portrait of the author as a sincere looking extra for a CARS video directed by luis aira, boston 1982.
from good pals charlie & nancy nieland (aka Her Vanished Grace) comes a gem cover of a gem song you’ll recognize pronto. 3 beatles meet all of the cocteau twins and share a julep. all….together….now….breathe. enjoy.
Treat your ears right. Listen to this album. Brand new from NICO MUHLY.
I WAS A TEENAGE HEADPHONE MOPER…*
…..lived to tell, became the model for Botticelli’s Venus, and then got set to release the debut album, DREAM LIFE. that’s what Mary Epworth’s been up to, in case you were wondering. and if you were not, you should be. because based on the sneak peak the artist has granted me (more like a 24-7 listen to a prized bootleg) it is one of those albums you’re nostalgic for even before it comes out. and it hasn’t. and i am. got it? get it! i am also super jazzed about this release, people. privileged be the soul who gets to ponder from behind the starting block a career that is about to jump start itself into high gear in a manhattan minute. (this WAS to be my very first google video chat interview…..alas, it wasn’t to be. as i gandered into the screen and blabbered incoherently—-taken aback as i was by her stunning good looks—-i went so numb, i lost the faculty of hearing!!!! turned out to be only a faulty audio connect, so we ended up chatting without the visuals which was just as well, as i was redder than a beet in heat!) but nostalgia, on the peninsula, is a many-hooked lure, or so kevin barry would have you believe. the hell with him, get thee hence w/ THIS hook:
what are you doing RIGHT NOW? and how important is it?
Apart from this interview? Drinking tea, listening to crazy sounds spilling out of Will’s headphones. (editor’s note: now, now i know what you’re thinking: just who in the hell is this WILL character? boyfriend, hubby? dunno, but i too am very jealous. could be a pet dog, maybe. or a RABBIT! that’s it….her GMail avatar’s a bunny! unlikely, though, that a rabbit is wearing headphones, i guess…..oh well. i don’t like this WILL fella, at all!) Not important, apart from the tea of course, which is life-nectar.
what’s up w/ the new album? when’s it due?
It’s out June 18th, It’s my first album so it’s pretty exciting for me. It’s taken a long time and not been very straightforward, so just getting It out there will feel like a triumph.
with the release of the new album, you hope to (fill-in-the-blank.)
Hmm. I don’t know yet. Possibly it will start a new chapter of my life. It’s going to be interesting to get past this “making an album and getting it out”, not sure what comes after it yet. Hopefully a big sigh of relief and then on with the next thing.
in terms of your career & livelihood, define success for me?
Making a living doing something you love is the ultimate luxury. I’m not there yet, maybe at some point. I have bigger versions of that dream, but I think it’s good to remember to not be too greedy. Lots of people scrape a living doing jobs they hate, so like I say, if you enjoy your job, and you have a job, you’re already a winner.
what keeps you up at nite?
Foxes screaming in my garden, a great film on tv, existential angst. The usual. I take valerian quite often if I’m stressed, it gives you really psychedelic dreams. Sometimes I dream whole scenes of films, script and everything.
any plans to tour america?
I’d love to come and play in the States sometime. When I was really little we lived In Virginia for a few months, and also did the west coast trip. The beautiful landscape I experienced even as a 5 year old has stayed with me, it’s all through my songs. “In those, rolling hills, I can still, see Zabriskie” for example. I’m often seated in rainy England dreaming of big desert skies. Fingers crossed.
you tweeted months ago about a pipe-dream before bed one friday nite….how is the “american psychedelic” bit moving along? or not?
Still no more than a pipe-dream, I’m afraid. It’s all boring stuff like funding putting it off. Think once this album is out that might get easier! Maybe I can kill two birds, come and tour the US and attend to that other secret plan while I’m there.
and speaking of BADASS…………..
badass & BASED
it’s late friday nite on the east coast. may 4. which means SIDDHARTHA is about to take the stage in San Francisco at some joint named Yoshis….whatever the hell that might be. and whatever it is, it might not be the same thing by the time Marlon Hauser and his crew get through with it in support of their killer debut out now on Neurotic Yell Records, If It Die. i know for a fact Marlon lives in a room with no windows. a fact supported by the excellent NOripcord review of same by boho brethren Matt Bevington, which goes on to point out that If It Die was recorded there as well. so how else do you expect a guy to come out except swinging? ya know, being forever boxed in & all. and Marlon’s used to “swinging”….both his fists & his hips, having come from a beat detroit scene where your next meal might be just over one shoulder, while trouble lurks just over the other. had to be a freaking bobble-head just to keep his head. which he did. and transplanted it to SF where there’s so much polyphonic-melting-pot-mega-cultural shit going down right now, it’s hard to keep up w/ the joneses, not to mention the rent, when you’re putting something so label-less & inscrutably articulate out there for a couple of dozen enlightened souls to chew on. IF IT DIE defies all labels. it is also an album informed by extreme intelligence and an all-embracing strategy of cumbaya percussive & aural pleasures, retro funk noise & dissonant bliss. above all else, it is powerful. and sounds like nothing else out there right now. it is so good i do believe Marlon will be able to afford a new crib soon….one with windows this time. from which he can sing and record to the masses. i’ve heard the album. you probably haven’t. so trust me when i say if done properly & truly to the spirit behind it, the live show tonite in support of If It Die could turn this Yoshis place into some sort of insouciant and freaky third world shebeen.
what are you doing RIGHT NOW? and is it important? is it something you will be doing tomorrow as well?
Right now? Living…Breathing…Staying BASED…Answering these questions, and always always, contemplating the nature of the universe…Oh and promoting my record?
what’s up w/ the new album? why won’t it sell 8 million copies?
The new record is done and awaiting release (it dropped on may 1st) from what my label tells me. I’m very very fucking stoked about it. In regard to the 8 million copies thing, well the label didn’t print that many.
with the release of the new album, you hope to (fill-in-the-blank.)
With the release of the new album, I hope to encourage the humans, to see both the light and dark in our universe. and know, that you actually have the capacity and power to choose. Don’t let the reptiles brainwash you into thinking you do not have choice. The battle is for your mind and the power to choose is yours……
in terms of your career & livelihood, define success for me?
I love my friends. At this point in my life success is not an easy thing to define. Inside my head it changes from day to day. Mondays success is just getting enough money to live in peace modestly. Tuesday its pretty much the same, but then Thursdays it changes into something a bit more hedonistic. Record sales, accolades, a legacy that I can be proud of etc. I love my friends, I love being around them. They are rare.
what keeps you up at nite?
Humanity and its collective failure to live up to it’s potentiality…..The world needs a giant dose of mushrooms… Also, music…When its late at night and the world has gone silent….My brain tunes in to what I call the cosmic radio….And what comes through is what comes out of me….
are you signed to a label?
We signed with Neurotic Yell Records. The BASED label.
you tweet constantly about being “based”. how’s that working out? or not?
With all due respect, it’s not “based” it’s “BASED”. Its a term coined or at least made famous by my neighbor in the Bay, Lil B (BASED God). “BASED” is being free to exercise your inner positive self at any time, in any place. Literally its not filtering yourself creatively, and spreading positivity while doing so. I got the moniker the BASEDShaman from this pack of young skater kids that went to a Lil B show, and the came to my gig one evening in San Francisco. They come up to me afterwards and kept telling me how BASED I was. At that time, I had been promoting shows as The New Shamanism. I was hypnotizing crowds and shit like that. Literally! I got into that shit years ago, thats another story. Anyways, they came to a few more shows and started bringing more folks. Then I was being anointed the BASEDShaman. The dashikis, and masks I wear may have helped. In addition to that, I made friends with a Seattle producer that is a part of the BASED movement, a great young man known as KeyboardKid206, so it just grew from there. But being “BASED” can refer to many positive things. For example, I think Scott Walker is BASED, Mick Karn (RIP) was BASED, James Franco, James Baldwin was BASED as fuck. I think you’re BASED, and that’s why I fucking love you.
hey, anyone who’s down with scott walker can get on my x-mas card list pronto. (wait, what? did he just say he loves me? how super deluxe cool….ain’t life grand?) and SIDDHARTHA are BASED like Bad Brains was BASED. like Zarathustra was BASED, and like SIDDHARTHA creator Herman Hesse was BASED. remember the comet that was Michael Ivey that came out of Pittsburgh in the early 90s and recorded w/ Imago Records as Basehead? i think Marlon might consider him BASED. think about it……BASEheaD made 2 albums that genre-jumped and played w/ peoples’ minds as much as they wreaked havoc on the charts. Play With Toys & Not In Kansas Anymore are similar to If It Die in that they all erase the blackboard of all the multicultural noise that came before them. Bad Brains, Basehead, SIDDHARTHA…..very like-minded spirits. And not just because they’re all black…..hell, if i was gonna play the race card & go that route i’d have thrown in Lenny Kravitz! but lenny’s a dickweed and Marlon isn’t, so, ya know, like, end of story. execpt for this: Marlon’s a man’s man on a man’s mission: unity among all things. and he’s one helluva a sweet, caring soul to boot. which is why i fucking love HIM….AND the horse he rode in on. it’s called If It Die, it’s by SIDDHARTHA, and it’s really good.
even though the russian judge says 8.0, i say new SWANS rocks way harder.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/08/arts/music/cbgb-owners-plan-a-festival-and-seek-a-new-location.html?ref=todayspaper
see the siamese standpipe just to the right of the front door? i used to sit on it for hours back in the day to make sure i got front row seats “every” nite. after seeing me line up sometimes @ noon, owner hilly kristal once told me: “ya know, doors don’t open til 7pm. chances are you could get the same seat if you showed up @ 6:30”. i simply wasn’t willing to take that chance.
ADAM YAUCH R.I.P. i used to go out and tip a few wee pints w/ adam. straight up real nice fella. and real, period. we spoke of was and when. and debated over who was better: PiL or the Pistols. he usually won, backing the former. ’cuz he was extremely intelligent. & persuasive. people forget, the Beasties got their start in D.C. in the late 70s….as a PUNK band. i won’t forget that, nor the bond we formed over musical chairs & punk polemics years later. a man’s man, w/ a beat. he’ll be sorely missed.
