare I hope, excited about the prospect of getting to work on the train in the morning. So how do we approach that? Discuss.

Science Fiction, Double Feature Slide Show

Well, not really but Picassa has served me a fine turn with it's slide show generator.

Blogs about blogging, a blog post

I've been spending the morning digging around for ways to generate more traffic for my blog and looking at other peoples work to see what I like. The best piece of advice I've gotten so far is "be useful". Hilariously, I find my own work to be quite useless. Most blogs are of two types, this here personal rantspace and the other, more useful type that have focus, an audience and somewhere to go with their ideas. I don't think either one is better or worse, just servicing very different audiences and intentions.
I'm enjoying the dead blogs I come across even more, blogs that haven't been updated in 3 or 4 years. They stand as gravestones to an active mind, an idea of some kind or another. I wonder how many of these are dead people's blogs, just waiting out their inactivity period before deletion. Who will I give my Firefox keychain to when I die? I'll have to ask my lawyer if The Internet has legal standing as a person that I can consign my works to posthumously. I'd like to send my thoughts to the Internet the way sailors send their bodies to the sea, to be eaten by predators, lost among the Tag Clouds.
Well, you may notice that there is a Creative Commons tag on the bottom of this page now. It's ok, it's very small but I'd like to point it out now. That's a very important little piece of HTML right there. I'd like to state explicitly that I meant to put it there and I spend a lot of time talking shit about CC work. I figure it's time to back it up. So everything here can be reproduced, shared, discussed and improved upon with attribution including photos. A number of my friends publish CC photos so I'll use their work or my own to keep everything kosher.
I'm considering launching a fo'real blog in the near future. I'd be reviewing one album a day, regardless of genre, publication date or relative hipness. I need to spend some more time researching the IP laws around this but everything I've seen so far seems like this project will take off.

I'll let everyone know what's going on when I've got a site up and running.

03-11-08 Update:
It's on bitches. A Fresh Cup of Awesome

80%

This blog has me in pain I've been laughing so much. I think I hit about 80% Whiteness based on their observations. Excuse me, I need to go get my Sunday New York Times and a latte.

Stuff White People Like

Rant: East Side till I die.

The East end of Richmond is the land of my teenage years. My parents moved out there so I could attend county schools when I arrived here from Maryland. Evidently the county schools were "better" but I've never been able to tell. My experiences there taught me that people are cruel but I think that's more of an age thing than a location. Varina high school was at the intersection of Wannabe Lane and Misinformed Drive. We were close enough to the city that half the white kids wanted to be gangsters and near enough to true country that The Way of the Redneck was strong and true. It created an interesting hybrid, the jacked up pickup truck covered in rebel flags blasting the emergent sounds of the G-Funk West Coast rap scene. Big Johnson t-shirts with baggy pants. I was always mystified by the racist rap listeners, it seemed they would implode with paradox at any given time. I think all teenagers wear their uniforms with pride, I certainly did. Hot topic before Hot Topic existed. My first wallet chain I bought at Kroger, a dog chain attacked with pliers adorned my one pair of Jincos that I treasured above all else.
So here I grow up in this cultural crossroads, one half country, one half ghetto, confused as any young man and assaulted on all sides by fictional racial tensions. They were a fiction, it required a constant stream of inventions by the believers in it to keep the rest of us even paying attention. Ours is a generation where some of us were raised by civil rights activists, some by flat out dogmatic racists and the vast majority by parents who were ambivalent towards the whole issue. The East End is steeped in it all, the old and the new. It's not really a place to me any more, it seems like a metaphor for so much of what's going wrong in our little slice of the human experience. Really, you can see the same cancers in any neighborhood that you do a MRI on, it's just that the East End is one I've seen a lot of.
There was a phone circuit manufacturing plant on Laburnum Avenue when I was living out there in the mid-90's that has been torn down in favor of a new shopping mall. People in the local media laud it as a "step forward" for an area that has seen some really hard economic times. All I can think of is the people I went to high school with that never graduated due to children, their parents or their own drug problems and all the other myriad issues that arise in modern teenage life. When that plant was open, their entry level positions paid anywhere from 9 to 10 dollars an hour and required little more than a GED and the ability to show up sober and on time. From there workers could get training in one of the technical or supervisory fields the plant required and get their wages up to the 12-15 dollar range. Not excessively high, but something you can survive on, maybe even thrive if you plan and save. The work was boring, but not demeaning.
So now we're going to replace that with a fucking shopping mall? That'll really stimulate the local economy, more low paying go nowhere fucking retail and service jobs. People who make minimum wage aren't going to establish roots in the community because they can't afford to buy the housing built during the manufacturing era. They might be able to rent but in all probability they'll have to live a few miles away and take the bus to work. Especially as he local housing revalues higher due to the availability of nearby shopping and services. It occurs to me that this is not a new problem, urban planners have been watching this trend for years. But the Powers That Be (being capital) have no need for solid community. Solid communities lead to things like demands for better education, labor unions and people who expect something approaching a quality of life.

So we end up with a golden cap on an infected tooth, new construction next to abandoned farm houses. It's like refacing a building who's foundation fell apart years ago and expecting that to fix the problem. It pains me to see this pathos repeated all over our country and the only way we're going to stop it is to start buying back our land from the investment class and building community in only way that is sustainable, from the roots up.

Prose: Endless Twilight

I remember that day we hid upstairs. Peering down between the floorboards somewhere between loneliness and fear, I tasted the air all around her. Delighting in the smell of monsters lurking behind those eyelids, crowding out this vision of me hunched up in the corner. She never looked my way, just shivered as the world crept up on us with it's cruel sunlight and endless gazing and slunk into my arms shallow from the effort of silence. Our skeletons stacked in the corners of the hallway closet, dusted off and polished for company. Never too old or too young to hang out our problems to see, we used to take pride in propping them up in lifelike poses, dressing them in fancy clothes. I was busy washing her hair with my fingertips and remembering to breathe while she sewed up our latest designs.

When the wan light of this treacherous day had pierced the flowered armor she so skillfully deployed across the windows I left her laying on the bed to see how far the enemy had come. Defenses shattered, I peered down at the encampment cooking fires by the dirt road leading up the hill. The one we'd infiltrate on Saturday nights pretending to be in love so we could screw and drink. Looking at the twisted reflection bouncing off the lead glass I wondered why I lingered here in this endless gloom. The blend of tea, sweat and weed swirled around me in clouds of ecstasy and desolation, daring me to try and walk downstairs. I remember thinking I had been stuck in a loop in that moment, like the shuttle control of my mind had been fucked with by some cruel bastard intent on making whiskey my only water. I found myself back on the altar, tied to her with rope I never brought, staring through the back of her head and trying to untie my hands without making a sound. But I think I was her captive audience, the jewel in her crown of thorns.

I wasn't even needed there, just a warm body and a pliable soul that eased the burden of an emotional hoarder. Those endless stacks of well thumbed through magazines depicting couples on Parisian avenues, dimly lit cafes and wine cellars were the walls she had put my artwork on. Just the topmost layer of a collage of wistful yearning and childish dreams. We'd spend these perpetual twilight hours together painting pictures on each others faces and making love to our favorite masks. Later in that endless night, I found her eyes behind a bookshelf full of empty cigarette packs and used condoms and tried to put them back. Only they didn't fit anymore, the sockets burned cold by peering between fiction and this dim imitation of her fantasy.

We rolled around in the whispers of an endless night for years, reaching further and further into each others throats, as she tried desperately to tie one last knot in a rope of pleasure and guilt. I finally woke one day to find the upstairs room empty, a museum of obsession echoing through my mind. Her clothes were laying on the floor among the stacks of morning skirmishes that turned into afternoon passion and torment. I packed the last of myself into a rusty car and headed down the dirt road past the enemies lines, musing that they never looked so transparent as they did that afternoon.

News: Helping the baby making population, one song at a time

So I've decided to try and conquer the world through the power of sexy. There are many types of music in the world and I've listened to most of them but the one that gets me the most is down tempo electronica and trip hop. Portishead did something permanent to my brain. It might have been the time and place, but I've never found anything to replace my copy of Dummy. Well, Sigur Ros () comes real close and Tidal from Fiona Apple is some damn fine work, but Dummy rules the world of sexy in my book. I spent some time looking at how the album was made and it's a damn brilliant production technique. They recorded themselves on the shittiest analog equipment they could find and then sampled it digitally to produce the album. *snatch* If musicians and producers didn't steal from each other I imagine a lot of great ideas would go to waste. Anyway.
Ian and I have been trying to get a music project together for a few years now and we're finally in the right place to start this thing rolling. We've gotten down a bit of material and how the finished product will sound has started to coalesce in my mind. A coworker who's never heard anything like it asked me to describe what we're looking for. It took me about two weeks to figure it out. Imagine Al Green produced by the RZA and Trent Reznor with A Silver Mt. Zion providing the textures. I don't believe in shooting low. I want to make a damn fine album this time.
I guess it all really started a few years back. I was at a party playing guitar (yes, I am on occasion that guy) and I realized that I in fact do not rock. There are many things the Eriq is capable of. I can groove, I can swing I can even on occasion get the fuck down, but no rocking. It took me many years and a lot of bands and attempts at bands to come to this realization. I got home and I started looking at my most played iTunes list and came up with Emmylou Harris, Mazzy Star and Miles Davis. Not a surprise now but quite shocking at the time. Well you know I grew up in the era of grunge and metal and it took me a long time to find my way out of the suburban radio rock BS that surrounds our culture like a vulture even now. Besides I think it takes a lot to step outside what you know and what's acceptable to your society and at 17 years old, I just didn't have the balls to do it. Ahh the teenage years, we'll leave those alone for now and come back when we have several days to waste. Nevertheless, suburban white kids have a choice of several prepackaged identities to choose from and that's the one I got. Neato. On with the rebellion and the rocking we go. It never quite took and I think at this point in my life I'm ready to let it go. Don't get me wrong if someone is feeling the rock, there's no BS about it (J-Diggy, here's looking at you kid) but when you wear it like a mask there's a serious problem.

So now I'm curling up in a warm sexy Aphex Twin album and I'm not coming out for a while. While I'm here I'm going to craft the sexiest things I know how and see what happens. Maybe one day the Gods of Rock will bless me with the urge to shred riffs and wear black all the time, but for now The Sex shall reign supreme. The Nicotine Persuasion begins.

Prose: The Delicate Dance of Desire

And so I dance.

This dance has steps that resemble nothing else in the world. They are hidden rules and everyone follows them religiously. Like a secret society that everyone else is a member of, whispering the dark secrets of form and ritual in hushed back alleys just outside my earshot. A twist here, two unspoken understandings there all done behind the screen. I've been listening as long as I've been alive and the steps elude me even to this day. Perhaps I lack the subtlety required of its participants. The grace of the common man is beyond my reach despite the dizzying patterns I dance around the hard wood floors and pillars of beer cans.

It is a cruel thing at times, desperate and clinging. The fever pitch of a thousand paper hearts flying through the air smothering the floor and choking the life from anyone caught in the swarm. The band reaching its crescendo and falling face first into the crowd. Everyone is staring around, wondering if this maelstrom can outlast their willpower. The answer is yes, and you won't know your face when it's done.

Then you watch the grace of two seasoned veterans, toying with emotions that rattle like sabers in the hands of a master. Each perfectly poised and perfectly detached from the reality of the steps. Smirking bastards. These are the people who write the rules of engagement for everyone else. It is cool and inhuman, pausing for breath only to suspend your disbelief. I can enjoy the show, watching robots try to fuck if only to give me an uncomfortable laugh. The truth is that the methodical actions of these dressing dolls are as much a mystery to me as the ramblings of the madman whirling in his endless hair. It is perhaps the last mystery we're allowed.

At a certain point the vast majority of people expect that you don't believe monsters are hiding under your bed. I think they go to live in your heart when you banish them from the comfort of dust balls and one left socks. All you're left with is the boring underside of your mattress, a few boxes of random crap and a crumpled up porn magazine. Gone is the myth we carry around as children, the wonder of a spiderweb and the witching hour between this world and the next. We place all of our belief and mystery into smaller buckets, call one Love and the other one God and move on with life. It is all boiled down and bottled up in a dance and we dance it all the time, whether we know it or not. It eats up all of our time and energy and most of the time we're pretty unaware of it.

But I've been watching my feet very closely.
I think they'll betray me soon.