E T H E R E A L I T Y

Review - Lawrence Ball: Method Music (Navona Records)

Review & Live Video – Shearwater: Animal Life (Sub Pop)

Review - Mercies: The Ballet (Self-released)

Review & Song/Video - Orcas: Orcas (Morr Music)

Review & Album Stream Link - Crushed Stars: In the Bright Rain (Simulacra)

Song - Nolan Strong and the Diablos: The Wind

So far, 2012 has been brimming with life… and death. Through the third week in February, I experienced movement where there had been gridlock and/or stagnation. January felt like September (new projects, work, socializing). There was a noticeable rise in positive synchronicity, good humor, and creativity. And when events that initially smelled dire occurred -- as with my computer crashing when I hadn’t backed the hard drive up in six weeks -- the destruction morphed into much-needed renewal. Three days later, I had a like-new computer, with approximately 90% of lost files and data recovered.

I started this installment in mid-February. Things around me (and in the lives of friends and acquaintances) seemed so amazing, I did some research into the Harmonic Convergence of 1987; wondering if there might be a correlation between it and ancient Mayan predictions re: 2012, planetary alignments, and the like. As it turns out, I’ll be skipping most of that. On February 21, a close friend jumped off the Laurel Street bridge, here in San Diego. I don’t think I need to say anything else about the experience of going through the suicide of a loved one. 

One night in February, I started noticing that I could see planets near the moon with the naked eye. Um… wow. As seen from this corner of the world, 2012’s been packed with enough material for several years. The idea for this installment that presented to me two months ago still works, thanks to the artists I’ll be covering. Other than an ambient quality, or an effect that comes close, if they have anything in common, it’s the deep profundity of their respective works. If this is what the dying world sounds like (or the world I choose to focus on; ignoring car alarms, online “chat,” and the yammer of pedestrian and in-store smartphone conversations), it seems pretty  positive. Maybe the Adishakti website, Mayan and Hopi elders (especially Nicaraguan Mayan Grandmother Flordemayo, of the International Council of 13 Indigenous Grandmothers) haven’t just been rattling the chains of anyone who’ll listen when they’ve said that occurrences that feel threatening may actually be doorways into a new level of consciousness.

No, I haven’t smoked weed in over a decade, although 15-or-so years of pretty frequently not-inhaling may have some bearing on my openness to altered states of consciousness. On the other hand, the latter activity was originally prompted, at least in part, by interest in the thoughts of Carlos Castaneda, Alan Watts, and the like. So, as Sarah Palin is what she is, and Stevie Wonder (who may be God, I think) is what he is, I just am what I am, which is, at this moment, starting to go in a circle (yes, I was one of those kids who’d be out on the lawn, twirling until they fell on the grass). Ahem:



Method Music is a collaboration by Pete Townshend and “composer, improvisor, and audio-visual creator” Lawrence Ball. This is a (slightly edited) explanation from The Who’s website: “…The ideas behind Method Music arose from, and founded, Pete Townshend’s Lifehouse Project. Townshend also conceptualized and co-produced this album. They present a theoretical system of musical portraiture in which a listener’s personal data is translated into a unique composition. Utilizing the conceptual underpinning first implemented in ‘Baba O’Riley’ (a track initially part of the original Lifehouse project, and one mirrored on the opening cut of Method Music) along with Ball’s computerized compositional system; ‘Harmonic Maths,’ Townshend, with Ball and programmer Dave Snowdon, created a site called The Lifehouse Method that turned this theory into reality. While active, during 2007-2008, the site offered users the ability to instantaneously create a customized piece of music. The album Method Music evolved from the tests conducted by Ball and Townshend, which proved the viability of The Lifehouse Method system. Disc One, ‘Imaginary Sitters,' features a set of portraits showcasing the potential diversity of the Method. Disc Two, 'Imaginary Galaxies', expands the forms into larger structures with greater permutations, variables, and variety.”

I prefer Method Music’s “Imaginary Galaxies,” to its “Imaginary Sitters.”  “Imaginary Galaxies” feels like a psychic leap up a mountain. All four of my cats (one of whom is very picky) stretch peacefully; ears attenuated toward the speakers, when it’s on. The pieces comprising "Imaginary Galaxies" merge serenity with intensity; a sort of progression from some of the most transcendent interludes on Terry Riley’s Rainbow in Curved Air. “Imaginary Sitters” feels and sounds more like Steve Reich - while intriguing, with some nice moments, I find it more repetitively mechanical.

The other musicians in this installment have also, without necessarily attaining advanced degrees, credibility in/from academia, or any particular “science” to their methods (at least not that they’re telling us) come up with expressions that feel at “a higher level.” One example is Shearwater, whose latest release, Animal Life, is fueled by an almost unbearable intensity.

Here’s an edited excerpt from my Blurt Online review: “Animal Life... is stunning.  How so? The round, almost bell-like guitar tones on “Breaking the Yearlings” sound like something Robert Fripp might do. The track’s metallic percussion, nearly falsetto vocals, and breath-by-breath pacing combine the tone and execution of late’70s prog. rock (Bowie with Eno; Peter Gabriel circa his first solo album) with a more contemporary savvy and despair. That description may not succeed at explicating the intuitive spark with which “Dread Sovereign” follows “Breaking the Yearlings.” It’s an extraordinarily arresting transition. Here's "Breaking the Yearlings."

Mercies’ debut, Three Thousand Days, ended up on all of my 2011 best-of-the-year lists. I was so entranced by its mix of creativity, expression, and songwriting that I’ve been afraid of expecting too much from the new EP, which emerged just seven months after the debut.

Initially, The Ballet felt disappointing. Commissioned by the Charlottesville Ballet, the first two of the EP’s four tracks are instrumental. The other three have vocals. One of these, “In Your Mind,” isn’t as affecting as the debut’s “In My Mind” (if the former’s a reworking of the latter, I’d rather hear something else – the latter is transportive as it is).  Nor does the less dynamic version (than the one on TTD) of “Clouds” seem like something that needed to be released. But “Take You Away” has the uncanny juju that permeates TTD.  Had The Ballet preceded TTD, I might have been more impressed with it. But its atmospheric instrumentals  seem to be growing on me. The crux of the matter: Mercies hasn't abated its determined climb to the moon. I’m glad.

Breathtaking moments also manifest in the music of Orcas. Where some of Mercies’ power and potential comes from its chaos-defying mix of earthy, airy, and textural elements with emotion, Orcas merges a celestial reach with a sort of stoic gravity. The approach is akin to hearing someone hanging from the edge of a cliff with one hand. In this case,celebral and emotional winds hold Rafael Anton Irisarri and Benoît Pioulard aloft, exploring rather than being daunted by their precarious position. From the quirky, relatively lo-fi beginning of “Pallor Cedes” through the transcendent clouds of “High Fences,” Orcas ascend so consistently that I attain an Alpha state without ever having to cross my legs on a zabuton.

Orcas unveil every nuance of Broadcast's “Until Then,” which glows near the album’s heart, or center. As with everything on this debut, the sound and approach are gorgeously minimal. As nearly always, my response to minimalism is predictable:  Love.

Within the two-or-so years that I’ve known about Todd Gautreau of Crushed Stars (who’s also made waves with Tear Ceremony and Sonogram) my attitude toward his work has undergone a rapid, considerable shift. I don’t have a lot of patience for what might be called Grade-B (or lower) electronica, along with a fair amount of what gets called dream or chamber pop. Happily, like many reviewers, I’m obsessed with sound, and open to hearing all sorts of things. It’s like being a happy idiot who forgets that banging his or her head against the wall made him or her see painful (not lovely) stars. What if, this time, they’re awesome? Some of my happiest music memories involve grabbing records from cut-out bins (remember those?) to crack the shrink at home; entering worlds I’d never have known without taking a chance. Or hearing something on the radio that made me run for a pen and paper.

That’s a long way of leading into the fact that now I’m psyched whenever Gautreau pushes out a new audio baby. The latest Crushed Stars release (with help from Jeff Ryan/St. Vincent, War on Drugs; Howard Draper/Okkervil River, Shearwater;  and Buffi Jacobs/The Polyphonic Spree) is a modest stunner. When I was processing my friend’s suicide, In the Bright Rain delivered rays of light through the gloom that threatened.


(From my Blurt Online review): Much of Gautreau's output could be a soundtrack for Rene Magritte's illustrations of subconscious meanderings and emotions. Aspects of his work enlarge upon the minimalist explorations of Erik Satie, who called himself a phonometrician, or ‘someone who measures sound.’ In the future, as occurs for stretches of Sonogram’s Cubists, Gautreau may just whisper a few words in our ears before helping us onto an audio platform that hovers indefinitely in transcendence. For now, sublimity and transcendence threaten to subsume the balance of ITBR. While it can feel bathetic, the album's intermittent banality (relative to itself, not other music) may be one of the keys to its majesty. There's tension in Gautreau's variance of full, partial, and medium immersion.

Could anyone who doesn’t live on a pristine mountaintop handle an entire album of full immersion? The seven minutes of "Take Flight" are so quietly beautiful that climbing back down to what's commonly called reality can feel achingly disruptive. 

You can hear In the Bright Rain at the following link:  http://www.myoldkentuckyblog.com/?p=27150&fb_source=message


(Your) comments make my world go ‘round (scroll down to comment). Thanks so much for reading.

Navona Records/Method Music: http://www.navonarecords.com/methodmusic/

Sub Pop/Shearwater:  http://www.subpop.com/artists/shearwater

Mercies: www.merciesmusic.com

Morr Music/Orcas:  http://www.morrmusic.com/artist/Orcas

Simulacra/Crushed Stars: http://www.simulacrarecords.com/crushed.html

This Column is dedicated to Jason Dean Runnion. The last song (and one that only you may stick around to hear, at least in this setting) is the one that brought me to tears, the day after I heard the news - to me, it, too, is as ethereal as it is emotional and corporeal. The tears came in attendance to loss. But they also came when I realized I'd have shared the song with you, had you been around.

Off the Beaten Track: Music Reviews by Mary Leary - Ethereality

Copyright by Mary Leary, 2012. 

A PASSEL OF GREAT SOUNDS I’D BARELY HEARD... NOW & THEN

The Raincoats:  Odyshape (We Three Records)

Human Switchboard:  Who’s Landing in My Hangar? Anthology 1977-1984 (Bar None)

The Do:  Both Ways Open Jaws (Six Degrees)

Various Artists:  My Top 2011 Picks

No, I’d never heard much of the Raincoats or Human Switchboard. When I did, I didn’t retain the experiences, or explore. “How can this be?” I hear you asking - at least those of you who know I was involved with the new wave/seminal alt. scene (djing, fanzine publishing, record store lackeying, near-constant clubbing). Well, the answer isn’t that interesting. But as those of you who were around back in that day know, there was a LOT going on; much of it local, and you can’t be everywhere, hearing everything, all the time. More to the point, and more personally, however, the only explanations I can muster are, re: the Raincoats: (1) For live music, I really, really liked rock ‘n’ roll. Home, or at Nelson’s, I was absorbing Bossa Nova, Carl Orff, Steve Reich, and other things that seemed to go with being involved with a mixed-media-explorative writer, along with starting to take my own creative writing more seriously. Also, we were seeing Ethiopian pop bands (great fun). And whenever I heard the Raincoats, I think I confused them with the Slits, who, when I heard them, I liked, but whose most frequently-played song (the “Heard it Through the Grapevine” cover) was a bit too arch-arty for me. Also, some of the Slits were, at different times, in the Raincoats. Which, if you were drunk a lot when they were being discussed, was… confusing.

Odyshape seems to have a rep for being somewhat less punchy and accessible than the Raincoats’ first album. Turns out the album’s relatively interior, poetical inclination is a great place for me to re-start. It’s an odd, often beautiful, sometimes quite brilliant road. While the Raincoats are often cited for their influence on riot grrrls and other female artists, they were groundbreaking on any terms. For one thing, I can’t imagine We Might Be Giants without the Raincoats, and I doubt Sonic Youth (Kim Gordon doled generous kudos to the liner notes for the ’93 Rough Trade reissue of this album), would have started out so sure-footed/rooted in an exploratory attitude, without them. I believe the Washington, D.C. group, Tiny Desk Unit, was at least partly Raincoats-inspired.

Odyshape is ferociously intuitive and feminine; blending just the right dose of yang punch into volumes of yin. I know that not everyone shares my love for Laura Nyro’s poetical, more introspective journeys (as on Christmas and the Beads of Sweat or Eli and the 13th Confession) or even the McGarrigle Sisters’ buoyant, sometimes high-pitched folk, let alone the backwater trip into an arcane wilderness taken by Daisy Debolt with Allan Fraser. I’m pretty sure the bits of Raincoats that dribbled through my drunken haze influenced my own subsequent performing; my sense of how far art can go. I mention these not just to throw out a few reference points but to share how challenging it can be to climb into the Raincoats – probably not for everyone. For those who live for such challenges, this reissue is a gift.

At the top of the pile are “Baby Song,” the title song and “Only Loved at Night.” But it’s kind of like having sex; there could be a lifetime of memories around licking the right finger, but imagine what would happen if you went from there? This is not the kind of album from which to cherry-pick downloads. The Raincoats are either going to make you want to bash the wall in or do a cockeyed happy-dance.

This stuff blows the walls of my brain and psyche open.

Human Switchboard just makes me feel open, with periodic laughs and winces. Bar/None’s reissue of the long-elusive Who’s Landing in My Hangar, with 19 additional tracks via download, is a great reason for getting up in the morning. And since it wouldn’t be exciting to go into any more details re: my relative ignorance of HS, I won’t. But it’s weird how nostalgic this stuff, which I barely recall hearing at the time, makes me feel. It reminds me of my first-ever experience of the Velvet Underground (Loaded), of experiencing Controls (the band Keith Campbell and Roddy Frantz had before they moved on to other projects) in Campbell’s basement in, I think, ’76. It reminds me of being taken to CBGB in 1974 to see Debbie Harry and Ivan Kral with the Stilettos. There were about 15 other people there. A dog (probably Hilly Kristal’s) took a dump under the pool table in the other room and no one bothered to clean it up. True story.

HS brings back all the joyful abandon and youthful (for those of us who were, at the time, quite young) angst of the new wave. It’s nice to see that Holden Caulfield’s finally found some kindred spirits, who form a band with him. He’s learned he wasn’t alone, sitting in that motel room, watching a couple squirt water out of their mouths at each other; feeling an odd loneliness; longing for shared spontaneity.

Perhaps the most invigorating thing about HS is the way Bob Pfeifer and Myrna Marcarian, with Dave Schramm, pushed against the boundaries of their technical limitations. It seems far from incidental that  David Thomas (Pere Ubu) mixed their first EP (The Modern Dance is one of my all-time favorites per its precarious balance between form and chaos). At its best, HS provided a harbinger for the more mature, less risky marriages of form and chaos that would come with Thinking Fellers Union Local 282 and Sonic Youth, along with the Violent Femmes’ prickly outbursts. It funneled Patti Smith’s passion, Jonathan Richman’s creativity, Richard Hell’s bloodletting, and Lou Reed’s coolness into songs that feel naively confessional, and that are astoundingly (given the band’s limitations) versatile.

Want an intuitive guidebook to forming a band? Want to feel alive again? Or, as has been my case for the last year or so, want to remember how invigorating, lively, and essential the new wave really was? Human Switchboard could be your go-to.

And that’s not all.

My third year back into music journalism has been amazing. I’ve probably only experienced ½-1/3 of the 2011 releases that deserve coverage. Even within that percentage, I’ve been moved by the ingenuity and innovation musicians are using to mine significant gold from been there/done that boxes of Pop and Rock.

We seem to have arrived at a place where the influences that were being digested, regurgitated, and, sometimes, fooled with for the first several year of YouTube and other providers (better to smirk and jump over something than be intimidated by it) are being sincerely, effectively integrated into musicians’ templates.

One of the most prominent exemplars of this sincere, effective integration is The Do. From what I can see, Finnish singer/composer Olivia Merilahti is a genius. Whether realization of her ideas would be so stunning without the collaboration of multi-multi-instrumentalist and composer Dan Levy is immaterial. They met around composing music for the film L’Empire des Loups. Together, they’ve crafted a sophomore full-length as innovative as Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan, and that affects me as I was by my introductions to the Beatles’ Rubber Soul and Genesis’ Selling England by the Pound.

I was initially pulled into Both Ways Open Jaws by Trentemoller’s remix of the duo’s “Too Insistent.” Several days into the sleeping, eating, working, and socializing that got between me and this album, “Too Insistent” was eclipsed by the full album experience. There are moments that bring up the Raincoats, Bjork, and early Bowie.  Part of Merilahti’s magic derives from her facile transmission of her hyper-sensitive insights. From The Do’s own mouth(s), we have this: (Olivia):  "I'm constantly after the ideal song, I believe in a song's healing powers. (Dan): "We're looking for the diversity and richness of sound, surprises in the details, orchestral colours. It certainly comes from our culture of classical music, our love of contemporary music, and of musicians like Charlie Mingus - the types of music that follow no map."

Whatever it takes. These sounds nestle into the blood.

Here are some of my other favorite 2011 releases, with links to anything I may have written about them:

Amor de Dias: Street of the Love of Days (Merge) – www.daggerzine.com

Aurelio – Laru Beya (Sub Pop) – http://www.sdentertainer.com/music/reviews/beaten-track-mary-leary-music-reviews-musings-2/

The Beets – Let the Poison Out (Hardly Art) –  www.daggerzine.com

The Bloody Hollies: Yours Until the Bitter End (Alive Records)

Pieta Brown: Mercury (Red House)

Kathryn Calder – Bright and Vivid (File Under Music) – www.daggerzine.com

The Clutters: Breaking Bones (Chicken Shack) – www.daggerzine.com

Dennis Crommett: Into the Buffalo Surround (Signature Sounds) – www.daggerzine.com

Fleet Foxes: Helplessness Blues (Sub Pop) – www.daggerzine.com

Floating Action – Desert Etiquette (Park the Van) – http://blurt-online.com/features/view/973/

Gardens (Alive Records) – http://www.myoldkentuckyblog.com/?p=20579

Sam Humans: Live Free/The Heligoats: Let Loose (Greyday Records) – http://www.sdentertainer.com/music/reviews/off-beaten-track-mary-leary-music-reviews-musings-3/

Cass McCombs: Humor Risk (Domino) – www.daggerzine.com

Mercies – Three Thousand Days (Self-released) – http://www.myoldkentuckyblog.com/?p=23257

Nicey Nice World (Titicacaman Records) - http://www.sdentertainer.com/arts/reviews-arts/beaten-track-mary-leary-music-reviews-musings-3/

Jack Oblivian: Rat City (Fat Possum) – http://www.myoldkentuckyblog.com/?p=23536

Paleo – Fruit of the Spirit (Partisan Records) – http://www.myoldkentuckyblog.com/?p=21022

Radiation City: The Hands that Take You (Tender Loving Empire) – http://www.myoldkentuckyblog.com/?p=23786

Redbird: Live at the Café Carpe (Signature Sounds) – http://blurt-online.com/reviews/view/2860/

Robbers on High Street: Hey There, Golden Hair (Rocco Grecco) – www.daggerzine.com

Los Saicos (Reissue/Demolicion!) (Munster) – http://www.myoldkentuckyblog.com/?p=20105

Sleepy Vikings: They Will Find You Here (New Granada) – www.daggerzine.com

Sonny and the Sunsets: Hit After Hit (Fat Possum)

St. Even: Spirit Animal (Dustbin Records) – http://blurt-online.com/reviews/view/3309/

T-Model Ford and Gravelroad: Taledragger (Alive Records) – http://blurt-online.com/reviews/view/2749/

Trentemoller: Reworked/Remixed (In My Room)

The Velvet Monkeys: Reissue/Everything is Right (Instant Mayhem/Thick Syrup)

Gary Wilson: Feel The Beat (Tip Records)

Light 'n' blessings to you in the new year,

Mary

50 WAYS TO KILL ME: Gnarly Death Wish (Scene Destroyer)
VARIOUS ARTISTS: The Ultimate Rockin' Halloween Party - American Horror Songs 1930s-1950s (Viper Records)                                                                                                   
THE CRAMPS: Live at Napa State Mental Hospital (MVD Visual)
VARIOUS ARTISTS: EarGoggles (Bull Terrior Productions)
MOI: Pretty Scary Jack O'Lanterns (Bread & Lightning)

It's that time again...October is one of my favorite times of year: tons of fun, and truly spooky, as it heralds the dawning of the holiday season. But I'm going to ignore the boxes of turkey candles and Christmas decorations stacked above the Halloween stuff in my local Walgreens and take a note from Ram Dass, opting to "be here now." I'd like to enjoy the crisp autumn air (such as it may be in San Diego)and some rock 'n' roll fun, along with reviewing an item or two that may be questionably "fun." Just becuz, just for scuzz...

Uh-oh... it's that time in the afternoon where I require either a double espresso or a nap. But, what's this? I was recently stoked to discover that we now have at least audio of Edith Massey as part of her booze-soaked strut to, as she liked to say, "Hollywood" stardom. I once shared a bottle with Edith outside The Atlantis Club in Washington, D.C. It was very classy: as I remember, we were sort of crouched against the building in a cloud of grit and fog. "The Egg Lady" was as good a drinking companion as any. As far as punks getting off the grass, I don't know if Edith's quest was that successful...



Long Islander and percussionist/Jay Decay is one (kinda speed metal) punk who may know a tidbit or two about grass. As 50 Ways to Kill Me, he persists in churning out the loudest sounds he can by himself (more or less, there are a couple of guest vocalists and lead guitarists) on -- you might want to find a seat for this -- 50 songs detailing methods for self-offification. Highlights of Gnarly Death Wish include the hip-hoppy "Hit My Head with a Hammer," "Dynamite for Birthday Candles," "Headbang Till Head Snaps," and   "Detonation Device Up My Butt." People who know more about Jay, and these references, say he reminds them of Adrenalin OD and early Guttermouth. You can listen for yourself on Jay's Myspace (link at the end of this masterpiece) or, if you can name the rocker who died of an overdose after threatening suicide for years, I'll just send you my copy (trick!).
 
If the thought of Gnarly Death Wish hasn't depressed you beyond festivity, I'm glad you stuck around, 'cause there’s good news; to wit: Those Liverpudlian Elves at Viper Records have crafted a 20-track compilation, The Ultimate Rockin' Halloween Party: American Horror Songs 1930s-1950s, which is peppered with treats(about 1/3 of which are also on Monster Rock 'n' Roll). Even the most rabid downloader and mixer is unlikely to amass a collage that unearths "Igor's Parties" by Tony's Monstrosities (who would even think to look for that?) and rarities like Buster Doss and His Arkansas Playboys loping through the Western swing of "Graveyard Boogie " (1948), The Five Jones Boys' "Mr. Ghost Goes To Town" (1937), The Deep River Boys' "Swingin' at the Seance" (1940), and a doo-woppy rocker from 1957, "Screamin' Ball (at Dracula Hall)" by The Duponts (1958). I don't have time for the research that could pinpoint the rarity of that last one, but it cooks - with a couple of candy-corn-flavored shivers:



Plenty of these make me laugh, shake my hips, and/or cry, "Yowsa," like the track that turned into one of my Cramps favorites,  "Rock N Bones" (by a passel of hillbillies named Elroy Dietzel and the Rhythm Bandits, 1957 - Ronnie Dawson's version also kicks). Kip Tyler reveals where contemporary scarecrows like Dax Riggs and Dan Sartain copped some of their mojo with the hot-blooded "She's My Witch." Here's a crackin' version from the resurrected Dazzlers:



Down-n-dirty R&B spices Archie King's "He's a Vampire," which has to be one of the funniest ("This guy's on a rampage now" and something that sounds like, "And, oh, he got my mother-in-law," are interspersed with "scary" laughter - sounds like King's making some of it up as he goes along...).


 I'm still not over the passing of Lux Interior in '09 -  I'm still not over the deaths of Nick Cave and Bryan Gregory! In any case, before we get to two last treats, I'm carrying on the tradition of Cramps Halloween appearances with one of my favorites:



Footage of an early Cramps drop into Napa State Mental Hospital is so hair-raising, it must be seen to be believed. I've had it on VHS for lo these many years but a few years ago it resurfaced on DVD. I'll just say it's not for anyone with a need for strict boundaries... at all. And it's a testament to the Cramps' love of performing, as well as its acceptance of mayhem.

My review of EarGoggles is going to be up soon on Daggerzine (address at bottom of this novel). It's one heckuva treat: Clayton Holmes, a former film student in Vancouver, periodically compiles these DVDs packed with performances from soon-to-be-defunct-but-apparently-morphing-into-The-Hellhole dive The Cobalt, which is a little slice of heaven for fans of punk, post-punk, garage, and speed/death metal. It does a rocker's heart good to see that pit-diving and other shenanigans are customary in Vancouver - it's enough to make you think all red-blooded rawkers should just move there. Basically Holmes has done what we fanziners from b.i.t.d. could only dream about: He makes a 'zine of  live footage, digitalized graphic jokes and comments, film shorts, creative ads for cool businesses, and more. And EarGoggles is FREE. Happy Halloween!

A couple of years ago I revised a poetry chapbook, Pretty Scary Jack O'Lanterns. I've been too preoccupied with things like this column to do much shilling around it. If you go to the Bread and Lightning site and click on "The Breadbox" (link's below) you can procure one - sorry I can't afford to give 'em away, but if your costume's really cool I'll find something fun - a music promo or other piece of printed media; some cool postcards -- to throw in your bottomless treat bag. Here's a sample:


Drama Queen

By the eighth day
of the Santa Ana
this desert
is burning itself out faster
than River Phoenix.

My oldest lover
wears a new
face, plays hide
and seek behind gray clouds
as I stumble
from fluorescence into
 cool blackness,
a crow's wing

******
I feel thunder, am
startled; scramble out of
the bathtub. The cats fly
in without any coaxing.
Air crackles; a giant leaf
as a red tin skeleton
clangs against
the door laughing.

***********
Jay Decay: www.50wtkm.newamerika.de/
Viper Records: www.theviperlabel.co.uk/
Cramps at Napa State: www.mvdb2b.com/
Eargoggles: www.eargogglesdvd.com/
Pretty Scary Jack O' Lanterns: www.breadandlightning.net/ (click on "Breadbox")
Daggerzine: www.daggerzine.com/