SOUNDTRACK: RHEOSTATICS-Babylon, Ottawa, ON (July 15, 2005).
Continuing their summer run, the Rheos returned to Ottawa for this show. The recording is a bit muddy and kind of low. But the crowd is really into it, shouting out requests all through the set (which seem especially loud, given the recording). One guy wants to hear “Queer” really badly (and he gets to).
Perhaps it’s the recording, but the usually angry sounding “Marginalized” feels a but muted here. On the plus side, during the short drum break in “I Dig Music” MPW is able to get the “Lakeside Park” fill in perfectly.
I learned that “Night of the Shooting Stars” is an actual Italian holiday (known as The Night of San Lorenzo).
This is the first time I’ve heard them play “”Try To Praise This Mutilated World” which is based on the poem by Adam Zagajewski. Th recording has a poem within the song (“The Expected” by Ken Babstock) read here by Andy Creeggan.
After this, the band loosens up some. They start “Four Little Songs” and then invite two guys from the mailing list who came all the way from NYC up on stage. Rather than making up a little song, the guys sing “Legal Age Life” (and quite well). The song resumes with one little song and throw in a bit of The Doors’ “The End.” And they follow that with “P.I.N.” which has a bit of “My Humps” in it!
There was another guy who was calling for “Satan is the Whistler” all night. And when they finally played it, it was outstanding. Then the crowd cheers for “Shaved Head” and they absolutely kill on that one too–I wish the recording quality was a little better because the show is great.
[READ: September 7, 2015] “Prends Donc Courage”
This story bugged me right from the get go.
It seemed like the author was trying to write a story about a defiantly nontraditional group. There’s a washed up former TV star, there’s a guy with a phantom limb, a guy who is collecting pinball machines, and they are all more or less destitute.
And that can be interesting, but I felt like the story was pushing me away the more I tried to read it.
The main character is a guy named Blue. He is the former TV star. His friend Mitchum is amassing old pinball machines in a garage that is dilapidated (so how did he gets these expensive machines?). The “arcade” is to be called Sick Bay (in honor of Blue’s act–although that’s not really explained).
Blue doesn’t speak, and hasn’t spoken for some time–mostly he’s afraid to find out that his voice doesn’t work anymore.
Blue is of indeterminate age although he is riding a youth-size dirt bike. We learn that he had sex with five different women when he was fifteen, but hasn’t at all since. Finally we find out that he was on TV “a lot. His face would be lousy with ultramarine glitter, and he would always have a tuna-shaped flask in the pocket of his dress shirt.” Which doesn’t really clarify anything.
Mitchum jumps in to say he is planning a comeback for Blue–and the others in the room are invited too. Then he unveils Monster Bash, the game that started his downfall. When Blue sidles up to the machine, he starts playing like the pinball wizard of yore.
Okay so here’s a few things that I did not like about the story. I could not tell when it was set–past or distant future? Are pinball machines current or archaic? Is this even meant to be a real time? Or are they all delusional? The other weird thing was that Blue apparently played his pinball machine during a super bowl halftime show. Which is preposterous. And the biggest most unbelievable thing was this: “Mitchum snatches the transistor radio from the teenagers and turns the dial until prog rock inspirits the tiny speaker.” Where in the world, when in the world would you be able to turn on a radio and hear prog rock?
So yea, I just found this story weird and unlikable, deliberately obfuscating. I also didn’t understand the title at all, although in the story it is revealed that Cleoma Falcon sang a song with that title. Which I have put below. But since I don’t speak French, I really can’t connected the threads of this.
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