Here. It’s an old post from the Hole message board, where Courtney talks about going through Polly Harvey’s luggage backstage at a U2 show in 2001. My favorite line: “I mean, I have like racks and racks and shit everywhere and feathers and sequins and the blood of virgins, etc. etc., and here’s PJ with one tidy-assed bag and I felt very confused.” I also dig how she self-identifies as “a galumph.”
My friend Laura sent me a bucket of pre-Dirt of Luck demos by Helium, after me sending me an mp3 of my sweet long-lost “American Jean.” Right now they feel like my favorite Mary Timony-authored songs in the world, and I can’t believe I made it to 2011 without ever coming across them. I’m too lazy to share them all, but here are four of my favorites. I love how almost all of them sound like if you went to a coffeehouse in 1993 and the featured coffeehouse performer was this really chill genius-weirdo who sang some wicked sexy poetry.
I don’t know the titles, so I made them up based on the lyrics within.
“Randy”
Guns and cars and guns and cars and guns and cars and guns and cars…sigh. Randy.
“Your Face Is On Your Body”
This is not coffeehouse-y; it’s all hot and snarly. I so identify with the lyric “I’d love to get to the point that I could call you ‘cutie pie’/You could call me anymore.” And that growling thing she does right after that line? I was gonna say it’s so Jennifer Herrema-y or Courtney Love-y but it’s not: it’s Timony-y.
“Your Head Is Prettier Than A Little Bird”
I’m really into this naming-the-location-of-body-parts thing that’s a lyrical motif throughout these demos: “Your head is on your body,” “Your mouth is in your head,” “Your teeth are in your mouth,” “Your eyes are on your face,” etc. Also I dig her end-of-song humming.
“Your Soul Is A Gun”
The way she sings the word “wallet” at 2:07 is so non-annoyingly adorable; it just kills me. And I’m like, “No, Mary, your soul is a superhero.” It’s so true.
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I also love the one where Mary sings “Your heart is an orange and your head is the peel,” and the one with the line about “a handful of bones and a hibiscus bouquet.” You can find some of the songs here, btw.
Go here and get “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (6/11/11) – Cinespia Set Pt. 2.” It’s an mp3 of the last 19-something minutes of DJ Carlos Niño’s set from the Hollywood Forever screening of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre last Saturday; it’s got “Sexy Sadie” by The Beatles and “See Emily Play” by Pink Floyd and some version of “Don’t Think Twice It’s All Right” that I can’t identify. I think the first song is by Neu!, but maybe it’s not (in which case, totally disregard the mention of krautrock in the headline for this post). And I thought it also had “Memory of Free Festival” by David Bowie, which is why I picked that David pic, but apparently that’s on part one. So download part one, too! Everything’s really beautiful. I can’t wait till I’m done with the hellish workday and can finally retire to my bedroom with a Thai Tea popsicle and burn some Nag Champa incense and play parts one and two and just vibe out.
P.S. At the screening there was a Q & A with Werner Herzog afterward and at one point he told us, “My wife is here and she will testify that I am a fluffy husband.” Adorbs!!
Boris is such a strange, weird, truly interesting band! They can be “heavy” and “sludgy” and super ferocious metal, but they have moments where they are also adorably psychedelic, poppy and even pretty. They are hard to describe and difficult to keep up with, since they release about a million limited edition records on hard-to-obtain labels, and Lord knows I cannot keep track. I used to let my ex keep track of Boris, and I’d keep track of the Fall, and together we were like rock nerds in love, with each other and with scarily prolific bands. Now I just pop in on Boris now and then like a crazy uncle and then feel overwhelmed at how much I’ve missed! But it’s worth it, because I truly think there is “something for everyone” when it comes to Boris: a million different ways to join the Boris cult, because they have a kind of musical restlessness in their experimentalism that makes them often more accessible than you would think from a band that collaborates with the likes of Sunn 0))) and Merzbow. For a band that people get scared of because they are “avant,” they actually make lots of their fans incredibly, glowingly happy.
Now there are two new avenues in Borisland, since Boris just released two new records today. One is Attention Please, featuring the wispy vocals of one of my favorite guitarists ever, Wata, who has rarely done a lead vocal until now, content to shred away at her guitar. (Watching Wata play guitar is one of the supreme musical pleasures of life; she always plays perfectly calm and serene, even though her guitar is making your ears bleed with joy and rapture.) She pretty much helms Attention Please and it is great: there’s plenty of perfectly gauzy pop songs that sound like they’d be at home on a 4AD record, some interesting electropop excursions and a dance-metal stomper that would probably make Lady Gaga cream her panties with envy, judging from all the metalisms on Born This Way. It’s actually as if Boris decided to do their “90s college rock” record with Attention Please, and I really dig it: it’s the one that’ll play at a very hip high school girls’ slumber party.
This is actually my favorite song off Attention Please; it is kind of glam and drone-y but dance-y in a very “stoned on cough medicine” way:
Boris, “Tokyo Wonder Land”
The other record they’re coming out with now is Heavy Rocks (not to be confused with the Heavy Rocks that came out in, oh, 2002.) This is what I call the “ex-boyfriend” record, because it’s loud and heavy and aforementioned ex would love it. My favorite track on it is “Riot Sugar,” which is the best title of a song ever. (If I started making zines now, I would totally gank it for my title.) It also features Ian Astbury of The Cult on backing vocals, who collaborated with Boris before and who I am now utterly regretting not putting down as a Style Icon this year. It is sludgy and heavy and drone-y: in other words, what most people [dudes] would like Boris to be. But it’s pretty glorious, so I don’t mind. In terms of the louder, more boisterous parts of Boris’ discography, I think Smile and Pink are probably superior, but it’s still dope.
“Riot Sugar”!
Boris, “Riot Sugar”
To further add to the confusion, Boris is also releasing two more Japanese-only records this spring, another collaboration with noise god of might Merzbow, called Klatter, as well as New Album, which apparently mixes songs from Heavy Rocks and Attention Please with new stuff? Man, it’s so frustrating being a Boris fan. But whatever you do, don’t miss Boris live! Never will such loud music fill you with joy!
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PS – Small business peeps, artisans, passionate hobbyists, Etsy sellers: you may want to stop by my personal bloggish today because there is something there you may be into, esp. if you are looking to build a small business.
I went last night; it was absolutely the best $25 I’ve ever spent in my entire life: “Take Me With U,” “Nothing Compares 2 U,” “Controversy,” “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” “When Doves Cry,” and like 87 other songs ’cause he was onstage for maybe three hours. It was such a tease when he played the first few notes of “Darling Nikki” and then stopped – but that’s all right! My head fell off when Sheila E. came out and played “Glamorous Life,” and I got all teary-ecstatic when he did “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough” as part of a medley. And it was so cool when they let a bunch of people from the audience come up onstage and dance at the end, and there was Susan Sarandon, dancing adorably. There is purple confetti in my bag; I like it so much.
Here are some pix my friend Alisa and I took with our phones:
I dunno how many shows are left of the 21-night residency, but I guess this is where you get tickets as they become available. DO IT AND YOU WILL BE SO HAPPY!!!!!
When I was a little kid, I really thought Belinda Carlisle was the height of chic. Of course, I didn’t really know what the “height of chic” really meant, and if I had any ideas for chic as a kid, it probably involved a new shaker sweater for back-to-school and this weird quasi-crop top with newspaper print and splashes of florescent pink. (It was the 80s, of course.)
Back then, of course, I didn’t connect Belinda with the Go-Gos, which is kind of a big fat duh now. But the Go-Gos were before my time! I was just a kid! Go-Gos were for my babysitter! Now I love the Go-Gos and think they are fabulous.
But I remember having a distinct thought that Belinda Carlisle looked cool in the “Mad About You” video. Outside Madonna’s black rubber bracelets and lacy headbands, I really dug Belinda’s look at that point in the 80s. She was kind of responsible for chopping my hair in a bob when I was young. I still think her bob is pretty rad, even if I haven’t had hair above my shoulders since I was 14.
Now when I see the “Mad About You” video, I appreciate its simple basic Frenchiness*, but Frenchiness transposed into a very Cali, beachy setting. She’s wearing black turtlenecks on the beach! How strange and wonderful is that?
If I ever move to L.A., I want to live in a house with lots of windows. I will also cavort with a lover wearing a black bra and cardigan around my house. This too was my ideal of grown-up love as a child. If you can’t cavort in your bra with someone, they aren’t meant to be your lover.
Of course, I really loved the song. It’s such a good song, so gloriously optimistic and sun-soaked about love. It’s how love should feel!
Besides “Mad About You,” I’ve been listening to Heaven on Earth lately. I never was into the videos for that record. (“Heaven is a Place on Earth!” Directed by Diane Keaton! So weird! Is she like a closet moonbeam Goth?) But “Circle in the Sand” is also a justifiably incredible song, all moody and almost Shangri-Las-ish.
She’s wearing black on the beach again! But it’s not as good, because now her hair is long and auburn. I miss the bob already.
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** Strangely, Belinda’s aesthetic isn’t that different from the Terence Trent D’Arby video I dug way back in the day. That chick was like my non plus ultra of low-key hotness.
If you have a yen for brainy, sexy French indie pop by girls, you really must buy The Konki Duet‘s beautiful new record, Let’s Bonappetons, off iTunesmaintenant! You will not regret it; it is just so wonderful. You must give them a listen if you like these bands: Helium, Stereolab, Blonde Redhead. But they are their own lovely thing: wry, witty, naughty, sly, smart, inventive and very, very pretty. They have an elegant, melancholy side, but also a very fun, joyful one as well: emotional versatility! Zoe from Konki Duet (which is, charmingly, actually a trio) has been a friend for ages, since my zine days and my first website ever, and I have always felt so lucky and happy when she puts out a new record. I bought/own them all! In multiple formats! She’s a genius. I think Let’s Bonappetons is my favorite record yet. You can watch their video for “Planète Sauvage” here, especially if you are into very sexy Jaguars, but these are my favorite tracks on the record, because I love you all so.
“These Days”
“Kenjamin” (yes, that’s a bit from an M.I.A. song in there!)
Once I got to use their songs in a hand-painted film I did years ago and their music totally made it work:
I told you they were beautiful! Now get your hot mittens on their music!
The words “PJ Harvey” and “adorable” aren’t conjoined often in a sentence, but I am going to put a stop to that nonsense right now. Because I love her little boop-a-doop expressions and bouncing as she sings and claps in this video for “The Colour of the Earth,” which is off Let England Shake. It’s just one of a series of videos shot by photojournalist Seamus Murphy for the album, all of which are beautiful and engaging — although I would not call the videos “adorable” either, come to think of it.
Also: she’s wearing Ann Demeulemeester! I bet Polly’s a secret fashionista, don’t you think?
I actually was not a massive Marnie Stern fan for awhile, even though I always super-respected her as a guitarist and all-around rock lady. I was kind of like, “Her music! There’s no space for me to think! Too frenetic!” It’s kind of like me and Rush — you know why people like it and can perfectly see how it’s awesome, but it doesn’t quite call to you. Which was kind of weird in some way, because I adored her album covers to crazy pieces:
I kept thinking, I have to bridge the gap between my adoration of her cover art and my slightly distant admiration of her music! Someone with such rad and beautiful covers MUST be a cool chick to hang with! But it was like one of those things you resist because you feel like you should like it, and you hate that sense of obligation, so you begrudgingly like it — but it’s not the same as truly loving it with all your heart. It’s admiration, which is such a different beast than liking.
But here’s the funny thing — I think she and I temped at the same place for a few weeks in the late 90s. (Please someone remind me I need to write some stories about temping in the late 90s in NYC — what a strange, eccentric world that was.) If she’s who I remembered, she was a quiet, head-to-the-ground person who kept to herself. Actually, nearly every other temp was a quiet, head-to-the-ground type who kept to themselves, so maybe I was imagining things. We all were kind of quiet and solitary, like we were just trying to get through the eight hours and make it through to our “real lives.” But if I had known that she was on her way to becoming a guitar genius, maybe I would’ve sought her out. But probably not, because I was just keeping my head down, too. (Egads, memories of coked-up hedge fund managers!) Maybe that’s why even possibly somewhat sharing proximity during a certain point in the time-space continuum still didn’t bridge the gap between admiration and full-on like.
Then I read the interview with her in the May issue of Elle* and then I listened to the record she came out with last fall and now I really kind of adore her. I love that she’s so open and honest about her life and insecurities, almost to the “so open it kinda makes you wince” point. I love that she picked up the guitar relatively late in life and just decided to go for it and be a rock star and now she’d a hella amazing shredder. I love that she went to the Met Museum once a week and discussed books with her best friend in a self-education project she called “Mad as Hell.” I love that some cocksmoker called her a “desperate old bitch” and she cheekily turned it into a t-shirt. She seems like we could hang out and dish and bitch about dating younger guys and talk shop and trade dirty jokes. And now her music sounds giddy and chatty and energetic and fun, which is kind of the best thing of all.
(I also found out from other interviews that she was trying to collabo with Mary Timony a few years ago on something, which would’ve been all kinds of amazing. Whatever happened to that? Please revive that and make it happen!)
So Marnie, if you’re reading this and you ever temped down at the World Trade Center before 9/11 — awesome to see someone make it out of the office temp gulag. Let’s hang out and bitch about dating younger dudes sometime! You’re the best. I like you very much!
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* This interview = awesome also because Slim Moon calls out Pitchfork for their sexist record review coverage! Here’s what he said: “‘Pitchfork is a powerful filter in the genre that she’s working in — it’s been really great for indie rock, and in many ways they have really great taste,’ he says carefully. ‘But they’ll anoint any old ugly dude as a genius for his musical creativity. The only women who seem to get an 8.5 or higher [out of a 10-point rating] are always of a certain type — usually petite and young with a hairdo.’”
Last night I went to see TV On The Radio’s Nine Types of Light, which is both a movie and an album – meaning, TV On The Radio took all their songs on the new record and made them into mini-movies that together form one big movie, and it’s a beautiful movie and will make you cry. You should save it till you’re home and in the dark, with a nice candle burning. But now’s as good a time as any to watch my almost-favorite Nine Types of Light movie, called “No Future Shock.” First it’s a dance contest and then halfway through they all go out for some really gooey-looking cupcakes, and then it’s a dance riot. A dance riot with riots of color, and it’s so sexy and crazy and life-affirming. These are some screencaps that I love:
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