it's only rock n roll

Mon, 11 Jun 2007 02:11:04 GMT

20 Bob Dylan icons

More here at honey_icons!

Everything Is an Afterthought

Mon, 23 Apr 2007 13:50:35 GMT

I recently sold my first book. In conjunction, I've established another LiveJournal to report on the project's progress, occasionally provide links about, and writings by, its subject, Paul Nelson (famous for signing the New York Dolls to their first label, and for his Rolling Stone cover story about Warren Zevon's battle with alcoholism), and share snippets of information or parts of interviews that may or may not be covered further in the final product.

The new journal shares the book's working title, Everything Is an Afterthought: The Life and Writings of Paul Nelson. Just follow the link.

Anybody interested in learning more about this brilliant critic, whose own life proved just as mysterious and fascinating as the artists' about whom he wrote, is welcome to join. As well, tracking the process of how a book goes from sale to publication should prove interesting. I'm rather curious about that part myself...

Gone Again by Patti Smith

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 22:15:18 GMT

Ten years ago, in June of 1996 when Gone Again was first released, I had just received word from a friend, the terrific short story writer Alison Baker, of the untimely death of a mutual acquaintance. It had been the second such letter in about as many months. "Sorry to send bad news again," she'd closed. "As we age, you know, this sort of news becomes prevalent. One will come to dread the personal letter." I'd hoped she was wrong then and I today remain hopeful of the same. I love receiving letters -- even if it means suffering the occasional bad news. I've yet to reach the age where each morning I scan the obituaries, like a vulture scouting out carrion, looking for familiar names among the grainy black-and-white faces that have gone the way of all flesh. Instead, I prefer to mark my time on this earth by the friends I've made, the movies I've seen, the books I've read, and, perhaps most of all, the songs I've heard.

The best rock & roll has always been a kind of musical letter-writing -- "song-mail," if you will. Given rock's roots and the social significance it has garnered through the decades, this is not an inappropriate view of the music that has documented my generation and perhaps yours. Always meant to do more than merely fill the space between our ears, rock combines words and music and provides a vehicle by which the artist can report in and say, "This is where I am at this point in my life. This is what I think. This is what I want." Or, like Rutger Hauer's replicant Roy Batty at the end of Blade Runner, making sure his memories aren't lost like tears in the rain: "I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion..."

It had been eight years since Patti Smith last graced us with a letter from home. Before that, Dream of Life, the album she recorded with her husband, ex-MC5 guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith, was the first time we'd heard from her since she dropped out of the rock & roll limelight in 1979. She'd moved to Detroit, married the other Smith the following year, and, by all accounts, had happily become a Midwestern mother of two. And, for the rest of the world at least, stopped making music.

Happiness is brief.
It will not stay.
God batters at its sails.

-- Euripides

Patti Smith's Gone Again is a musical letter of the sort that seldom gets released in the musical marketplace, mainly because it concerns itself with the aforementioned "bad news." Death inhabits the album, raises its impressive lizard-like head throughout, but is held at bay by Smith and her stalwart band of rock & roll argonauts. This may be Smith's show, but it's Death's dance, it's Death (this time, at least) making her sing. To wit:

March, 1989: Robert Mapplethorpe, for whom Smith had been lover and muse, dies a very public AIDS-induced death.

June, 1990: Original Patti Smith Group keyboardist Richard Sohl dies of a heart attack on Long Island. He was 37.

April, 1994: Fred and Patti Smith weep at the news that Kurt Cobain has committed suicide. Old enough to be the Nirvana leader's parents, they adored his music.

November, 1994: Smith's husband Fred dies of a heart attack.

December, 1994: A month later, Smith's beloved brother Todd, in whose face Sid Vicious once smashed a glass, dies of a heart attack.

All things considered, how could Gone Again be about anything but death?

The fine album reunites Smith not only with her two bandmates of old, guitarist Lenny Kaye and drummer Jay Dee Daugherty, but also features Television guitar virtuoso Tom Verlaine, ex-Velvet Underground founding member John Cale (who'd produced Smith's debut album Horses in 1975) on organ, Tony Shanahan on bass, and Smith's sister Kimberly (immortalized in song on that debut album) on mandolin.

The tone of Gone Again tends more toward the stately than the raucous, though the latter certainly finds its moments. There is a transcendent, mantra-like quality to some of the songs; the overall effect meditative. But within the music's self-imposed aural constraints a shitstorm brews, blowing in a full-force gale capable of taking out everything in its wake, as in the wash of droning electric guitar that becomes a tidal wave in the Cobain tribute, "About a Boy."

The title cut is Native American in its rhythms, with Smith coming on like the "crazy and sleepy Comanche" she declared herself to be so many years before in "Babelogue." "Dead to the World" is a folksy, whimsical, Dylan-influenced death dream, proving that she isn't blind to the humor inherent in the subject matter she's grappling with. And, in a nod to Dylan himself, with whom she toured when she returned to the stage in December of 1995, she delivers a ballsy rendition of his angry anthem, "Wicked Messenger."

But best of all there is "Summer Cannibals," the album's first single. With Daugherty's sinew-snapping drumsticks and Kaye's guitar lines shooting like spears around her, Smith erases any notion that eight years have passed since we last heard from her. Like a little girl reciting a jaunty, macabre nursery rhyme, she sings:

and I laid upon the table
another piece of meat
and I opened up my veins to them
and said, "come on, eat"

The anger. The joy. The sense of humor, funny and transcendent. Everything about the song, from her oh-so-perfect pronunciation to her guttural, Linda Blair-way of saying eat, makes it one of her best songs ever.

And if, at the time, the album as a whole struck us as something less than we'd hoped for -- too subdued or contemplative in spots -- perhaps we should have questioned whether it was our own expectations that were out of whack. In Smith's absence, the value of her musical legacy, especially in light of the overdue artistic and commercial vindication of punk rock, had increased many-fold.

Let's face it: If Jesus Christ had come down off the cross, JD Salinger had written another book, and Hillary Clinton had come clean about something going on back then called "Whitewater" -- it still wouldn't have been enough. We Americans, like Smith's own "Summer Cannibals," are insatiable in our wants.

Wed, 02 Aug 2006 20:25:36 GMT

name: my
locale: Que?
favourite bands: clash, culture, chuck berry, chet baker...
and why you like them: because when I hear them I can't sit still
I was really just stopping by to get introduced to new music. If I like chuck berry and elvis, what more do you think I'd like?

Playing with Dolls

Fri, 28 Jul 2006 18:42:16 GMT

In the early Seventies, the New York Dolls were the reigning rock & roll band in New York City, the darlings of David Bowie and the avant-garde intelligentsia, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Smith rolled into one, and America's principal purveyors of such newfound concepts as deliberate musical primitivism and the punk rock of futuristic, haute-couture street children. A cult band, they were passionately loved or hated, and more than a few critics (myself included) saw in them this country's best chance to develop a home-grown Rolling Stones. The Dolls were talented, and, more importantly, they had poisonality! Both of their albums made the charts, but a series of stormy misunderstandings among their record company, their management and themselves eventually extinguished the green light of hope, and the group disbanded... Like all good romantics, they had destroyed everything they touched.

-- Paul Nelson, Rolling Stone, May 18, 1978

The argument could be made that we have the Mormon Church to thank for One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This, the first studio album in 32 years by the New York Dolls. It may not be a particularly good argument, but all the components are there for a not even half-baked conspiracy theory:

As depicted in Greg Whiteley's fine documentary New York Doll, original Dolls bassist Arthur "Killer" Kane, who, following an an act of self-defenestration, had converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was working in the church's Family History Center Library when he discovered that an almost 30-year dream, something he had prayed for again and again, was about to come true: the remaining Dolls (David Johansen and Sylvain Sylvain) wanted to reunite. Not only are his Mormon coworkers and bishop supportive of their friend, whose life of drinking and drugs had gone out the window with him, they help fund the retrieval of his guitar from a local pawnshop so that he can start practicing for the reunion gig. Had they not and had Kane not rejoined the band, and had New York Doll never been made, you could argue that there would not have been the press and acclaim and subsequent momentum to get the Dolls back into the studio, back on the radio, back on TV, and back in the stores.

If New York Doll isn't the best piece of pro-LDS propaganda the Mormon Church has ever had at its behest, it's at least some damn funny and insightful off-the-cuff filmmaking. (Has ever a movie come into being so accidentally?) The movie's wacky elements and plot twists -- a faded, jealous rock star, his bitter wife, a quart of peppermint schnapps, a handy piece of cat furniture, an open kitchen window, and an unexpected demise -- tell a tale of decadence and redemption worthy of Raymond Chandler.

But in the midst of all this craziness there beats a heart, and it's a sweet one. Such as when Kane, "the only living statue in rock & roll" and, in Johansen's words, "the miracle of God's creation," leads the group in prayer before they take the stage for the first time in almost 30 years. Or earlier, back at the library, when Kane explains the responsibilities of being a rock & roll bassist to the two little old ladies with whom he works. Or when he confesses to his Mormon bishop his apprehensions about getting back together with Johansen (who, when he finally arrives in the studio, looks like a haggard Allison Janney).

Which brings us to the Dolls' third album, One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This, which arrived in stores on Tuesday and which, like Bettie Page adorned in leather, is hard and soft at the same time. Lots of ricocheting guitar lines and anthemic pounding housed within four Phil Spectorish walls of sound; middle-aged men acting tough, vamping and posturing while sounding melodic as all hell. A reminder of how rock & roll ought to be. How it used to be.

Combining clever wordplay ("Evolution is so obsolete/Stomp your hands and clap your feet," from the pro-simian/anti-creationist single, "Dance Like a Monkey") and wordy cleverness ("Ain't gonna anthropomorphize ya/Or perversely polymorphousize ya"), Johansen, whose vocalizing and songwriting have both aged magnificently, proves that, despite his Buster Poindexter detour, he remains one of rock's savviest practitioners. He leads the Dolls through a variety of subjects and styles while spewing his trash poetry lyrics ("All light shines in darkness/Where else could it shine?") with his heart on his sleeve and his tongue firmly in cheek -- often at the same time:

Yeah, I've been to the doctor
He said there ain't much he could do
"You've got the human condition
Boy, I feel sorry for you"

Funny is one thing, smart is another; but funny and smart at the same time, that's tough. Ask Woody Allen.

Listening to the new album, I couldn't help but think of critic Paul Nelson, whose words opened this piece and who, back in the early Seventies, was the A&R guy who put his job with Mercury Records on the line when he signed the Dolls to their first record deal ("I knew they were going to have to be a big success or I would lose my job, and I did"). What would Nelson, whose body was found alone in his New York apartment earlier this month, have made of the Dolls' new effort and return to the spotlight? And would he have seen anything of himself in the song "I Ain't Got Nothing"?

This is not how the end should have come
Who could imagine this when I was young?
Where is everybody?
It's not the way I wanted it to be

With One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This, the New York Dolls pick up right where they left off over 30 years ago, as if no time at all has passed. Which begs the question (especially with all the dancing like a monkey going on): shouldn't there have been some kind of evolution musically? If the Dolls remain just as smart and funny as before, and rock just as hard -- if just plain surviving isn't enough -- what have they gained?

Wisdom perhaps?

We all should be so lucky.

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 04:02:26 GMT

your night just got a life.

http://www.thecityishereforyoutouse.com

If you live in Vancouver, you need to check out that link and add yourself to the mailing list. My roommate Nicola is putting together a magazine listing all the rad shit going on in Vancouver. Shows, art openings, house parties, sweet alleys to get trashed in.

This magazine is:
- Free.
- Available online only, as a PDF file.
- Sent Bi-weekly over the email airwaves.
- Called The City Is Here For You To Use.
- Going to slay.

http://www.thecityishereforyoutouse.com

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 17:42:00 GMT

Name: Meg (peace_weasel)
Locale: when I'm in the states, it's Fayetteville, NC or Green Bay, WIS, but I live in Moscow, Russia most of the time.
Favourite bands: mainly Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Queen, Pink Floyd, John Lennon (seperate from the Beatles), Jethro Tull, Rolling Stones, sometimes Abba
Why you like them: I like their styles, but I also like the lyrics.

Friend at will.

Tue, 15 Nov 2005 15:37:47 GMT

name - vanessa macdonald
locale - PEI, Canada
favourite bands - led zeppelin, rolling stones, pink floyd, the grateful dead, the beatles, rod stewart, travelling wilburys, bon jovi, etc.. etc..
and why you like them - because i only feel satsifaction when i listen to their music...

try bein' me.......

Fri, 11 Nov 2005 16:40:47 GMT

anything new happenin' here? i have some suggestions:

1. grande nationals
2. vue
3. richmond sluts
4. hayden-for you mellower folk out there.

anyone have any feedback? awesome!

Sun, 10 Jul 2005 12:38:39 GMT

Click to hear your favorite new band!

Newbie!!!

Thu, 07 Jul 2005 05:49:43 GMT

name: JAcquelyn Pauline

locale: Sacramento CA

favourite bands: LED ZEPPELIN, Pink Floyd, Van Halen, Lynrd Skynrd, Foreigner, Deep Purple, Bad Company, Black Sabbath, The Who, Blue Oyster Cult, Kansas.. etc etc..

and why you like them: Because I love ROCK N ROLL

Tue, 05 Jul 2005 03:44:21 GMT

name: Kevin Morgan
locale: North Fuckin' Carolina
favourite bands: Van Halen, Rush, Opeth, Dream Theatre, The Killers, Pink Floyd, Blue Oyster Cult, The Offspring, Franz Ferdinand, The Stones, RHCP, Tilly and the Wall, Rilo Kiley, Greendays ok I guess, Van Morrison, The Doors, The Beatles, oh hell i like everything
and why you like them: cause music is addictive

Zeppelin

Thu, 16 Jun 2005 19:04:21 GMT

Where I hang out

Tue, 24 May 2005 21:06:52 GMT

Check me out!

what's at BLIM

Fri, 20 May 2005 18:32:25 GMT

Friday, May 20th- 9:00pm

Blim and Jarrett Martineau Presents

'ciel'
- a blissful evening of ambient, dub, and electronic hip-hop, featuring:

damage control - www.LTOS.net/damagecontrol
damage control are an ambient, electronic hip-hop project based in vancouver & brighton (uk) - who work with live efx, vocals, beats, and looping, to create an array of dark textural sonics and mutated hip-hop forms.

blending live instrumentation and laptop madness for their live performances - the blim show will feature guest musicians alison roy on cello and patrick belanger on bass.

souns + little woo - www.kikapu.net
working with delay, loops, mics and other instruments - souns, joined
by the beautiful voice of little woo, will create slowly shifting
soundscapes for the universe and yours.

souns is the original ambient/experimental project from
dj/producer/promoter michael red.

little woo is denise woo, an artist, alchemist and sound healer.

no-1 (*cd release*)
no-1 is the first solo project by jarrett martineau aka namesake - MC with The Front and damage control. no-1's sound blends hyper-digital hip-hop, dub, & dancehall rhythms with heavily processed acoustic elements, field recordings, rhyme, and spoken word.

plus:
calamalka *dj set* (plug research) - www.calamalka.com
spinning classic dub selections with a heavy, hazy, hot summer vibe

original visuals by derek brunen (inter-mission)
this inter-mission resident has combed the web and other dark corners searching for 'untitled' pieces. using an array of found and composited visuals, derek will provide a visceral, visual accompaniment to the evening's music.

Doors @ 9:00pm - $7

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Saturday May 21 - 11:00-7:00pm

Blim and Jackie Dives Presents:

Art Market II

Japanese snack bar by Lucky Snax

featuring

nils blishen
audra ricketts
jackie dives
melissa ferriera
demo derby
sean maxey
laura mckibbon
devon haag
robin thompson
laura eveleigh
jasna solokovic
jamie anderson
ehren
david manzl
yuriko iga
SEE:BE

11-7pm - free

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Saturday May 21

Blim and Stephen Hummel Presents

n5MD records showcase with live performances by:

another electronic musician (AEM)
http://www.anotherelectronicmusician.com/

subtractiveLAD
http://www.n5md.com/subtractivelad/index.htm

bitcrush
http://bitcrush.net/

spark
http://www.n5md.com/spark/

this is the first time all of these artists will be performing along side
eachother and it promises to be a night of provoking and engaging electronic
music. local boys subtractiveLAD and spark are excited to welcome A E M and
bitcrush who are coming up from California to be part of this night. there will
also be merchandise on hand, including CDs and sexy label-swag.

doors @ 9PM / $8

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sunday May 22

Blim and Only Magazine Presents

Musice Waste experimental showcase with live performances by:

Mutators: Grunge noise with members of Nons, Live Girls, ARC. Don't
miss their first show!

Shearing Pinx: A vast array of noise punk with members of In Flux,
Channels 2 and 3/3 and 4.

Humdinger: electronic humming and dinging.

LWMO: Anarchistic orchestra with random gadgets.

doors @ 9PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Upcoming May Events:

Thursday May 26

Blim and Eli Klein Presents

Constellation recording artists:
Polmo Poppo
Chrissariffic
Get Dominion

Polmo Polpo is the main project of Toronto-based musician Sandro Perri. Between 1999 and 2002, Sandro self-released a series of 12"s (from the projects Cog, Dot Wiggin, and Polmo Polpo) on his own Audi Sensa label. The Polmo Polpo tracks were compiled and re-issued on CD in 2002 by Alien8 Recordings. Constellation is thrilled to welcome Sandro to the roster; his ear for long-burn drones & submerged rhythms overlaid with instrumental sources (slide guitar, strings, accordion) is impeccable.

Doors @ 9:00pm - $8
www.cstrecords.com/html/polmopolpo.html

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Blim Screen Printing Workshop
every Wednesday 6:30-10:30pm - Learn to print your own t-shirts and poster art. Assisted, as well as free time facility use. 25.00 for evening. (includes take home screen)
call 604 694 2546 or blimblim@telus.net for appointment

Volunteers wanted : ongoing, benefits, free shows, workshops, guest passes. volunteerthis@yahoo.ca

@ Blim #600-23 west pender (penthouse space)
604 694 BLIM(2546)
www.blim.ca

bookings and info:
blimblim@telus.net

Thu, 05 May 2005 19:41:40 GMT

_______hotsecks</span>

join its awesome!!

how bout the LAST VEGAS....

Sun, 17 Apr 2005 04:02:43 GMT

the seem pretty cool, I saw them with Urge Overkill last year and they alsio played last year Festival of guns.

more info Later....

xox

Vanixx, mod

yeah soo

Sat, 16 Apr 2005 00:26:15 GMT

hey so I haven't been on this community thing for like 5 months or something.....it's been cool to see someone actually joined. I was thinking perhaps I should start it back up again.I will later this month.

anyone heard of any good Bands???? lately?

xox

vanixx, mod

Sun, 10 Apr 2005 02:37:06 GMT

name: Courtney

locale: US, Florida

favourite bands: Guns N' Roses, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, Grateful Dead, Beatles, cKy, Linkin Park, and Korn. Those aren't my favorites, but they're in order. I don't exactly have favorite bands except I can't live without my first 5.

and why you like them:
They all have great music that they show. It's a sanctuary for most people and all of them have made a great impact on my life.

Tue, 29 Mar 2005 23:09:34 GMT

name: Katie

locale us...Florida =D

favourite bands: Led-Zeppelin, Aerosmith, AC\DC, The rolling stones,The Who, Green Day, Flogging Molly, Blink-182, The Doors, guns 'n' roses, motley crue, pink floyd, styx, bon jovi, RHCP, the darkness, the cars [these are not in any order] and soooo many more <33333

and why you like them
I don't know...I just love to listen to the music and lyrics, and I know that after a horrible day, the music they play will make me feel soo much better

Hey yall, thought I should tell ya about me and stuff =D IM me anytime: qtkt61391

Sat, 05 Mar 2005 16:38:40 GMT

name Amanda

locale us...massachusetts

favourite bands
lets see...
nirvana, green day, ramones, bouncing souls, the who, led zeppelin, the doors and kind of a lot more

and why you like them
idk...i just love the music and the lyrics...i dont really think about why i like something i usually just like their music...and then i find out more about them

Mon, 07 Feb 2005 20:26:03 GMT

Mon, 03 Jan 2005 01:36:34 GMT

*new here*

Name-Debbie
local- fl
favorite bands- led zeppelin, ac-dc, the rolling stones, the who, iron maiden, the beatles, the doors, nirvana,
why I like them- beacuse they kick ass