I took this directly from the Swan Lake website, and after seeing Sunset Rubdown and listening extensively to Destroyer and Frog Eyes (I like Frog Eyes a little more than I like Destroyer, and Tim likes Destroyer a little more than he likes Frog Eyes. I also think Sunset Rubdown is better than both of those bands combined (a startling and controversial admission, yes) but the bottom line is this:
SWAN LAKE
Beast Moans CD / LP (JAG098, released: 11/21/06)
Swan Lake is the new band featuring Daniel Bejar (Destroyer, New Pornographers), Spencer Krug (Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown) and Carey Mercer (Frog Eyes).
Beast Moans is their debut record featuring, among other things, beast moans, starling voices, cobra hi hats and arpeggiating pianos. The songs are great weaves, showcasing the famous and very distinctive songwriting styles of Bejar, Krug and Mercer. The sum is definitely greater than the parts, and at distinct points on the record a new "combined" style emerges that throws whole heaps of magic into the air, sounding like nothing else.
When the three "come together" (as if stuck in a sea-storm, in a sinking boat, forced to bail together), we first glean some grudging camaraderie. But, like rugged individualists after the storm, parting at dry crossroads, their work on Beast Moans can still be the sounds of each individual muttering under his breath, and not the chorus of exclamation and supplication to the raging maelstrom that is the hallmark of "collaboration". It's good either way.
Beast Moans was recorded in a summer cottage town in Canada, and in Victoria, in a house where Krug and Mercer are familiar with and Bejar feels comfortable enough. It was "self-produced."
- - - -
Looks like it's coming out in early November.
Also, Dave has a copy of the not-so-soon-to-be-released Of Montreal album, and I don't understand why we are not ransacking his apartment like it's a meth lab. And we're either meth addicts or people who hate meth.
Alright, we're meth addicts and we know there's not going to be meth around until like January, but Dave somehow got his hands on some.
Let me start over.
I just want to burn the fucking CD.
- - - -
PS: Lesley University doesn't get Frog Eyes
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Maybe You're Right
Did you ever have one of these days:
You're too tired to take a shower.
You're too dirty to go out.
You pour all the change out of your change thing, then decide not to count it because there's too much, so you put it all back
You watch Notre Dame beat Purdue, but you don't give a shit.
And all the while, it's that interminable hour of the day. So and so gets out of work at 7:00, and it's quarter to five now.
What the hell am I supposed to do with myself?
You're too tired to take a shower.
You're too dirty to go out.
You pour all the change out of your change thing, then decide not to count it because there's too much, so you put it all back
You watch Notre Dame beat Purdue, but you don't give a shit.
And all the while, it's that interminable hour of the day. So and so gets out of work at 7:00, and it's quarter to five now.
What the hell am I supposed to do with myself?
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Humans As Ornaments
The plan was to lay on my bed in the dark, have a glass of wine, and listen to the new Mars Volta album in its entirety. It would have been a night for the ages. What could go wrong?
I'll tell you what could go wrong: I live in a dorm, my room has the only television, and Nip/Tuck is on. (NB: I don't know if the "/" is part of the title, but if it isn't FX television is missing out on some prime graphic appeal.)
So instead of Cedric Bixler Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (and I have to mention Jon Theodore... and I guess Flea... etc. etc. et. al. sui generis quid pro quo) I got an edgy blend of sex and violence coupled thrown against the composite backdrop of Lesley undergraduate life, which is sort of like a pre-sex all girls sleepover scene in a cheap lesbian porno.
I'm sorry, I must seem a bit tense. I start getting vulgar when I'm feeling tense. I'll drown my angst in Chaucer and Ibsen tomorrow, and I promise, I'll have sweeter things to say. Things that will make you wet down there, because I'm that good with words.
See, there's the vulgarity again. What a pig.
Goodnight.
I'll tell you what could go wrong: I live in a dorm, my room has the only television, and Nip/Tuck is on. (NB: I don't know if the "/" is part of the title, but if it isn't FX television is missing out on some prime graphic appeal.)
So instead of Cedric Bixler Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez (and I have to mention Jon Theodore... and I guess Flea... etc. etc. et. al. sui generis quid pro quo) I got an edgy blend of sex and violence coupled thrown against the composite backdrop of Lesley undergraduate life, which is sort of like a pre-sex all girls sleepover scene in a cheap lesbian porno.
I'm sorry, I must seem a bit tense. I start getting vulgar when I'm feeling tense. I'll drown my angst in Chaucer and Ibsen tomorrow, and I promise, I'll have sweeter things to say. Things that will make you wet down there, because I'm that good with words.
See, there's the vulgarity again. What a pig.
Goodnight.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Late Night French Kick
So here we are at 1:20 in the morning, and I can't sleep because I've decided that I really like post-meal naps during the day and espresso late at night. The fact that Starbucks is even open past 9:00 pm is really a mistake. I should really be reading Chaucer, but let me reiterate: it's past one o'clock in the morning, and I'm reeling from coffee. Medieval literature doesn't bode well. Two knights are ankle deep in blood fighting over someone named Emily at the moment, and that's all I know. If I have to, I can talk about the motif of the idyllic female in Chaucer, and the role of wives, which I think is completely different. I couldn't go on about it for very long, but as long as I start the conversation, I don't really have to.
Dave wrote a new story, so you should check out Uhaul if you haven't already.
I can't seem to come up with a good idea. I've thought about illegal Mexican immigrant stories, something involving a magic elephant, and that long lost massive project of turning Weezer's blue album into a play, but nothing is really sticking.
I finally finished Tropic Of Cancer, but I'm still confused about the ending. If you've ever read it, you'd know that it ends with a lot of running around Paris with a large amount of money, trying to get away from some woman, weighing a return to the United States. If you haven't read it, I'm not really ruining anything by giving that away, because the book consists almost entirely of running around Paris, though usually without money, and they're generally chasing women. Maybe that's it. Maybe the big picture is one ironic joke. Miller and his cohorts spend an entire novel chasing women penniless, then when they finally con their way into a large amount of cash, it is used largely to avoid a woman.
I don't know if that was a concern. I think Henry Miller just drank and did his thing, and novels were born. Some people drink and do their thing and, as a result, windows are broken and things are lost. Others produce works of art. Things are the same, things are different.
I don't have anything else to say. Look for a new story soon, sometime after I digest Woyzeck, A Doll's House, The Canterbury Tales, and all this genetics crap for my psychology class.
I'm not even mentioning my ecology class. That deserves closer analysis. I'll talk about that when I understand just what the hell the goal is.
NOTES ON A CLASS CALLED "URBAN ECOLOGY OF CAMBRIDGE:"
-Parakeet acoustics
-The Tree Of Heaven
-Community service
-Books to buy: Peterson's Field Guide, Plants Alive!
- - - -
I'm as confused as you are.
Dave wrote a new story, so you should check out Uhaul if you haven't already.
I can't seem to come up with a good idea. I've thought about illegal Mexican immigrant stories, something involving a magic elephant, and that long lost massive project of turning Weezer's blue album into a play, but nothing is really sticking.
I finally finished Tropic Of Cancer, but I'm still confused about the ending. If you've ever read it, you'd know that it ends with a lot of running around Paris with a large amount of money, trying to get away from some woman, weighing a return to the United States. If you haven't read it, I'm not really ruining anything by giving that away, because the book consists almost entirely of running around Paris, though usually without money, and they're generally chasing women. Maybe that's it. Maybe the big picture is one ironic joke. Miller and his cohorts spend an entire novel chasing women penniless, then when they finally con their way into a large amount of cash, it is used largely to avoid a woman.
I don't know if that was a concern. I think Henry Miller just drank and did his thing, and novels were born. Some people drink and do their thing and, as a result, windows are broken and things are lost. Others produce works of art. Things are the same, things are different.
I don't have anything else to say. Look for a new story soon, sometime after I digest Woyzeck, A Doll's House, The Canterbury Tales, and all this genetics crap for my psychology class.
I'm not even mentioning my ecology class. That deserves closer analysis. I'll talk about that when I understand just what the hell the goal is.
NOTES ON A CLASS CALLED "URBAN ECOLOGY OF CAMBRIDGE:"
-Parakeet acoustics
-The Tree Of Heaven
-Community service
-Books to buy: Peterson's Field Guide, Plants Alive!
- - - -
I'm as confused as you are.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Big Nothing
When I came home Amy was on my couch sleeping. She was drooling a little bit, and it looked like she had drank about half of a bottle of wine because there was half a bottle of wine sitting next to the couch where Amy was sleeping. When I woke her up she apologized and said that wine always puts her to sleep. Wine puts everyone to sleep. I don't know why people always have to say that wine puts them to sleep like it's something out of the ordinary.
Oh, really? Wine puts you to sleep? I've never in my life heard anything so ridiculous, and it is because of this that I can agree to forgive any and all wrongdoing on your part. You may have crashed drunkenly through half of my apartment, ruining carpets and breaking valuable china, but I mean, if the shit puts you to sleep, well, what can be done?
Amy hadn't done any of that though. She had come over to clean my apartment because today was my birthday, and she thought that a completely clean apartment would be a nice gift.
Amy didn't have any money, and she didn't have a job, so it was, one could say, the only gift she could possibly give me. I could give Amy lots of gifts. I have lots of money. I invented a special piece of plastic that adheres to the tip of a whipped cream can. It makes the cream more whipped and prevents curious pre-teenagers from sucking all of the gas out.
Amy likes thunderstorms. Amy likes to lie in my bed and watch the thunderstorms through the skylight. Amy makes me want to tear the roof off of my building and replace everything with skylights. She makes me want to build some kind of bomb that will fuck with the atmosphere and make it rain for a year. I want everything to be beds and rain and Amy and skylights.
I have a pet hamster that I named Sylvia, after Sylvia Plath. I discovered several weeks after naming her that the animal was actually a male, but I couldn't bring myself to change the name. Amy can't sleep in the same room as Sylvia because he crashes around in his wheel all night, so when Amy sleeps here, with me, I either have to put Sylvia's cage in the kitchen or Amy has to jam a foreign object somewhere in the wheel. I find this to be a little cruel, but am extremely attracted to the way Amy laughs when she does it.
Amy says it's kind of weird that a twenty three year old guy who lives alone has a pet hamster. I say that rodents are the barometers of the human. Amy doesn't say anything.
Amy says "I want to go to Iceland with you. I want to see that city, and those crazy ass rocks. And I want to get drunk and make out with Bjork." I don't say anything. I'm reading a magazine article entitled "Highly Verbal Psychic Real Estate Writing."
A year ago, I kissed Amy, dramatically, for the first time. The next morning I got on a train to go to work, and for the entire train ride, I replayed a daydream in my head. In the daydream, Amy was standing on the platform of whatever station the train was arriving at. She was with a man, and as the train stopped, she would kiss him, and they would smile, and she would board the train, sit across from me, and look shocked as she realized what I had seen.
In the daydream my eyes met hers and my eyes said "I have seen you in his bed and I have known for so long now that you would drive this so deep into my chest. I can hear you laughing moaning crying in his arms holding him wondering if your grip is tighter or if you are closer than when you are with me. You can be closer to no one but me because I am everything and I am all around you and I am always whispering much louder than I am speaking."
Each time I went through this, there were minor changes that didn't really matter. What mattered was the pain I felt. It hurt so terribly I could barely walk. I didn't want to walk. I loved her and I wanted to die.
Amy's father was born in the Caribbean. He is the son of two french citizens who went on vacation and never returned to France. I think that "Amy" is the most un-French name I have ever heard, and I once wondered if they had thought the same thing when they named her. I wondered if they thought about their home and cursed it quietly with that name, the three letters they adhere to what would be their only progeny- an A for the sand, M for the waves and the wind in the trees at night, a Y for the blue color that seemed to leak from the water and the sky into her eyes.
Today Amy will not finish cleaning my apartment, and I will not finish cleaning it tomorrow. We will lay on my sofa and watch re-runs of The Real World until two o'clock in the morning. Amy will talk some more about Iceland, and I will not think of her with anyone else. We will fall asleep until quarter to five, when the patter of rain will wake us and we will watch the thunderstorm in a dream, half awake, silent.
Oh, really? Wine puts you to sleep? I've never in my life heard anything so ridiculous, and it is because of this that I can agree to forgive any and all wrongdoing on your part. You may have crashed drunkenly through half of my apartment, ruining carpets and breaking valuable china, but I mean, if the shit puts you to sleep, well, what can be done?
Amy hadn't done any of that though. She had come over to clean my apartment because today was my birthday, and she thought that a completely clean apartment would be a nice gift.
Amy didn't have any money, and she didn't have a job, so it was, one could say, the only gift she could possibly give me. I could give Amy lots of gifts. I have lots of money. I invented a special piece of plastic that adheres to the tip of a whipped cream can. It makes the cream more whipped and prevents curious pre-teenagers from sucking all of the gas out.
Amy likes thunderstorms. Amy likes to lie in my bed and watch the thunderstorms through the skylight. Amy makes me want to tear the roof off of my building and replace everything with skylights. She makes me want to build some kind of bomb that will fuck with the atmosphere and make it rain for a year. I want everything to be beds and rain and Amy and skylights.
I have a pet hamster that I named Sylvia, after Sylvia Plath. I discovered several weeks after naming her that the animal was actually a male, but I couldn't bring myself to change the name. Amy can't sleep in the same room as Sylvia because he crashes around in his wheel all night, so when Amy sleeps here, with me, I either have to put Sylvia's cage in the kitchen or Amy has to jam a foreign object somewhere in the wheel. I find this to be a little cruel, but am extremely attracted to the way Amy laughs when she does it.
Amy says it's kind of weird that a twenty three year old guy who lives alone has a pet hamster. I say that rodents are the barometers of the human. Amy doesn't say anything.
Amy says "I want to go to Iceland with you. I want to see that city, and those crazy ass rocks. And I want to get drunk and make out with Bjork." I don't say anything. I'm reading a magazine article entitled "Highly Verbal Psychic Real Estate Writing."
A year ago, I kissed Amy, dramatically, for the first time. The next morning I got on a train to go to work, and for the entire train ride, I replayed a daydream in my head. In the daydream, Amy was standing on the platform of whatever station the train was arriving at. She was with a man, and as the train stopped, she would kiss him, and they would smile, and she would board the train, sit across from me, and look shocked as she realized what I had seen.
In the daydream my eyes met hers and my eyes said "I have seen you in his bed and I have known for so long now that you would drive this so deep into my chest. I can hear you laughing moaning crying in his arms holding him wondering if your grip is tighter or if you are closer than when you are with me. You can be closer to no one but me because I am everything and I am all around you and I am always whispering much louder than I am speaking."
Each time I went through this, there were minor changes that didn't really matter. What mattered was the pain I felt. It hurt so terribly I could barely walk. I didn't want to walk. I loved her and I wanted to die.
Amy's father was born in the Caribbean. He is the son of two french citizens who went on vacation and never returned to France. I think that "Amy" is the most un-French name I have ever heard, and I once wondered if they had thought the same thing when they named her. I wondered if they thought about their home and cursed it quietly with that name, the three letters they adhere to what would be their only progeny- an A for the sand, M for the waves and the wind in the trees at night, a Y for the blue color that seemed to leak from the water and the sky into her eyes.
Today Amy will not finish cleaning my apartment, and I will not finish cleaning it tomorrow. We will lay on my sofa and watch re-runs of The Real World until two o'clock in the morning. Amy will talk some more about Iceland, and I will not think of her with anyone else. We will fall asleep until quarter to five, when the patter of rain will wake us and we will watch the thunderstorm in a dream, half awake, silent.
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