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Current Music: Pylon, "Read A Book"

I like forms and forms like me

I am not surprised that I had never heard of Pylon before tonight. I am also not surprised that I love them. They are spiky and spare and apophatic—the musical equivalent of Ceci n'est pas une pipe, only headbangingly danceable. Their catchiest songs are anti-anthems. This after I spent much of today plying

asakiyume with mythic folk. Maybe it's the same angle of my brain that really likes Pierrot Lunaire.

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It's good to have broad musical tastes--it's the equivalent of having many routes to walk to your destination; then the kidnappers never know where to find you.

(Just think; the kidnappers will *never* be able to guess what concert you're at, at any given moment.)

It's good to have broad musical tastes--it's the equivalent of having many routes to walk to your destination; then the kidnappers never know where to find you.

Hitting shuffle on my iTunes gives me: three musicals ("Where's My Shoe?", She Loves Me; "The Ladies Who Lunch," Camp; "Pretty Women," Sweeney Todd), one oratorio ("O Grosse Lieb," Johannespassionen), three different species of folk music (Pete Seeger, "Jam on Jerry's Rocks"; Déanta, "Ready for the Storm"; The Watersons, "Pace-Egging Song"), three kinds of punk or alternative (The Pixies, "Debaser"; Division of Laura Lee, "Does Compute"; The Dresden Dolls, "Girl Anachronism"), some psychedelic rock (Jefferson Airplane, "How Do You Feel?"), some comedic folk (The Arrogant Worms, "Johnny Came Home Headless"), some unclassifiable performance music (Cirque du Soleil, "En Ville"), and a circa-1918 music-hall number (Courtland and Jeffries, "Oh! It's A Lovely War"). I suppose this makes as much sense as anything.

I need to get more classical on my computer. I crave it sometimes, and I have very little.

Yes you are a Katamari of music, absorbing all, and that's brilliant.

I need to get more classical on my computer. I crave it sometimes, and I have very little.

I think most of mine on my computer is Britten, Menotti, Puccini, Offenbach, and Weill, with occasionally outcroppings of Shostakovich, Bach, and Saint-Saëns. Carl Orff, Carlisle Floyd. I suppose there's nowhere else to file P.D.Q. Bach and Anna Russell. If I ever transferred my entire CD collection to iTunes, I think Macintosh would hate me for the rest of its life.

Yes you are a Katamari of music, absorbing all, and that's brilliant.

I like to think I don't listen to anything that sucks . . .

Now I'm reminded of the Peter Schickele quote from the start of each of his "Schickele Mix" shows (I guess originally from Duke Ellington), "if it sounds good, it is good."

My only familiarity with the plot of the Ring of the Nibelungs is from Anna Russell :-) (incidentally, if you're unsure how to spell "Nibelungs"--which you would not be, but I was--and simply type "Ring of the," minus even the quotation marks, into Google, it comes right up. Oh Internetz, I love you.)

My only familiarity with the plot of the Ring of the Nibelungs is from Anna Russell

Yay.

You should then appreciate, if you have not already heard it, her "Backwards with the Folk Song."

Hey, libido, bats in the belfry
Jolly old Sigmund Freud!

Pylon as in the eighties band from Athens, GA?

Pylon as in the eighties band from Athens, GA?

The very same. The internet is infinite, it contains multitudes; so I spent several hours last night listening to Gyrate Plus.

Man, there's a name I haven't heard in twenty years! We used to play 'em all the time on my radio show junior year. And, yeah, it does make sense you'd like them. We used to play Mission of Burma all the time, too... I let my co-host run the programming on that one. (I was already into the weird stuff, I usually did late night shows, but they'd stuck me at 4-6 on a Friday, so we were suppoed to be, uh normal). He found some great, great alternarock I still remember quite fondly. The Popes! They never got signed, which sucks, but we hyped 'em so much. Scruffy the Cat. The Wonderstuff. And, of course, all the bands we were all in love with simply by being children of the era-- The Judy's, Jane's Addiction, REM, the first couple of Coil albums...

We used to play 'em all the time on my radio show junior year.

You ran a college rock station? You win.

(I was already into the weird stuff, I usually did late night shows, but they'd stuck me at 4-6 on a Friday, so we were suppoed to be, uh normal).

You win again for being the first person I know to describe Mission of Burma as "normal."

The Popes! They never got signed, which sucks, but we hyped 'em so much.

So I should not feel bad for having never heard of them . . . Speak to me of the Popes!

You ran a college rock station? You win.

Good lord, no, I was just a DJ. No one with any brains would have let me near the head spot.

You win again for being the first person I know to describe Mission of Burma as "normal."

Well, my normal listening at the time was early industrial (Skinny Puppy, Einsturzende Neubauten, etc.) and obscure foreign death metal bands (Celtic Frost, Voivod, etc.), so something with actual drums and guitars and intelligible vocals that you could actually play on the radio at 4PM? Yeah, normal.

So I should not feel bad for having never heard of them . . . Speak to me of the Popes!

Very mainstream-sounding college rock band from, if I recall correctly, Asheville, NC. Definitely somewhere in North Carolina. They had a Scruffy the Cat vibe, but with a cleaner sound and a much poppier lead singer; think Paul Westerberg when he was sober, but with a fuller and slightly higher voice. We were convinced "Marilyn" would be the song that would get them signed, but nothing ever came of it... and I haven't seen a copy of their (as far as I know) sole EP in twenty years. I'd sacrifice small animals on the hood of my car to find it again.

But you win if, if I am inferring correctly, you have heard of The Judy's.

No one with any brains would have let me near the head spot.

I would totally have tuned in . . .

so something with actual drums and guitars and intelligible vocals that you could actually play on the radio at 4PM?

Yeah, okay. There may be vertebrae-jolting syncopation and a complete disregard for the concept of a stable time signature, but you can go home humming it. (Or at least I do. My soundtrack for half the summer was "Peking Spring" and "Nancy Reagan's Head.")

But you win if, if I am inferring correctly, you have heard of The Judy's.

Only heard of so far, I'm afraid. But, yes.

but you can go home humming it. (Or at least I do. My soundtrack for half the summer was "Peking Spring" and "Nancy Reagan's Head.")

Oh, "Forget" just begs for a sing-along. I don't know how many times we played that thing, but I'm sure the whole campus was sick of it.

Only heard of so far, I'm afraid. But, yes.

There was a recent release called The Collection of everything they ever did, so I don't have to tell you to go searching high and low for their first EP, which is just more wonderful than words (and was very hard to find for a very long time). But it's definitely worth picking up ASAP. I get the feeling David Bean's sense of humor will be just as much up your alley as it is mine.

Oh, "Forget" just begs for a sing-along. I don't know how many times we played that thing, but I'm sure the whole campus was sick of it.

You really rock.

(Also, you were not alone: "The electro-acoustic version (on TAANG!) became a minor radio tape hit for us on WMBR in 1981.")

But it's definitely worth picking up ASAP. I get the feeling David Bean's sense of humor will be just as much up your alley as it is mine.

Wonderful; now I'm curious . . . Thanks!

Gracious. Cleo Laine's album of those songs (at least some of them) is the one of hers that I won't listen to because it creeps me out so much. I had no idea where it came from, though. Thanks for educating me!

Oops--I should have said, her album of Pierrot Lunaire songs.

Cleo Laine's album of those songs (at least some of them) is the one of hers that I won't listen to because it creeps me out so much.

I do not know Cleo Laine; is she a classical singer?

(I love Pierrot Lunaire. It is eerie and that is one of its main attractions.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleo_Laine She's mostly jazz/big band, with a huge range. I grew up on her, so to speak. She and John Dankworth are still performing. You can get some of her stuff on iTunes.

Hmm. I wonder if my parents still have that LP. It's been years--maybe I should give it a listen with more mature ears.

(I love Pierrot Lunaire. It is eerie and that is one of its main attractions.)

Schonberg is god. Though I must admit, even I cannot listen to Pierrot Lunaire all the way through; I take it in small doses when necessary.

Aren't they great? I saw them live once, years and years ago...

I saw them live once, years and years ago...

Lucky!

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