I can still remember hearing this song for the first time, years ago, the first time I’d heard anything by Camille; the sense of discovery, of creativity unrestrained by good taste (The various vomiting noises as the song really kicks in), of having no idea what was being said, and just of falling in love with the noise of it all. I was smitten immediately by the way it sounded so unlike everything else I was listening to at the time, and so complete in and of itself. There were worlds within this song, an identity coherent and personal, and I had to know more. Can you blame me?
Recently Read, Prose (9/17/12)
The plus of the quasi-vacations I’ve just had: A chance to catch up on reading (The Star Trek: New Frontier book, you’ll be unsurprised to know, was the book I read at home on the Monday I worked between trips to Washington and Southern Oregon. Decompression books are decompression books, dear reader). The much-discussed Walter Isaacson Steve Jobs book was a disappointment, in that it skipped over a lot of what I wanted to read about – His wilderness years – and made me almost immeasurably dislike Jobs even as the author fell in love with him, and the Jonathan Carroll collection of short stories that I’d been waiting so long to read also felt unsatisfying, in part because there’s such a similarity in themes and ideas that his words quickly become repetitious and dull, which should never be the case.
That Rick Bowers book about the Adventures of Superman radio show taking on the KKK, though. It’s a very quick read, but for some reason, it’s stuck in my head as something to use as a model for future projects. I just need to work out how.
Do The Romp
As you might suspect, vacation has kicked my ass. Or, rather, trying to get back into things after vacation, considering the amount of work I had to juggle today to catch up and meet deadlines and the like (We only got back into town last night). Expect a weekend of trying to more calmly get my equilibrium, and then some catching up next week, I think. Sorry for the continued radio silence…
“THIS Is The Place!”
“If You See A Man, Flash”
Look At How Sad That Fourth House Is
“This Isn’t Supposed To Happen!”
“I’ll Let YOU Figger Out The Reasons…!”
Nobody ever asks, but I’m pretty sure that my favorite Marvel Comics character is Ben Grimm, AKA The Thing from Fantastic Four. He’s got the tragic scenario, the faux-gruffness, the New York accent and the visual hook, as well as The Catchphrase; he’s pretty much everything I like about Marvel Comics in one package. Quite why Ben Grimm isn’t everyone’s favorite Marvel Comics character is beyond me.
366 Songs 254: Married With Children
From back before Oasis were Oasis, the final track to their first album, and the first sign, perhaps, that Noel Gallagher had more to offer than just Status Quo Meets The Beatles in his bag of tricks. The sense of humor at play in the lyrics (Yes, that refrain really is “Your music’s shite/It keeps me up all night/Up all night”) against the gentle instrumentation made this the first Oasis song to actually win me over way back when, along with a bridge that swooned far too close to the sun of sentimental softness – “And it will be nice to be alone/For a week or two/But I know then I will be right/Right back here with you” – making the whole thing into a song that undercut the band’s own carefully cultivated thug exterior.
No wonder Noel kept it in the setlist for decades afterwards (I love the organ in the final version below):
366 Songs 253: Tattva
It’s always fascinated me that “Tattva” was the song that broke Kula Shaker into the mainstream in the UK, if only because there’s not really a song there; it’s a chant with a guitar riff behind it, alternating with a simple verse with instrumentation lifted from “I Am The Walrus,” with only a guitar solo and bridge to break it out of the repetition (The single had an earlier version of the song on it, with the bridge absent; apparently it was added at the suggestion of producer John Leckie). That bridge is easily my favorite part of the song, as simple as it is; it starts at 2:31, and keeps up the glossy George Harrison retread aspect of the song while somehow adding a (tiny little) bit of extra depth, or at least variety. But, really; there’s nothing to “Tattva,” which makes it especially surprising that this song made the band into a success in the UK. Perhaps we were all ready for a modern George Harrison to listen to in between Oasis’ stabs at being both the modern Paul McCartney and John Lennon.