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The White Russians at The Excelsior

It’s exam time. Some days in exam time are great, others are lame. At one point last week I was having a terrible day. And by terrible I mean that I wasn’t revising anything. And I was tired. My brain wasn’t working, and I fell asleep in the middle of the afternoon. A similar occurrence the day before, incidentally, was the reason I was so tired–long afternoon naps and very late nights are not ideal. I woke up during the evening to discover via Twitter that Pinky Beecroft was playing a gig at The Excelsior, for the launch of The White Russians new album. With my brain feeling like mush nothing useful could happen if I stayed in. So I called Crin, who I don’t think ever turns down an invite to a gig. We headed into the city, a touch early to the venue as we needed door tickets. After securing tickets we went for a wander, we both wanted a beer and Crin wanted cake for some reason. We found a muffin at a dodgy convenience store, where the Arab clerk made jokes about it being my birthday cake, and offering to sell us candles as well. Those muffins look like they have been in a deep-freezer somewhere for years.

Crin’s cake-craving sated, we wandered into a kitsch looking pub, where I were promptly pounced on by a lass who wanted to know if I would like, “a free beer to start off my night”. She definitely looked like she was gonna try make me sign up for something though, but after establishing there was no catch I was all heck yes. So she led me over to a machine that had ‘ABM’ (Automatic Beer Machine) on it, and said that if I inserted my ID in the slot, a beer would come out. I found this somewhat astounding, but also quite hilarious, and was trying to figure out how on earth that could work, but she kept talking to me and also wanted to take our photo, which I didn’t really question as by this time the night was turning out to be full of unexpected hilarity. I inserted my ID, and sure enough a beer came out. Unfortunately it was a Pure Blonde. Free is free. But we were still pretty curious, so Crin walked around behind the machine and discovered a man inside it, whose job it was to check IDs, grab a beer out of his Esky, and drop it through the chute. Of course.

Back at the gig I figured I’d buy a copy of the new album at the merch table. Lucky I did, turns out there is no physical release of the album, aside from 200 signed copies sold at gigs only. I got number 5.

Turns out it’s a great album. Very different from the first one, this one is much more mellow. But like the last one, it’s a sensational blend of wit and heart.

They played two full-length sets, back-to-back. The first was an acoustic set, which was made up mainly of material from the new album. The second was a bit louder, and was mostly material from the old album. Like last time I saw them, Pinky was very funny, and the rest of the band just did a good job of looking funny. The last song of the encore was Fabulous Driving, which I enjoyed immensely, and as Pinky went to sing the very last word his voice gave out. he croaked, “Ya gotta be kidding”, and tried again. Could have been faked, but I felt like I had got my money’s worth.

On our way out Crin tried to ask the guest trumpet/harmonica player a question, but he kept squinting funny and didn’t answer the question properly. No idea what was wrong with that kid.

You can buy the album from iTunes. Or you could just buy one of the songs. In fact, go look under the cushions on your couch right now. Now, see that $2 coin? Good, now, buy any one of those songs (I recommend Letter From Ward Five, True Love Lies, You Make Me Nervous, or Roses Under My Feet), they are only $1.70. Okay, now, I have just made you 30 cents richer. Yeah, you can thank me later. Now, listen to the song a few times. Now you know that you want to buy the whole album! Or if you don’t want to buy the whole album that’s okay–we can stop being friends now.

The Difference Between Bono and Nick Cave

The difference between Bono and Nick Cave is that Bono sings love songs that could be about God, while Cave sings songs about God that could be love songs.

I stepped into an avalanche
It covered up my soul
When I am not this hunchback that you see
I sleep beneath the golden hill
You who wish to conquer pain
You must learn to serve me well

- Avalanche, the first song on Cave’s first record, a Leonard Cohen cover, 1984.

I will kneel at your feet
I will lie at your door
I will rock you to sleep
I will roll on the floor
And I’ll ask for nothing
Nothing in this life
I’ll ask for nothing–
Give me everlasting life

- There She Goes My Beautiful World, 2004.

Snap

Some kid in Italy who was sentenced to nine years for murder, has had his sentence reduced after his angry genes were blamed for the crime. Now I’ve got some genes that are probably okay with murder, rape, and pillaging, and definitely fine with at least a good bit of thieving, so if I can blame it all on them now, that’d be tops. +1 Darwin.

Matthew Friedberger’s genes don’t sit well with Radiohead, and are partial to the odd faux pas. He laid into Radiohead, and then tried to pass it off as a joke. “Nah, c’mon guys, I knew that, I made that joke deliberately…” And that’s why we prefer that you keep your mouth shut Matthew, and let Eleanor do the vox.

Meat & Three Veg

Growing up I was fed meat and three veg at least five nights a week. Meat is bothersome to prepare though, so I don’t eat it as much any more. Last Wednesday I had Korean barbecue for lunch, and I ate three plates of meat. On Saturday I could still feel it, and was considering some sort of detoxification. Last night I had pad Thai and went for the vegetables and tofu option, believe it or not. And then later last night I dreamt (that’s two dreams this week, that’s very unusual) that my doctor told me I had to stop eating meat. I was surprisingly sedate at the news.

I do not like where this is headed.

The Death of Bunny Munro & Kornwolf

I pre-ordered Nick Cave’s second novel, The Death of Bunny Munro a little while back. After a first novel like his, one doesn’t need to think twice. Unfortunately The Death of Bunny Munro wasn’t great. It was all Cave, that’s for sure. Any close follower of his could see his humour and style, and traces of other work written all over it. But by the time I finished it I seriously wondered if he hadn’t just deliberately written complete junk as some sort of social experiment to see who would lap it up as if it were genius. The hype was big before the book was released, but it’s been eerily quiet ever since. It’s supposed to be the tragicomic story of Bunny Munro, a sex-crazed door-to-door salesman who, on the death of his wife, takes his son on the road trip of his life. Well, the last road trip of his life. Is it tragic? Almost. It it comic? Almost. Is it pornographic? Very. Is the twist at the end worth it? Well, I’d hardly call it a twist. If one was to study the book, high-school style, there’d be a tonne of material to work with, but that in itself doesn’t make it a good book. It’s disconcertingly easy to read, and it’s definitely ‘a page-turner’, but when all’s done, there’s not much to it.

Kornwolf, on the other hand, is sensational…

“Kornwolf is about Rumspringa, fisticuffs, homecomings, alienation, and AMish whiskey ministers, as seen through the eyes of a young man who finds himself inexplicably waking up in the fields every morning.”

Much like Lord of The Barnyard, it’s a southern-gothic romp. It’s about The Basin, a collection of small towns–Lampeter, Intercourse, Blue Ball, Bird-in-Hand, Laycock, and Paradise (yep, those towns actually exist. You couldn’t make that up), made up of communities of Amish Mennonites and English Redcoats who are suffering harassment from The Blue Ball Devil, a werewolf, the Kornwolf, who for some reason looks a little bit like Richard Nixon. Rural American culture, religio-superstition, terror, slapstick, and wit are piled up as fast as cop-cruisers on Route 30. The end is apparent from the start, but you can’t help but read on for the sheer absurdity of it. Every lunge toward hysteria goes a little further than the last until the whole thing goes beyond the point of no return. It’s faster and easier to read (and therefore there’s much less grinding of the teeth) than Lord of The Barnyard, and it’s also more fantastical–both things I am not particularly partial to, but it’s almost as good anyway.

Ooh Yeah, I Really Like Your Hair

It’s been one year since I last used shampoo in my hair. I must have saved, what… $11 by now? Advantages include the saved money, standing like a zombie in the shower an extra two minutes each morning, and possibly something about the environment. Disadvantages are few. Hair stays cleaner longer, as it doesn’t go oily as a reaction to shampoo. My hair no longer smells like apples, but I’m okay with that.

Why Jay-Z Can’t Preach (Got Some Dirt On My Shoulder, Could You Brush It Off For Me?)

T. David Gordon:

The poet stops and stares at that which most of us merely glance at; he pauses to notice what is humane, significant and important. The poet joins King David in observing that the human is “fearfully and wonderfully made”, and notices, regardless of his theological beliefs, the tragicomic nature of reality surrounded by both God’s judgement and his grace. Whatever else it may be, poetry is not trivial. It may be perverse or twisted, angry or bitter, rebellious or self-centered, heterodox or even blasphemous, but it is not trivial. I am inclined to agree with William Hazlitt, who argued that “all that is worth remembering of life is the poetry of it. Fear is poetry, hope is poetry, love is poetry, hatred is poetry; contempt, jealousy, remorse, admiration, wonder, pity, despair, or madness, all are poetry.” Reading verse rescues us from the mundaneness of life; it permits us to observe again with wonder, and shocks us out of our cynicism and joylessness. After a day in which we have been constantly distracted by electronic devices grasping for our attention, or numbed by a “to-do” list that makes even our PDA sigh with despair, we read Robert Frost’s “Birches”, and we are alive again–alive as humans, alert to beauty, to creation, to play.

A quote-unquote famous rap star, Jay-Z:

Lord forgive him
He got them dark forces in him
But he also got a righteous cause for sinnin’
Them a murder me, so I gotta murder them first
Emergency doctors performin’ procedures
Jesus. I ain’t tryin’ to be facetious
But “Vengeance is mine”, said the Lord
You said it better than all
Leave niggas on deaths door
Breathin’ off respirators
For killin’ my best boy, HATERS
On permanent hiatus as I skate
In the Maybach Benz
Flier than Sanaa Lathan
Pumpin’ Brown Sugar by D’Angelo
In Los Angeles, like an evangelist
I can introduce you to your maker
Bring you closer to nature
Ashes after they cremate you bastards
Hope you been readin’ your Psalms and chapters…

I know it’s old hat in 2009 to listen to bastard pop, but I have been loving the Jaydiohead album an awful lot lately. Radiohead’s infallible ’scapes make the guilty pleasure of listening to Jay-Z mouthing off more than just a passing novelty. The tracks are kept sparse and not overdone, with Thom Yorke’s vocals only featuring twice, obviously on ‘No Karma’, and interestingly on ‘Change Order’ where Jay sings about drugs between Thom’s A couple more for breakfast / A little more for tea / Just to take the edge off. You gotta let yourself go a little, embrace it.

After John, I Want to See Ezekiel

Tremper Longman & Raymond B. Dillard:

Ezekiel is identified as psychic, schizophrenic, epileptic, catatonic, psychotic, or paranoid… perhaps the most notorious example of this sort of approach to the prophet was the Freudian analysis offered by Broome, who concluded that Ezekiel was “a true psychotic” characterised by “a narcissistic-masochistic conflict, with attendant phantasies of castration and unconscious sexual regression” “schizophrenic withdrawal,” and “delusions of persecution and grandeur”.

Ezekiel, Son of Buzi:

“And the hand of the LORD was there upon me; and he said unto me, Arise, go forth into the plain, and I will there talk with thee. Then I arose, and went forth into the plain: and, behold, the glory of the LORD stood there, as the glory which I saw by the river of Chebar: and I fell on my face. Then the spirit entered into me, and set me upon my feet, and spake with me, and said unto me, Go, shut thyself within thine house. But thou, O son of man, behold, they shall put bands upon thee, and shall bind thee with them, and thou shalt not go out among them: And I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, that thou shalt be dumb, and shalt not be to them a reprover: for they are a rebellious house. But when I speak with thee, I will open thy mouth, and thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD…

“Son of man, behold, I am about to take the delight of your eyes away from you at a stroke; yet you shall not mourn or weep, nor shall your tears run down. Sigh, but not aloud; make no mourning for the dead. Bind on your turban, and put your shoes on your feet; do not cover your lips, nor eat the bread of men.” So I spoke to the people in the morning, and at evening my wife died.

Badly Drawn Boy: Silent Sigh