Cluster - Gissander [mp3]
Dave had just finished smoking his cigarette when I came out.
“Ah hell. I guess I’ll have to smoke another.”
“Yeah, if you want. We could discuss things over a cigarette.”
Dave lit his cigarette and mine too with a struck match. I had my hands in my coat pockets looking for a lighter and instead I found a piece of paper with the words “Actually, it’s a John Hancock jumper long sleeve shirt” written in sloppy cursive. I handed the paper to Dave and he said that she must have been cute.
The porch is attached to the back of our second story apartment. Below us is a parking lot for the convenience store found in the first floor. We stood smoking in silence for a moment, staring ahead at whatever objects filled our vision. I was looking at a squirrel when a familiar car pulled into the parking lot. It sat dead, the engine hissing slightly in the cold, it’s sparkly silver glistening in a way that concealed the possibility of sentience. The door burst open and a man hopped out, all nerves and withdrawal.
“There he is,” says Dave. I just nod. The man paces the length of his luxury sport utility vehicle, looking left and right as he nears the street. Once he determines that the parking lot is secure, a lit cigarette materializes and the man begins to smoke feverishly. Dave takes an audible drag on his cigarette, sucking the smoke deep into his lungs and blowing it out with above average force. He observes, “This is the fourth time I’ve seen him out there smoking in the last two days.” The man’s glance darts left and right and for a second I wonder if he might finally notice us up above, watching his every movement. I say to Dave, “How does he not ever notice us? We’ve been watching him smoke cigarettes in this parking lot for the last week and somehow he never notices.” Dave thinks maybe since he’s so distracted by the notion that someone (who?) might catch him smoking street level that it never occurs to him that someone above him is fully aware of his strange habit of rapidly smoking cigarettes in the parking lot of Lulu’s Deli.
“I’m gonna go down to talk to him.” I tell Dave. I stub out my cigarette and Dave raises his eyebrows. “I am going to tell him we know. I’m curious how he will respond.” I go downstairs to meet the man in the parking lot. He jumps into his vehicle and quickly rolls the windows up at the sight of me, his cigarette disappearing as neatly as it always appears. He doesn’t start the engine though. I knock on the driver’s side window and make a motion that he should roll down his window.
Above Dave is watching with interest and he holds his breath to hear our interaction. It’s all mumbles though and he starts to wonder what we are saying. He guesses that I am telling him about our perch above and that we know he smokes. He guesses that the man is excusing our perception that he is a secret smoker and maybe the man is suggesting that from our perch it is difficult to understand the world below. Dave wonders for a moment if maybe the man is right, maybe looking down on the parking lot from a porch one story above ground does cause a misunderstanding of the world below and then he finishes his cigarette.
Dave goes back inside before I finish talking to the man. We have been talking about Colombia and the man has just invited me to his villa down there and Dave too. I tell him that’s not what I came down to talk about but he just shrugs and turns the key. I take a step back and watch him drive off. Back upstairs Dave asks me how things went. I say, “We talked about his villa in Colombia.” Dave kind of laughs and then he selects a book from the shelf standing next to the desk where he is seated. He hands it to me and says, “Sometimes we don’t see things that are there. Sometimes our eyes play tricks on our head.”
Cluster is a rhythm and blues band from Berlin. The featured song is from the album Qua. Purchase the music at Amazon | Insound | eMusic.
The Band - The Weight [mp3]
A home is a hard place to find, an easy place to keep, and a place that combats secrets and fears with the cool sounds of an ever-changing yet un-moving river as it floats across saturated June air. A home is a place where frozen off-brand pizza tastes good, where apple juice tastes like champagne and computer speakers put concert hall quality sound to shame.
“Where might one find such a place?” someone asked.
“A home is not a place and it never has been, either,” she told the person. “It is not a where; it is not a when; it is not a what.”
“Then what is it?” they cried. “What is a home?”
“A home for me is not the same as a home for you,” she replied. “A home is a who—a home is a you and a me, a she and a he and a we.”
“What do I do when I find it?” they asked.
“Find it first,” she said. “And then you’ll know.”
“What do I do if I’ve already found it?” they asked again.
“What are you waiting for!?” she cried. “Take a seat, have a bite, jump in.”
The Band is a rhythm and blues band from North America. The featured song is from the album Music from Big Pink. Purchase the music at Amazon | Insound | eMusic.
Jesus Lizard - Gladiator [mp3]
A man walks into the bar without hesitation, glancing with confidence at the patrons seated on stools bathed in the afternoon sunlight shafting through the open door. He approaches the jukebox and deposits $20 into the machine, bringing Jesus Lizard all around the room for the old men watching football to hear. A woman at the pool table makes a comment about the loud music, calling it “crap.” The other woman in the room is behind the bar serving drinks. The man selects a few more songs, leaving 22 selections on the jukebox before seating himself at the bar for a beverage. He tells the bartender that she may select songs from the jukebox at her leisure and that he would like a Greyhound.
Several Greyhounds later and 14 songs remain. The man has ordered three shots of Vodka; one for the friend who has just joined him, one for the friend who had just left him and one for himself. The shots remained untouched though, sitting in front of their Greyhounds. He turns to his friend and asks him how his Greyhound tastes and he tells him that the Vodka they are drinking is “top shelf.” The Vodka is Stolichnaya, belying the Greyhound moniker and his friend says the drink is good. It is the first time his friend has had such a drink and the man is enjoying life so he wants to be sure his friend is also. But then he remembers what it is that brought them here today, to this bar on the strip in the middle of the afternoon and he looks at his friend’s somber expression nearing tears and he orders another Greyhound.
There are 13 songs remaining when the man rises for a cigarette. His friend doesn’t smoke so he tells him to pick a song from the jukebox. Standing just outside of the bar, the man lights up a cigarette when suddenly that first Jesus Lizard song comes on again. He can already hear the woman at the pool table calling it “crap” and he thinks to himself, “This song is exactly right for the occasion.” There are 12 songs left when the man tells his friend that he picked the same Jesus Lizard song. The man asks why he selected that song and his friend says through a strained facial expression, the sort of strain that constrains stray tears, he says, “He liked that song.” They order another Greyhound and the man tells his friend about the bartender.
“Last week I was in here about this time. The sun was just the same shining through those little windows and the open door right across the top of the bar and Debbie was in here serving booze to the regulars. I was telling this man sitting next to me that Debbie, she’s got a fine set of tits and a beautiful smile. I don’t know if Debbie heard me but my shots of Beam were double shots from that point on.” Song 10 was just expiring when Debbie called back across the bar, “It wasn’t your comment about my tits that got you the double shots. It was your money.” The man just smiled and his friend smiled a bit too.
With 9 songs remaining, the jukebox went silent. Debbie asked the man and his friend what they were going to do with the three shots. The man told Debbie that he and his friend would drink their shots and that the third should be poured onto the ground somewhere in the vicinity. His friend explained to Debbie that their friend had performed in this bar once and that he liked Jesus Lizard and that is why it kept playing and that he had smoked cigarettes in front of this bar at one time and that all of those places seemed an appropriate place to pour the shot. The man selected that Jesus Lizard song one last time and told Debbie to forget the pouring, that the shot should be split between him and his friend and so it went.
The man and his friend left with spirits in their stomach and 8 songs left on the jukebox. A week later, the man learned that Debbie had played that same Jesus Lizard song with all 8 of those plays to drive out the woman at the pool table who was “a fucking bitch who tipped too little.” And the man, he just had to laugh.
Jesus Lizard is a rhythm and blues band from Austin/Chicago. The featured song is from the album Liar. Purchase the music at Amazon | Insound | eMusic.
Mark McGuire - Acquaduct [mp3]
We rode our bicycles to the other side of town, taking the Greenway through the heart of Minneapolis and crossing the bridge designed specifically to assist cyclists, it’s cable suspensions merging lines into the purple sky above. Sitting upon a bench on the Sabo Bridge, we smoked a cigarette together feeling the rush of traffic gust bustling wind upward as we looked out at the darkened city below us. There were lights on in some of the homes and inside there were things happening that we could not understand, nor see. The Minneapolis skyline held high in the air looked back at us as if sentient, the offices illuminated for no particular reason appearing as if a million eyes. If indeed the skyline were able to gaze, no doubt the shifting colors atop Target Plaza represented the frontal cortex of our beloved city, it’s matter changing before our eyes as it considered those things occurring throughout.
Later, we found ourselves together with others at the VFW drinking whiskey and PBRs. We took our leave to the Hexagon and walloped a good time upon the slippery, beer stained floors and then we left together, the two of us assembled upon our bicycles tracing our steps through Minneapolis and resting again on the bridge just to think. Riding the Greenway this late is said to bring danger but not on this night. The snow was falling heavily but beautifully, with no wind and little sound otherwise at 2 AM, my friend and I were able to ride freely without cold or worry or threat of injury. We would fall from our bicycles in the slickness of the snow and crash softly into the tufts of white flakes billowing from underneath our heated bodies our bikes sliding across the surface and ourselves rolling not because of force but because of fun.
We exited the Greenway at Nicollet Avenue and biked directly down the middle of the road all the way to 22nd Street. The road was emptied but illuminated brightly by streetlights and Christmas decorations strung from every lamp post and otherwise, lights twinkling in a surreal orange glow set against the purple and the snow blinding white directly into our eyes. We rode down Nicollet Avenue without our hands and even there we crashed safely into the road, singing songs as we descended into the soft embrace below.
And when we arrived home, we wondered if it should end as we smoked a ceremonial cigarette on the porch of Garfield. We wondered if this were our one and only opportunity to enjoy the glory of such a remarkable ride and we wondered if it were time we did that again. Stubbing out our cigarettes he said to me, “Maybe we should just accept that there will never be again.” We went upstairs into the dark lair of Garfield, a fog of smoke seemingly awaiting our arrival and cartoons projected onto the window curtains and we knew then that indeed, it will never be again.
Mark McGuire is a rhythm and blues band from Cleveland. The featured song is from the album A Pocket Full of Rain. Purchase the music at Pizza Night Tapes.
Dan Bern - Wasteland [mp3]
* This was not written in traditional such loud noise manner. Indeed, this is a simple concert preview exhibiting fairly mainstream journalistic tendencies. Please excuse the total sense of logic, I will be posting another entry within a few hours in accordance with the defined goals of this blog. For those in Columbia, SC, Dan Bern will be playing at White Mule on Sunday. Be there.
Dan Bern sounds like Bob Dylan. He is also of Jewish heritage like Bob Dylan, from the Midwest like Bob Dylan, sings songs titled “Talking X Blues” like Bob Dylan, has the letters D and B in his initials like Bob Dylan, possesses one X and one Y chromosome like Bob Dylan, etc. Dan Bern is not Bob Dylan.
When Dan Bern takes the stage at the White Mule, he will do so with a simple request, one that he made in the opening seconds of his debut album in the song ‘Jerusalem’: “Don’t ask what kind of music I’m gonna play tonight / Just stay awhile / Hear for yourself awhile / And if you must put me in a box / Make sure it’s a big box / With lots of windows.” In the intervening years since the release of his under-appreciated debut album Bern has managed to enlarge his box all on his own, irrespective of the allowances afforded by audiences and critics. Across 15 albums in 13 years, Bern has established himself as a witty lyricist with an avid interest in popular culture. The world in which his folk music resides is populated by all manner of celebrities and athletes behaving just as you might expect in your wildest dreams. Whether its a road trip to Alaska with Leonardo DiCaprio, a meditation on Tiger Woods’ huge balls, a visit with Ani DiFranco’s mom or the hypothetical marriage between Marilyn Monroe and Henry Miller, Bern weaves characters from the cosmos of Hollywood and beyond in and out of his songs with great comedic effect.
His pop culture acumen goes much deeper than simple parody though. Dan Bern is a cultural philosopher privy to some of the most fundamental truths underlying the everyday life of an American. His fascination with popular culture is simply an extension of his concern with the post-modern dirge that most people experience on a day-to-day basis. As a lyricist, Bern is genuinely concerned with the human condition and the American condition. His songs might make you laugh a lot, but they just as often will make you cry. Sometimes even, they will make you laugh with tears at the absurdity of our society and the utter hopelessness of our circumstances.
This is one area where the similarity to Bob Dylan rings most true. Just as Bob Dylan was an innovative artist with a penetrative understanding of how an individual interprets reality in the context of the broader society, so to does Dan Bern understand that there are forces outside of our singular orbit that have a great emotional impact. In particular, Bern shows a fascination with the wandering souls of the world. The growing population of transient American citizens can certainly relate to Bern when he says “And everyplace I go is one less place I could call home / And every girl I kiss, well I just cross her off my list / I don’t go far / I just go crazy.”
Dan Bern is well known for his live performance skills. A Dan Bern concert is a folk music and stand-up comic routine all for one low price. Where many musicians use on-stage banter to fill the time needed between songs to tune instruments and take a swig of beer, Bern tells long and invariably hilarious stories about touring the country. His performance at The White Mule will be the final stop on the southern leg of his tour following preceding performances in Decatur, Charlotte, Tampa and Fort Myers so you can be sure that he will get in a word or two about Southern culture before the night is over.
As was made clear already, Dan Bern is not Bob Dylan. The good news in that statement is that instead of Bob Dylan, we got an American original from the heartland with a keen eye for the absurdities of American life.
Dan Bern is a rhythm and blues band from Iowa. The featured song is from the album Dan Bern. Purchase the music at Amazon | Insound | eMusic.
Dirty Projectors - Not Having Found [mp3]
I sit staring at Frida Kahlo and she stares back at me too and speaks to me too and she looks past me too as she says to me too, “Show me respect.” She says it in Spanish though and though I don’t understand Spanish though I understand what she is saying though that though she is simply a picture of Frida Kahlo, she’s a living breathing Frida Kahlo capable of deep feelings and complex understanding of spatial relationships and she is not hanging from the wall. We stare at each other for some time unblinking, unspeaking, listening to Dirty Projectors sing rightly soaring from the computer speakers in anything but a blare the music just sort of swims in waves of pleasure from the computer speakers into our ears but neither of us smile, we just stare. Her present predicament is not unlike many similar predicaments she has had to endure since coming into my possession last winter. She lays against the wall in a corner, obscured slightly at certain angles by the bookshelf which holds her journal in full color, magazine glossed glory.
Frida Kahlo sits staring at me and I stare back at Frida Kahlo too with her birds perched painfully on each shoulder, two more flanking her neatly laid arms and a cigarette drips from her fingertips as she sits staring at me and I stare back at Frida Kahlo too attempting to penetrate her infinitely wise gaze her infinitely prolonged gaze her infinitely etched into the acid-free paper which her eyes were infinitely sketched onto with an ink jet printer and Frida Kahlo sits staring at me and I stare back at Frida Kahlo too and decide at that point that the painfully beautiful music of Dirty Projects is just too unbearably gorgeous that I am unbearably unable to continue sitting and staring at Frida Kahlo.
I arise from the couch and walk to the corner where Frida Kahlo sits and I hoist her into my arms. This is overstating things since she is simply a poster, essentially, printed nicely on acid-free card stock and slipped into a plastic slip, more accurately I lift her easily with my thumb and forefinger and I clutch her as if a football and suddenly I am a football player. I dart left and right out the door and Frida Kahlo and I take a walk together down the street. I wave at the neighbor, a gay man of considerable discretion and privacy and I hold Frida Kahlo proudly displaying her fine gaze to him and though she doesn’t wave also, he gets the drift and frowns. We walk further down the street, encountering no other people and I say to Frida Kahlo, “Isn’t it nice to get some fresh air?” She makes no comment in response and eventually we turn back to the house and return. The neighbor is no longer sitting on the porch and his blinds are now closed though it is quite bright outside. I put Frida Kahlo back in the corner and I imagine her saying, “Nobody puts Frida Kahlo in a corner,” but Dirty Dancing was not out yet so she couldn’t possibly conceive of such a joke. I explain to Frida Kahlo that I would like to put her in a frame first before hanging her from a wall but unfortunately I am far too poor to afford a frame now so she’ll just have to wait.
Dirty Projectors are still gloriously extolling the beautiful nature not having found something you were looking for and I nod my head in agreement. “See Frida Kahlo, it’s a difficult time finding things like money or picture frames. You should be quite happy to have found me at least. I will take you on another walk soon, I promise.”
Dirty Projectors are a rhythm and blues band from Brooklyn. The featured song is from the album The Getty Address. Purchase the music at Amazon | Insound | eMusic.