SOUNDTRACK: THE FLAMING LIPS-Oh My Gawd!!!..The Flaming Lips (1987).
The cover of this disc makes a statement. And it should tell you everything you need to know about the music inside. It’s got skulls and psychedelic colors and Oh My Gawd!!! And yet, it doesn’t, exactly. It’s not quite as out there as the cover might make you think.
Because it’s funny how much this disc’s first song sounds like the Replacements (except where he starts singing about his brains falling out and everything exploding…not quite ‘Mats material). But Wayne sounds like early, sloppy Paul Westerberg, and the riffs are not too far off from some of the early ‘Mats records.
Even the wonderfully titled 9 minute epic “One Million Billionth of a Millisecond on a Sunday Afternoon” isn’t quite as much of a freak out as you might expect. In fact, the early instrumental part is one of the prettiest melodies they’ve done. It is particularly interesting given its sparse instrumentation. The song does eventually drift back into earlier Pink Floyd territory (“Astronomy Domine” etc). But it’s “The Ceiling is Bendin'” that is the freak out you’re looking for, with a fun drum fading and the chaos. “Maximum Dream for Evil Kenevil” on the other hand is a noisy mess (a fun noisy mess, but a noisy mess nonetheless).
It’s clear that they’re doing some good experimentation with audio effects. And yet “Can’t Exist” is a delicate little song with just a light touch of feedback.
The first half of “Prescription: Love” is a rocking instrumental that would not sound out of place as a Nirvana B-side (but since it came before Nirvana, let’s say maybe on an SST Records track. The second half returns to the garage rocking sound (with some funky deep vocals dubbed on…the first of many experiments with voice on future albums).
“Ode to C.C., Pt. 2” feels like it’s going to take of in an explosion but never does. But it has the excellent line “Hell’s got all the good bands anyway.” “Can’t Stop the Spring” is another fantastic riff rocking song, and it starts and end with a classical music sample. [Which I can’t place right now, sadly].
The disc ends with “Love Your Brain,” a 7 minute piano workout –which ultimately ends in the destruction of the room. It sounds like every instrument in the place is destroyed.
So this disc expands the sonic weirdness of the Flaming Lips’ first disc, and it also showcases their growth as musicians. It’s not a brilliant album by any means although it is quite good. The most interesting thing is seeing how much they are experimenting with sounds now, and how it will pay off for them later on.
[READ: Late 2006 & December 2008] Winkie
I read this book two years ago, and my memory of it is not that great. I’m only including it because I really enjoyed it at the time, and would like to make some record of having read it.
UPDATE: I have decided to re-read this book while on P breaks at work. I am now utterly unsure whether or not I read the book fully last time. I have just finished it again, and I was totally surprised by so many things (although one or two things did trigger my memory) that I really had to wonder if I finished it.
So, the story is about a stuffed bear named Winkie. Winkie was a beloved toy of the Chase family and most recently of Clifford Chase [see author’s name now]. As the story opens, Winkie, the stuffed bear, is being tackled by the FBI as they arrest him for terrorist activities. [You can re-read that sentence to see if your brain digested it.] (more…)
I’ve claimed that I love the Lips, but then I was very harsh about their cover of “White Christmas,” and I noted that I wouldn’t listen to the soundtrack of Christmas on Mars very much. So, I felt I owed them some love. But my recollection of their early stuff was that it was pretty weird and hard to listen to.
SOUNDTRACK: FISHBONE-Give a Monkey a Brain and He’ll Swear He’s the Center of the Universe (1993).
I had actually forgotten about this album, because it was so overshadowed by Truth and Soul and Reality….. When I put it on I wasn’t expecting much (Fishbone had something of a precipitous decline around this time). So, I was amazingly delighted with how much I remembered this album and how much I enjoyed it (which shows to me that I must have listened to it a lot back in college).
SOUNDTRACK: SUFJAN STEVENS–Peace! Songs for Christmas Vol. V (2006).
This EP comes very close to being my favorite; it may even beat vol 3. In part because the disc is 35 minutes long (still short for Sufjan Stevens but longer than some bands’ full lengths).
This disc has only one guest on it: Bridgit DeCook. And she adds some very nice harmonies to some of the songs. It also contains only one short (less than a minute) instrumental: “The First Noel” (which is a lot of la las and is really nice)The rest of the disc stays around the 3-4 minute mark, with no long songs.
Disc Three of the Sufjan Christmas collection is my favorite. It returns to the more mellow, folksy style of the first disc (and is replete with banjo!). It opens with some thing of a reprise of “O Come, O Come Emanuel” (only a minute long). It’s piano and vocals and very pretty. It proceeds to his boppingest, Christmas song on the whole set: “Come on, Let’s Boogey to the Elf Dance” with multiple singers and lots of instruments (and a fugue pattern of voices, too). It continues with two traditional songs: “We Three Kings” (possibly the best version I heard all season) and “O Holy Night.” I’ve mentioned that “O Holy Night is one of my favorite Christmas songs, and this version is quite good, with lovely harmonies (from different people listed although, no one credited specifically for the track) and the way it builds to such a full song by the end.
If we imagine that Sufjan had fun with vol. 1 one, then he must have had twice as much fun with vol. 2. It’s nearly twice as long and full of a lot of short ditties. “Angels We Have Heard on High” and “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” are short (less than a minute) instrumental versions (on keyboards which almost sound like a music box) of those songs (something that will become prominent throughout the series). I love his version of “I Saw Three Ships,” the instrumentation is exotic and wonderful.
I haven’t been reviewing the individual Christmas CDs that I listened to. However, since there were a whole bunch of stories in this one New Yorker magazine, (easily the most I’ve read in one issue) and since there are 5 Sufjan Stevens EPs in this collection, it seemed like a good fit.
SOUNDTRACK: FISHBONE-The Reality of My Surroundings (1991).
This was my first real exposure to Fishbone (except for John Cusack wearing the fish skeleton shirt in Say Anything, of course–which, no images available on the web? How is that possible?). At 60 minutes it’s one of the first really long alternative discs to come out. It does run a little long, but there’s so much packed into it that it’s easy to forgive their self indulgences.
SOUNDTRACK: FISHBONE-Set the Booty Upright Bonin’ in the Boneyard single (1990).
I Just Read About That... 