Gluttony

I went to New England over the weekend to visit a friend. Of course, that meant that I had to go to my local record shop here in Brooklyn before leaving town to buy some records. I didn't anticipate, however, just how marvelously cheap record stores are North of here. So I bought more records. Many more! My only defense is that I would have paid a lot more just buying online or in NYC.

Pray for me!

Aaliyah - Are You That Somebody? 12"

Brandy - Full Moon

Cameo - Single Life 12"

Comsat Angels - Sleep No More (found literally at the back of a bin of 100 bad house records that was buried underneath 60 classical records)

Dee Lite - Groove Is In The Heart 12" (for the flip!)

Demdike Stare - Elemental Part Four

Depeche Mode - Some Great Reward

DJ Dozia - Shapeshifter

Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle

Jean Carn - Happy To Be With You (new to me - time will reveal "the cut")

John Foxx - The Garden

Mariah Carey - Make It Happen 12" (fuck what is the right mix of this again?)

Mariah Carey - Dreamlover 12" (replacing one warped copy so I can rock doubles with two!)

Marika Papagika - The Further The Flame, The Worse It Burns Me (YT vid not on LP but you should hear!)

Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliott feat. Ludacris - One Minute Man 12"

Prince - Controversy

Shostakovich: Violin Concerto (premiere recording with Oistrakh - not depicted in video)

Simple Minds - Real To Real Cacophony

Simple Minds - Empires And Dance

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Cities In Dust 12"

Steve Reich - Music For A Large Ensemble

Suicide - S/T

Tangerine Dream - Zeit

Tangerine Dream - Phaedra

The Temptations - All Directions

Theo Parrish - Baby Steps EP

Third World - Try Jah Love

This Mortal Coil - It'll End In Tears

U2 - The Joshua Tree

Uncle Tupelo - Anodyne

Yaz - Situation 12"

Zhane - Hey Mr DJ 12"

(not showing off just maybe some of this is new to you and you hear something you love and your day is just that much better - mine is, or was, until I saw the balance left in my account. whoops!)

90s and their persistence

I knew this back then but it's really only the persistent feeling that dance music, on purely cultural terms, ain't what it used to be (because "nothing is more revolting that the sight of the inheritors of the earth enjoying themselves"), that caused me to lose confidence and start reading Pitchfork almost a decade ago in the vain hope that there was something good I was missing. That's when the real dejection set in.

(Also - writing like what I linked to above used to be published! Just another...!)

The Past Is Ending Even If The Future Hasn't Arrived

Your Thoughts Please

Is there a cheap, major city with a legitimate arts scene in the United States?

This chapter might be over soon.

Homesick Again?!?!

I guess it's because it's 59 degrees in NYC on February 1st that I am thinking about DC again. I can't believe it's been six years since I used to come off my shift waiting tables on a weeknight, get a little stoned, and wander around downtown on one of the numerous beautiful spring evenings that are the real gift of DC weather listening to Souvlaki. Life is easier when you aren't trying.

...blue plaque above the place where I first heard "I Spy"...

So excited. Yeah I spent too much money on the ticket and ended up not getting a second one for a friend TBD but, you know, I have been waiting on this for a long time now, and I don't think anyone I know personally who currently lives in America, never mind New York, has been. In that respect, not much has changed in my life in the last 16 years or so.

I still remember seeing the posters in Olsson's way back when for the tour of America Pulp embarked upon after the release of Different Class. I remember feeling so daunted - how would I get there? Who would take me? I was young, mind. I never went.

It's funny to know now that Jarvis was into hard drugs at the time (or maybe a bit later?) as his was one of the first interviews I read that stood out for being about ideas instead of excess. That mattered to teenage me. Pulp was one of the first bands I encountered, even with the sexualized lyrics, whose vision of cool didn't seem to disinclude the bookish, the straight-edge, the friendless, the real freaks, not those who became millionaires playing freaks on TV.

Will I meet you there? Will something change?
Love,
:-p

I am not an "adult"

Pragmatism is the valuation of the body above the soul.