Unfinished, unfulfilled,

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.....It's about time for some 'The Devil And Daniel Johnston' docu viewing (thanx Mark!)

The country rambler

Once seen on graffiti, ‘Listening to the blues turns being in pain into a beautiful feeling’, spray of right on it is.

Since I started the blog I've been putting up lots of blues, one might notice. I reckon it says enough about my emotional posture at this moment in time, the year 2006 notwithstanding the things that have happened on a level of hurt and shame all year around. Such is life, would a friend always say. I do promise to include more world music, roots and experimental stuff in the near future when clouds clear up in a hopefull hurry.

Talk talk talk.... Townes van Zandt in the blogged ode grinder. I've never been fond of white country music like the modern trash pulp it is today since the bad musicians outnumber the special ones like Gillian Welch and such. I guess I'm more of the pre 60's wave of Guthrie, Cash, (Hank) Williams and mostly the old timey stuff of the pre 40's. So then, what's up with Townes? To sum it up in a bizarre stretch; Dutch ancestry and raised in a Texas hotbed through oil, being pushed for governorship by his wealthy family, but starting a career in songwriting instead, brilliant lyrics during manic depressions and shock therapies, living as a hermit in a trashy cabin yet being member of the high-intelligence MENSA organisation. You wha'? It's one opposite revelation after the other, the context telling the story of his life in turnaround paths.
In a time that blues became smudgy electric and dirty, Townes' kept things acoustic and followed old blues paths merged with country styles. He noticably was influenced by many black blues musicians such as Lightnin' Hopkins who also hailed from Texas and imbedded their style his own way. One could even say that Townes has inspired an early alt-country movement since he was more focussed on fingerpicking than the simple playing styles of those days. His music has inspired the likes of Sonic Youth, Beck, The White Stripes, Tindersticks and even Norah Jones to name a few. I'm still trying to track down 'Heartworn Highways' and 'Be Here To Love Me', both being lauded movies about his life and music; the genius, the alcohol, the demise. Taking a drive on the internet highway needed.

While his intense lyrics contained a lot of smart dry humour, there is also a lot of mention of alcohol abuse by other people, while he himself was a notorious alcoholic all his life as his only grip on reality. He died of a heart attack in 1997 from a bad bloodclot after a hip surgery. This was on the same day as the death of his idol Hank Williams, weirdly enough.

Here some songs taken from the infamous Live At The Quarter House session performed in Houston, 1977. These 3 are all blues covers from artists before the 60's

Townes van Zandt - If I Needed You (Doc Watson cover)
Townes van Zandt - Nine Pound Hammer (Merle Travis cover)
Townes van Zandt - Cocaine Blues (from the original by Luke Jordan, no Clapton ruining it here)

This one is another little gem of that session, the way he makes fun of fraternity houses and the upper class jock-style social life is priceless:
Townes van Zandt - Fraternity Blues

One for trawler John

Typical Friday night at the smoky brown café; the table layered with many backgammon games, blonde beers and soul searching talks. How humans long for communication with the inner or outer self, while thoughts fast forward and rewind themselves at the same time. This is philosophy happy hour in the booze palooza, every round of wisdom is one’s shared kingdom of the mind. A lone person had difficulties finding a table to join and a group to cling onto, for he was lavishly ignored by the dignified bobo’s, ah bless such everexisting cuntism pssssh. Open spot at our table; no rules, no judgements, just mindspeak and the visitor accepted the offer. John introduced himself as a 61 year old homeless person and living with the salvation army since the early 90’s. There lay no shame in the details of his storytelling, his life had followed certain paths down to his own near destruction and his calm acceptance of this was comforting to listen to. Painful tales went on about friends who died of overdoses and AIDS, even those who were not in his same junkie-realm. The burned skidmarks on his face and the disfigured nature of his flesh revealed his heroin addiction and the multiple times that it caught fire. The topic moved onto a movie in Dutch cinema’s about the life of Herman Brood, a dutch drugged rockstar who perhaps could be vaguely compared to Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol into one body minus the intellect. John was muttering about the movie, it not portraying Herman’s life as the non-fairytale junkie lifestyle it was. John said he knew Herman personally quite well back in the 80’s when they both were each other’s junkie buddies and went on car radio hunt together night after night to feed the monkey and boy was the monkey hungry, always. He did however express that they never used violence in their theft thrifts, with no hesitation is his voice audible. He got off the heroin by himself when he was in a hospital 15 years ago and he has been clean ever since ''It's all between the ears boys", he proudly proclaimed, with a minor contempt for junkies who could not kick off themselves. We had to leave John in the sullen agreement that we would meet another same time, same place in a week. Continued?

Songs for John, weeping oldie beauties...........

Frank Hutchison - Worried Blues
Fa So La Singers - I'll Stay On The Right Road Now
McGee Brothers - The Tramp

Engerland, or should we say Angerland

some nighty night out, said the owl.

Don't we just love the crass fat bellied men that England exports whenever there's a football game or any sporting event? Last night, the scenario was Holland vs England here in Amsterdam, in the form of a friendly footie game which was a pure waste of everyone's time. So ofcourse droves of semi-hooligans and other supposely nice folks flooded the centre. After a serious pub session last night, which basicly was all about playing endless games of backgammon in a silly stupor and chugging many Bruges Blondes all night long , me and buddy Yann ended up walking through the red light district with unclear heads. Imagine yourself amidst an english flock of sickly boozed and coked-up cattle, who are looking for a dame to pound 'n punch upon. It was hubba hubba in loose monekyland, their rotten bananas stiff from filthy stenches. How in a perfect equal world it would be desired for the dames to retake their honour Sin City stylee. Kick it up. Especially when the loose beefmonkeys seem to think they have the right of laying abuse and mockery onto the windowed ladies. Not a pretty sight thus we quickly needed to get out of this evocative negative spiral leading downward. It got weirder when sitting crouched in front of a hateful burger king joint, listening to tunes on the earphones and suddenly getting change thrown into your lap you as people presumed you needed it. Why thank you. Muscles aching, legs wobbly, vision blurry and the mind way too unstable since thr 7:30 wake-up call....I'm in my self created inferno, I must really thank myself this time.

To add bandages to the misery, some salvaging gospel blues from the 1950's......

Reverend Gary Davis - If The Lord Be For You (woah that female voice! the cocorosie gals sure ripped it off) ;)
Limmy's page full of fart art for which you need to put your streetwise Scottish hat on. It's dried humour and he does it well, I like the pissy video's best.
Requiem!!! Requiem!!! :)

Zizou post-rocked at your disposal, shall we?

Aaaaaaaaaaah noooooooooo Grizzly Bear cancelled their European tour thus also the Utrecht show for this saturday 'cos all their equipment got stolen in Belgium off all places (in Brussels ofcourse)!!. Yeah, Belgolandia being an indie country and all apparently doesn't matter when it comes to nicking vintage instruments, so it goes. Hmmm, the black markets in the Brussel suburbs might be the spot where these will turn up. Covered in rain, scratches and other sacrileged treatments endured I duly suppose. Blind Ethiopian singer Jimmy Mohammed Jimmy is replacing the grizzlies which is a different but still smart move as his music/voice is amazing.

songs of GB's latest album 'Yellow House' (spot on Joana, it's great yeah!)
Grizzly Bear - Knife
Grizzly Bear - Plans
Grizzly Bear - Easier

The new Mogwai tribute soundtrack to Zidane (some froggie football player, if you had no clue) has just arrived and quickly slammed into the player because why wait if the food is still warm and smells so tasty? Oh oh oh! Warm melancholic feelings of inner nostalgia engulf the body and soul and we're thrown back to those peak days of the ever classic 'Come On Die Young' and the 'Stanley Kubrick EP', at last! Yeah I am being overly ecstatic here and unable to hide it, the goosebumps pop up constantly and reflections to one's early post-rocky influenced past appear in forms by flashbacks of ex-lovers, special moments and shit occurances in life. Bless these fuzzylectric Celtic saints, who inspired by their footie addiction deliver their best work since a long long time.

Mogwai - Black Spider
Mogwai -7:25

chugga chugga! ~no chuggie~

Pouring from above, weeping here below

musica da dia:

Dirty Three - Last Horse on the Sand
'cos it's one of those mondays; ugly, grey, torrid, cold, wet....should one go on tormenting the spirits? What better way to counter it with -ahem- some pure sullen melancholia........

Dorit Chrysler - Spring Breeze
Dorit Chrysler - Chlorophyll
Dorit Chrysler - My Sweet Chimera
(All taken from that superb No Woman No Cry Vol.2 compilation received as a promo)
Some nice lo-fi electro pop tunes for when the rain keeps pouring down and the winds sweeps the streets. Hmmm who's trying to be Stereolab or Broadcast here? British melancholia transfered to New York.

ps: these files are all in m4a format, as my crappy office PC only allowed iTunes ripping which is solved now. If you desire mp3 format, lemme know.

Last nite, walking past a coffeeshop appropriately called Hugo de Groot (dutch humanist theorist from the late 1500's) and catched the bizarre sight of a free parrot sitting on a branch near the window bathing in blue neon light. Bird must be stoned all day, perhaps that's his best realm of reality under such circumstances. poor one/lucky one* (*select your prefered feeling)

Melancholia wrapped in digits, packed for your pleasure

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