damn, it’s been long since i posted. i think i was on some different cloud for the philly show, the new york show and the week in between. after the korova milk bar party, my appetite having been whetted for a little of the old ultraviolence, i took a quick nap in my car and then dieseled back down to parts pennsylvanian. but i think that all that ecstatic peacing out together caught up with me a little bit and several days of miserable illness ensued. on Monday i was at the trocadero/balcony bar for movie night. i spoke to one of the managers there (name eludes me) and she expressed great disappointment that they did not play but was not bitter. she didn’t say anything about any of the other band members being at the hospital, or otherwise unavailable. i traded in my ticket stubs for the refund. god, that was sad. at least i was able to get my money back. i know a lot of other people weren’t as lucky. jessica g., i’m glad your shirt fits. after all my whining about belle and sebastian providing inadequate coverage to their healthy adorers, my XL is almost too big. at least this way i can wear it over a sweater and whatnot, so i can show my colors even in driving sleet . . . nick drake has spent a lot of time in my cd player lately. i’ve had “pink moon” for a couple of years (had to have it after i heard sebadoh’s cover of the title track). it’s very bleak and makes me feel like i’m being drawn into a tiny little box, but it really really really grew on me. nick had booked some studio time with a sound engineer and recorded a few songs with his acoustic guitar over the course of two days. the sound engineer was under the impression that these were to be rough demos, but a few days later nick walked, unannounced, into the record company’s office, plunked down the tapes on some receptionist’s desk, and walked back out. that’s “pink moon.” nick never recorded another minute of music and later commented to a friend that he felt he had no songs left to record. when i finally borrowed a friend’s box set and heard the first two albums, i was totally blown away. compared to the rock garden of “pink moon” they are like flowers in full bloom. “bryter later” is a gem. very polished, it is also very balanced. it starts out with a short instrumental and then launches into “hazy jane II” which reminds me of the way every belle and sebastian album starts with stuart singing very softly by himself and then hits its melodic stride very quickly. also, “if you’re feeling sinister” owes a LOT to “hazy jane II,” specifically the quick, tight phrasing in the verses while moving through an entire octave with the instrumentation is marching in place. listen to it. i think it’s uncanny. so anyway, “pink moon” is the definitive nick drake album for you if you prefer slow, dirgelike joy division over new order circa “age of consent.” if you think about it, it makes a lot of sense that nobody paid a lot of attention to nick in his day. in 1969/70 everybody’s eyes and ears where focused sharply on the other side of the pond, and compared to jimi hendrix and janis joplin, sweet nick, with his string sections and delicate phrasings, must have seemed terribly naive and old-fashioned. when i was flying to canada and the little muffled gong sounded and i was told i could now operate “approved electronic devices” (are belle and sebastian approved by USAir?) i listened to “if you’re feeling sinister” and it sounded totally different. in an airplane, there is a tremendous amount of noise, but almost all of it is concentrated in a relatively narrow band of the frequency spectrum. (i am told that flight crews eventually lose their hearing in that spectrum) this noise filters out certain aspects of the music so that on “get me away from here, i’m dying” all i could hear was the bottom end of the guitar, the top end of stuart’s voice, a little bit of percussion and a what sounded like fifty fingers constantly sliding along fret boards. it’s great hearing music you love and listen to obsessively for the first time all over again. the all time greatest album for combining with noise is, obviously, mbv’s “loveless.” all in all i’d have to say that creation’s money was put to good use because mad kevin sure crammed an awful lot of sound in there. i spent a summer in alaska, doing commercial fishery and marine maintenance, and i always made a point of blasting “loveless” on the portable stereo whenever i was working with a new power tool or noise environment. whether combined with a power sander, air drill, industrial vacuum, circulation pumps, the sea driving against the hull of the ship, the churning of different engine rooms, the music always sounded fresh and different and enhanced somehow. damn, i’m still kicking myself for not seeing them live, but, y’know, i would have had to take the train to frankfurt . . . oh, to whoever said they were going to burn their mbv cd’s: don’t do that. send them to me and i’ll make sure they find a good home. can anyone recommend a good turntable to me? where in the u.s. east coast do i have to go to find a nice record player? does anybody have a decent used one they want to sell me? okloveyoubyebye, -goon k.- ______________________________________________________ +----------------------------------------------------------------------+ +---+ Brought to you by the Sinister mailing list +---+ To send to the list please mail "sinister@majordomo.net". 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