SOUNDTRACK: MOON HOOCH-“Bari 3” (2014).
Man, I love Moon Hooch–that loud crazy baritone sax and the other skronky sax. But there’s also the great drumming. And, in this song, there’s so many stops and starts, it’s amazing they can do so much with just 2 different types of instrument.
Just how many different things can one band do with two saxophones and a drummer? Well, in the case of Moon Hooch, the answer seems to be limitless. This song jumps and twists–it has a heavy loud section and a smooth groovy section, it even has a loud thunderous section. Between Colin Stetson and Moon Hooch, the saxophone is definitely cool again.
And why not watch Moon Hooch play this song at a scenic rest stop on a Pennsylvania highway:
[READ: June 10, 2014] “Balfour and Meriwether in The Adventure of the Emperor’s Vengeance”
After having read the other two Balfour and Meriwether stories, it seemed only natural to track down the first of the stories. And it happened to be collected in this Steampunk anthology. I didn’t read anything else in the anthology even though I like steampunk, mostly because I didn’t have time.
This story opens, as the others do with Balfour and Meriwether sitting at home by the fire. Then Lord Carmichael bursts in with news. This means Balfour and Meriwhether know it is time to save Queen and country.
In this case, the crisis involves Napoleon and some old plundered Egyptian goods. This proves to be a similar premise as Tales from the Clockwork Empire and I have no idea if Napoleon’s plundering of Egyptian artifacts led to any clockwork machinery for real or not–I may have to look that up. But this story ups the ante by having a Jewish conspiracy as well.
The British museum has several Egyptian artifacts (taken from Napoleon’s army), but it is believed that Napoleon’s men included false items with the loot in order to discredit anyone who thinks that all of the items are real. One such falsity was believed to be a sarcophagus. Lord Abington (the anti-Semite) wants that sarcophagus opened while no one else around. But when he opened it the others in the next room heard a scream, a thud and then silence. Meriwther and Balfour speculate about what was in there–perhaps it was plague and the whole museum may need to be razed. This freaks out Lord Carmichael, naturally. (more…)
SOUNDTRACK: SONIC YOUTH-Washing Machine (1995).
After the short blasts and diverse collection fo songs on Experimental Jet Set Trash and No Star, Washing Machine sounds like almost a different band. For although there are a few shorter pieces here, they also give us the 9 minute title track and the, brace yourself, almost 20 minute “The Diamond Sea.”
SOUNDTRACK: PEARL JAM-Vitalogy (1994).
I always think of this as the “weird” Pearl Jam disc. Mostly that’s because the contents are certainly weird (in that it’s made up like an old book, including excerpts from the book in the liner notes). But also because it has some of Pearl Jam’s strangest songs on it, especially “Hey Foxymophandlemama, That’s Me,” easily one of the weirdest songs in their canon, and possibly the weirdest song on a major label. It’s 7 minutes of samples and scratchy guitars. And it’s more than a little creepy. The disc also contains “Bugs” an accordion-based rant about, well, bugs. and “Aye Davanita” a sort of Eastern chanting type piece.
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.
I Just Read About That... 