Read:My:Back

It's a Long Way Down that Holiday Road

Glad/puzzled that someone put this on Soundcloud. The product of a slow day at work, circa 2004. And right about now, I'd like to pour some on the curb for CoolEdit 2000.

Holiday Road (Mike Lupica Codeine Mix) by nonamedrone

The Iron Maiden scene from "Persepolis"

In further deference to my new life of being woefully behind the cultural curve, I finally watched "Persepolis", the uber-acclaimed animated French film from 2007, based on the graphic novel of the same name. The story considers the 1979 Iranian Revolution, as seen through the troubled gaze of a young innocent named Marjane. Like many other middle class Iranians of the era, Marjane's parents rally against the US-backed Shah, but end up remorseful over the rise of the Khomeini-led fundamentalist government that eventually assumes control.

The perhaps questionable role of graphic novels and political animation serving as historical documents notwithstanding, Persepolis recounts an exceptionally complicated series of events with admirable skill. The characters, especially Marjane and her grandmother (voiced by legendary French actress Dannielle Darrieux), are profoundly engaging and often wickedly funny in spite of the film's grave subtext. To the top of your Netflix cue, stat!

All Hail Tav Falco, and his Unapproachable Panther Burns

I have a problem with any cultural love-fest that celebrates very recent history. Reminiscent of high school students, who, once graduated, almost immediately come back to visit their old homeroom or English teachers, nostalgia for something that time hasn't yet had its way with has always struck me as a rather banal practice.

Nevertheless, a lot of music fans seem to revel in such behavior, and currently haunting their moldy oldies circuit is the spectre of 90s garage rock—a scene which one might argue has barely had time to keel over and become chilly to the touch. And yet somehow, at no one's insistence, here it is again!

At the time it was happening, I liked a lot of its bands and saw many of them perform live pretty regularly. But its more lasting influence manifested in my pursuit of weirdo sounds that pre-dated the Estrus/In the Red/Crypt phenomenon—similar acts who'd come and gone without a tidily-packaged musical movement to be part of.

Fortunately, I was a DJ at WPRB during most of those years, and so had a huge library of old records to dig through for what I then regarded as the missing links between 60s runoff like Back from the Grave, and the more punk rock-influenced sounds of Teengenerate or the Mummies.

The most critical of my discoveries, and the one that's most obviously tarnished my personal aesthetic, were Tav Falco's Panther Burns. Often mentioned in the same breath as the Cramps for blazing a trail into the future with a keenly focused eye on the past, the Panther Burns brought the dark underbelly of American roots culture right into the limelight, yet their considerable role in sculpting the scene that's now being canonized is seldom mentioned. For shame, pop archaeologists!

Equally adept at fuzzed-out rockers like "Cuban Rebel Girl" as they are at incorporating left field influences like beat poetry, fringey visual arts, and tango (!!), Panther Burns have never been easy to pigeonhole, and it's a safe bet that no one's ever going to emulate the full breadth of their expansive oeuvre. The band's catalog is fairly huge, and Wikipedia does an exceptional job of breaking down their long history. But for newcomers to the party, definitely secure yourself a copy of Behind the Magnolia Curtain (Rough Trade, 1981)—far and away one of my most frequently returned-to LPs of that era.

Use this player to hear "Cuban Rebel Girl"—probably one of the more badass songs to rattle your cage this week—and then check some epic Panther Burns video after the jump.

 

Mesmerizing Pencil Animations by Ben Warren

I hope this guy's got a great job now. Music by Lullatone. More after the jump.

Roy Montgomery's Two Lane Blacktop

[Photo by Canvas Blank | cc nc nd 2.0]

Several people have emailed me about the Roy Montgomery track I played on my last WFMU fill-in, so that seemed like reason enough to throw a bit of special attention on it here. It's called "2LB", and it comes from an excellent compilation called You Can Never Go Fast Enough.

YCNGFE is a tribute album, of sorts, to the film Two Lane Blacktop—the frequently lauded 1971 road movie starring James Taylor (of all people) as a sullen, degenerate gearhead and Dennis Wilson as his similarly dour companion. The film has been a 3-AM-on-PBS favorite forever, and Criterion finally issued a deluxe edition of it on DVD in 2007, which is when the compilation—the Roy Montgomery track inparticular—was flung back to the tip of my consciousness.

Rather than including covers of songs that appeared in the movie, You Can Never Go Fast Enough features artists performing songs inspired by it. With heavy hitters like Sonic Youth, Wilco, and Calexico on board, the film is obviously one whose particular cinematic rhythm has resonated with a variety of underground kingpins. Yet on none of the tracks does its sheer loneliness and cynicism come through as it does in Roy Montgomery's contribution: the twelve and a half minute guitar dirge that is the focal point of this post. It's a classic example of how aural repetition can quickly establish a pattern, transform into an endurance test, and then morph yet again into pure revelation without any observable change in the sonics. (See Moondog's "Invocation" for more on this technique.) If you've seen Two Lane Blacktop, Montgomery's homage is sure to summon up its many scenes of aimless desperation. Listen using the player below.

Afterthoughts: Two Lane Blacktop is a lasting testament to the notion that America is something that can only be understood through exploration and experience; that its true story can only be told by the strangers and everymen who populate its most forgotten corridors. Once a popular theme in American literature, film, and music, this idea seems to be quickly fading from prominence in our culture. Am I wrong? Are there current examples that I'm just not thinking of?

How not to behave at the farmer's market

I don't care how overpriced the heirloom tomatoes are, this is just uncalled for. No cider doughnuts for you, J.

Finally, someone has re-cut the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey with a Kyuss song

Kill the lights, go full screen, crank it up, and meet your maker with Mission Commander Dave Bowman. Frank Poole, noted hater of  Desert Rock, is gonna be SO pissed.

Logorama

Since almost everyone I know A) doesn't care about the Oscars, and B) already reads Dangerous Minds, it's probably silly for me to bother posting this here. But I'm happy to make exceptions for awe-inspiring works of genius like François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy, and Ludovic Houplain's astounding short film, Logorama.

Logorama from Marc Altshuler - Human Music on Vimeo.

Do or DIY! The Battlecry of People Like Us

My only business at this year's WFMU Record Fair was to catch up with Vicki Bennett, whom radio listeners and patrons of avant media know as the supremely talented People Like Us. In the midst of all the vinyl which the Fair aggregates on an annual basis, Vicki and her pal Irene Moon helmed a stall festooned with trinkets, baubles, plastic grapes, and the pair's many independent and self-released audio/video projects.

Vicki's immense catalog of work includes the Story Without End DVD, which is a wonderful collection of her inventive and forward thinking media manipulations. Using found footage, impossibly obscure audio, and relics of both mediums that have fallen into the public domain, Vicki weaves disparate themes into an all new narrative which is light years away from anything the original creators could have imagined. A recurring theme in her work is a breathless anticipation for an orderly, technologically advanced near-future that would improve our lives while simultaneously bringing us closer to one another. But with those eagerly foretold years now behind us and their promises unfulfilled, there is a poignant subtext which stands in stark contrast to the bright eyed characters who populate her universe.

"Resemblage", which is included on the DVD and which was created with materials from the Lux collection of moving images has an unusually sinister tone to it, but it is one that works to brilliant effect. Beginning with some undeniably Gilliam-esque paper collage, the film quickly moves into foreboding territory through the colliding images of burning landscapes, failing powergrids, and digital static. Although it clocks in at only slightly north of four minutes, I've found it to be among her most compelling works to date.

The true magic of People Like Us is Vicki's unique model of promotion and distribution. By operating so far outside of the mainstream, she has freed herself of the baggage that customarily inhibits artistic growth, and her lengthy career and incredible prolificity bear testament to that truth. In the past, she has said:

"I believe that through the internet, people can experiment and distribute their work for free, or very cheap, and become famous through their idea, rather than through having financial backing. I see the value of working below the radar because I believe all things float to the surface eventually. And so I reinterpret the media through my work."

Here's a recent interview with Vicki in which she further expounds upon these themes, her source material, the Story Without End DVD, and other aspects of her very inspiring career.

Finally, here's one of my favorite People Like Us MP3s, originally from the All Together Now CD. (Download the whole album, and lots more great PLU sounds in WFMU's Free Music Archive).

People Like Us - Green, Green Grass [MP3]

Related links:

PLU Homepage | Do or DIY on WFMU | Buy PLU Music and DVD

Image/Song Incrongruity of the Week

Seen: John Tormey in Ghost Dog, 1999. Jim Jarmusch, director.
Heard: "Transform" by Luke Hess. Lou Z., DJ.