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Archive for the 'listening room' Category
We had to wait till the midnight hour but Glass Rock guitarist Dave Mies delivered a Valentine’s Day treat into the collective inbox of webmanity at 11:59 pm to bless this otherwise worthless Valentine’s Day indeed. As requested, Slowhand followed around a character in Guns N Roses romantic 1992 November Rain video, an apt V.D. song for the romantics who will always believe in love, and a no-brainer to assign Dave, one of the foremost cultural critics of Ancient American musical documents. It’s recommend that you please watch the video after completing the article. Dave?
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November Rain and the short film that accompany it, take nine minutes and twelve seconds to conclude. The loose plot line centers around a stringy hared hillbilly’s marriage to a super hot if not a little vampish girl who dies of no apparent cause. Their short life together is plagued by brief, intense bursts of rain and gale force winds which fuck up not only their wedding reception (causing a deranged asshead to take a headlong dive into what looks like a very pricey cake [6:57 -ed]), but also the unlucky girl’s funeral.
The most gripping character in the saga however, is not the young couple it centers around, but instead their strange and ever present life coach/ spiritual adviser or shaman if you will. He is a leather clad warrior with a strange headdress not unlike a
veil of thick wool woven into tangled ropes which mask his face. This medicine man/ mystic is at the couples side always. In good times, he is cherubic and jolly, perpetually imbibing vapors from his ceremonial spliff (the only evidence of life from behind the twisted mask of fibers shrouding his mysterious face). In times of strife, he fiercely petitions the gods on behalf of the lovers, through a sexually charged ritual of riffage. Back bent, legs spread, he wields his thick phallus whilst grinding his pelvis toward the heavens. It is as if he were fucking the whole of the cosmos, a virile display of his capable and potentially earth rending magic. When his efforts fail to save the girl, he goes into a trance like state. His ritual gyrations seem redoubled and now more menacing than ever. It seems that he has actually passed on to the spirit plane where he is now wreaking havoc on the flesh of the immortals, lancing their soft receptacles with every stroke of his ax, tearing down their dominion over not only the doomed couple, but all of us, with his magical, meaty, pulsating tool. In an otherwise lackluster story of simple people and bad weather, this character is a stand out. His unwavering faith in love and intense carnality save what might otherwise be a pretty unmemorable day.
Thanks, Dave!
Dave Mies, one of the most talented guitar players in contemporary indie post-taste fuck rock, joined us In the Listening Room to take a look at and have a listen to Tom Petty’s video “You Got Lucky.” Let’s see what Dave had to say about what went right and wrong and what the band could have done differently.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers You Got Lucky
Dave Talks Video: Well, the basic storyline of the video goes like this: Petty and co. roll up to an abandoned shack in the desert riding in Mad Max style vehicles. They emerge dressed like cowboys and proceed to strut toward an abandoned tent/ barracks of sorts. On the way, Petty recovers a chrome boom box from the dust and hits “play”, providing the soundtrack to the ensuing action. Inside, the boys find what is at the same time a recording studio, video parlor and television storage unit. The emaciated desperadoes hit the over-sized light switch and the place springs to life. Live Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers footage leap from the TV screens, interspersed with scenes of alien spaceships doing battle. LED lights from various pieces of musical equipment light up; era appropriate video games play themselves, etc. Mike Campbell (Petty’s longtime axeman) finds a hollow bodied guitar right before his rippin’ whammy bar solo occurs, at which time he busts it, in unison with the recorded version now emanating from the aforementioned boom box. At some point, Petty kicks over a Space Invader type game and celebrates its demise by twirling his six-gun. Then they split. Petty keeps the radio and Campbell likewise hangs on to his guitar.
Dave Talks Storyline: Basically, it’s a cautionary tale about chasing greener pastures. Tom’s lady is testing the waters and he’s warning her that his shoes are hard to fill, but if she’s got an itch to scratch…then have at it. At this point his heart is still open, but unlike the Temptations, he is “too proud to beg”.
Dave Talks Connection: Give me a fucking break; there is none. If you had the budget of a pre-music-industry-crash video, you could fuckin’ do anything. With that kind of dough, maybe try something that appeals to both MTV and Animal Planet. For instance, to the tune of whatever crooner rules the day, go in search of the most difficult animal to fuck. I don’t know which one it is for sure (since I never studied exotic animal buggery) [?], but my vote is for the giraffe, and I’m guessing the sex of the animal is inconsequential since nothin’ that size has “small hands.” 
First, get your Rock God in the eagle’s nest of a fire department ladder truck and chase the thing down. Once he makes contact, have him quickly duct tape himself to it’s hind quarters and get this party started right! Taped in, the thing won’t be able to shake him. When the guitar solo concludes three quarters of the way through the song, whatever “genius” rocker is screwing the giraffe will climax and celebrate by tossing his cap like an overjoyed High School graduate, at which point fireworks will explode from the animals mouth like a skinny dragon and set the arid bush ablaze. Then the camera zooms way out to reveal a mushroom cloud penetrating a constellation in the shape of a giant swollen labia. Fin
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Thanks Dave, for stopping by In the Listening Room. You’ve said it all.
Glass Rock Tall Firs Meet Soft Location available at iTunes, Ecstatic Peace, eMusic, and Amazon. Songs about love.
Tall Firs’ guitar player Aaron Mullan returned to In the Listening Room to answer some follow-up questions about Sonic Youth’s Sacred Trickster. We specifically asked Aaron to comment on cassiusitsover (15 hours ago and increasing)’s comment Wow the singer is tall.
Says Aaron: Yeah big tall guy. But you know, although tall guys are all the rage on the mound these days, T is more of a throwback really. He’s not coming at you with just fastball, changeup, curve. He’ll bust out a submarine knuckleball in a 2-0 count just to watch you jump back from the plate. About 1/3 of the time his stuff is going straight at your head or behind your back, or is in the dirt. Not out of malice, he can just get a little wild. If anybody does get on base against him, they can be pretty sure to advance because his pickoff move isn’t so effective and what with all the passed balls there’s just a lot of chaos out there that an alert baserunner can exploit. I wouldn’t put T in with the bases loaded and nobody out. Control issues. Just not the spot for a guy like this. Start him, or use him in long relief.
Aaron (right) accuses T of cheating at guitar
Aaron answered some more In the Listening Room follow-up questions that came directly from our readers via glassrocklife@gmail.com. [We edited out the baseball metaphors -Ed] Thanks for the submissions.
1) Did you produce and/or engineer this record? I think I received co-engineer credit.
2) Is this record overproduced? I’m struggling to think of any record (by any band, ever) I would consider overproduced. Each record is its own thing. I love the Mummies’ ‘Never Been Caught’ and I love McCartney’s ‘Band on the Run’. I mean what, do I think all hardcore should sound like Negative Approach [Tied Down 12 inch is overproduced -Ed] and that the Circle Jerks’ VI sucks because of how it was recorded [it sucks because of the songs -Ed] [Dude! Beat Me Senseless? Patty's Killing Mel? You can borrow my copy if you need to re-evaluate -Aaron] [Oops could have listened to Group Sex five times by now -Ed] [Fuck dude, forgot about All Wound Up and Casualty Vampire, it's been 15 years since I've heard it, -Ed]? I bet some people do think that, huh?
3) We all agree that the Sacred Trickster affected Allen Ginsberg. but who did it affect in the oughts? Or even right now?!? You know, I never even thought about what the heck the sacred trickster was. I guess I figured it was something to do with Coyote the trickster. -Pause while I google- Not finding much. -Pulls book of Native American mythology from shelf- Well, that Coyote sure is up to a lot of funny stuff! Here’s one where he puts all the stars in the sky! Not sure where you’re going with this one, though. Are you looking for Native American influenced counterculture types? The Electric Indian – “Keem-O-Sabe” or is that too mersh? How about Effi Briest covering Jim Pepper’s Newly-Weds song? Love that.
Aaron, if The Electric Indian “Keem-O-Sabe” is too mersh, you need to buy a television immediately and start watching Jersey Shore lest Echo Canyon make you permanently unable to make small talk. And don’t you dare turn it to CSPAN or Jim Leherer. Thanks again Aaron and thanks again to all the readers who submitted questions. For further reading on the Sacred Trickster this book looks pretty good -Hyde uses such examples as Marcel Duchamp, Allen Ginsberg, and Maxine Hong Kingston, vividly illustrating the`trickster consciousness” as a vital component of human imagination–
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In other news, Detroit is printing its own money. Put Kathy on it?
The Guardian wrote up a obituary for Yabby You –Guardian Obit– that is well worth reading. Rest in Peace to many from the creative universe we love who seem to be passing away lately.
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Tall Firs’ guitar player Aaron Mullan recently got at least halfway into the Listening Room to check out the following clip. Specifically we asked Aaron to comment on Ultimate Venom (3 going on 4 days ago)’s comments about Sonic Youth’s Sacred Trickster.
UltimateVenom (3 going on 4 days ago) says: very polished and produced sound, stark contrast to kill yr idols. i prefer the older stuff.
Aaron Mullan says: A snapshot of youthful energy vs. a considered and wise statement. In the abstract I don’t prefer one to the other. It’s like salmon vs. tuna sashimi. Can you really say one is better than the other?
No Aaron, we can’t! And say, if you’re interested in getting your dogs in the Listening Room, drop us a line.
Glass Rock “In the Listening Room” coming soon. Look forward to Mingus-y quotes like these
“The second solo? I don’t think I liked it as much as the first. Not that it matters…My opinion doesn’t matter much. What’s Lee Konitz doing on a record with these guys?…The rhythm section has no guts at all.” -Downbeat Blindfold Test 1960
In the meantime, enjoy a clip of Glass Rock’s “Possession” live in London from Pure Groove. [The obviously no disrespect to Charles Mingus] Mingus says-
“The bass player sure was in tune–I knew that right from the start.”
