STUMP

weird, wacky, & whimsical

Wim Wenders - Pina (2011)

Wim Wenders' latest is an homage to dance choreographer and ballet director, Pina Bausch, and consists of a series of her works, as well as memoirs told by her dancers, captured and woven together by Wenders' masterful curation and direction to create an hour and forty-five minute spectacle that left me utterly mesmerized. If any other director would have attempted this film, I believe it would have had only a fraction of the impact. Every color, every movement, every act is so meticulously designed, yet seemingly organic - at once concurrent and chaotic, raw and refined - each piece so absurd and beautiful and symbolic like all art whose purpose is to convey the human spirit should be. A furious bursting of energy, and power, and passion, and helplessness, and fear, and grace, and frenzy, and entropy, and winsomeness, and flaw, and conflict, and futility, and yearning. In short: exponential.

David Bowie - As The World Falls Down

The Stockholm Monsters - Alma Mater (1984)

On the surface The Stockholm Monsters sound pretty similar to the NZ take on key-based post punk, like The Clean and The Chills, but the difference (improvement, really) is how they accessorize their songs and aren't limited by verse-chorus-bridge formulas in their songwriting. They stand out because of how ample and polyphonic their sound palette was (especially in their later years), and as a group that some would consider to be minimal in many ways, no less. Gothy synthetic church organs, psychedelic Celtic flutes, glorious brass, and absolutely delectable piano harmonies make for some perfectly pinguescent pop. I have two minor 'complaints' : Tony France's voice and Tony France's lyrics. France obviously never took any singing lessons and probably wrote most of the words to these songs in high school (or borrowed them from Bernard Summers). But considering the type of music this is, neither short-fallings were really that uncommon.

Rating: 8.5/10

Link includes bonus singles compilation, All at Once

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Beachwood Sparks - By Your Side

Lush - Nothing Natural

Jean-Paul Sartre Experience - I Like Rain

MIX - Songs From a Dresser Drawer

Adventure music. For adventures only.



01) Intro - Anyone Who Gives You a Belief System is Your Enemy
02) Laszlo Benko - Pieta
03) Jean-Michel Raschle - The Magic Trip
04) Gershon Kingsley - Hey Hey
05) Ramases and Selket - Mind's Eye
06) Brian Wilson - Sweet Mountain American Spring
07) Daevid Allen - Pretty Miss Titty
08) Claude Vasori - Splash
09) Damon - Song of a Gypsy
10) Top Drawer - Song of a Sinner
11) Geoff Bastow - Tomorrow's World
12) Max Mann - Bloody and Blue (instrumental)
13) Андрей Родионов & Борис Тихомиров — Игральный автомат
14) Zigmars Liepins - Dance 85
15) New Musik - While you Wait (33 rpm)
16) Software - Percussion Island
17) イノヤマランド - Wasser

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Green - Elaine Mackenzie (1987)

Equal parts power pop, garage-stoner-rock-revival and proto-90s-indie-radio-rock with some slight punk tendencies. So Rock n Roll, pretty much. From a retrospective point of view, this isn't anything particularly new or special, mainly because the 90s birthed a million records like this (Pavement, Yo La Tengo, etc), but still a pretty solid collection of tracks with a good range of styles to keep things fresh and flowing nicely. Considering this was made in '87, on the cusp of this sound, kind of ahead of it's time.....for a 'throwback' band, of course.

Rating: 8.5/10

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Copping on The Misfits:

Mark Van Hoen

Cleaners From Venus - Midnight Cleaners (1982)

I've been sitting on this album for a while, but it was amongst a big pile of other CFV stuff and it wasn't until my buddy came over a few weeks back and coerced me to listen to it, that I actually did. You hear a lot of people talking about how early Martin Newell sounds a lot like Ariel Pink (or vice versa, rather), and in a way they're right. "Corridor of Dreams," with it's delightfully kitschy saxophones and masterly momentum sounds like it could've been on Ariel's latest, Before Today. But besides both being perhaps the best underground pop musicians of their respective times, and the lengthy list of comparisons that could be drawn, the two are very different song-writers. The most vital similarities between them lie in their style of recording, or rather the philosophy of such a style and how they incorporate it to fit and enhance the feeling of their work - not just for novelty or out of necessity, like many 'lo-fi'/bedroom/cassette artists. Anyways, this is a fantastic album, a lost album, an anti-pop pop album, from a band which has only recently being rediscovered. Give it your attention and then make your way through the rest of Newell's work, because there are plenty more lustrous bullion where this came from.

Rating: 9/10

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Talking Heads - This Must be the Place

David J - Urban Urbane (1992)

Shadowy and seductive release from David J of Bauhaus and Love and Rockets fame. His solo output can be hit or miss, but this is really, really stellar stuff - definitively his richest, most realized and sundry release and a lovely soundtrack for desecration. Think a smart, soulful, gothic take on adult contemporary with the occasional ode to disillusionment and country pastiche tune thrown in to keep things fresh....really easy listening, but with some dim undertones chronicling fame, drug addiction, sex, violence, and all that fun jazz. Rockin' good stuff, and growing on me more and more with each listen.

Rating: 9/10

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Saint Etienne - Tonight

Mmmmmmmmm

Tao Lin - Richard Yates

I am not typically in the business of 'slamming' things, because frankly there are too many things out there worth slamming, and besides, that goes against the basis of what I'm trying to do here. However, there are exceptions. Occasionally, I'll come across something that irks me to the point where I feel the need to voice my negative opinion of said thing, and Tao Lin's Richard Yates is one such exception. It's not that Tao Lin is a bad writer, or that Richard Yates is a particularly bad book, but that he is so overpraised as a contemporary genius that offends me, as a writer myself, who aspires to one day deservingly hold such titles. First, I want to examine a quote on the back of Richard Yates which I find to be exceptionally nauseating. It reads:

"Richard Yates is hilarious, menacing, and hugely intelligent. Tao Lin is a Kafka for the iPhone generation."
-Clancy Martin

This is the sort of quote that brings to mind sexual favors or blackmail, because it's so hyperbolic, even for literary ass-kissing, because to call Richard Yates 'hilarious' is like calling Inception 'depressing.' It is mildly comical at best, and even then only before the cheap schtick wears off. I have read several different definitions of the word 'menacing' and I cannot possibly fathom what dictionary Clancy Martin is in possession of. Richard Yates is many things("unique"), but to say it is 'hugely intelligent' is just absolutely ridiculous. Lin is a decent writer, and has a subtle sense of humor, but let's be honest here; the book is essentially a live-journal entry converted into dry, self-aware, humorous prose by some guy who went to NYU and happens to be familiar with youth culture. Me, you, - anyone - could have written this book, and to say it is 'hugely intelligent' does nothing more than make David Foster Wallace's bloated corpse roll around in his grave a bit. Last, but not least, this person goes on to say Tao Lin is a 'Kafka for the iPhone generation.' Now, I was going offer some witty rebuttal to this, to expand on how absurd such a statement is, how much nerve this person has to say such an idiotic thing, but you know what? No. It doesn't deserve such tact or clemency. It deserves the anger in which it evoked in me: So fuck you, Clancy Martin. I don't know who you are, but I fucking hate you and I hope you lose all your fingers in a bowling accident. No exaggeration intended.

Richard Yates is supposed to be ironic, maybe even entirely tongue in cheek - a mockery of relationships in the digital age – but also show how, despite the format of communication, it’s really not that much different from prior generations. And despite the juvenile (pathetic?) nature of the characters and culture within – is meant to expose profound truths about human nature. The problem is that these ‘profound truths’ are anything but profound. Yes, technology makes us lonely and separates us as much as it connects us. Yes, love is complicated. Yes, youth is complicated. Yes, life is complicated. These are not only things which have been written about by thousands of writers before him (and far more poetically, I might add), but are also obvious to anyone with half an analytical brain. Then there are his blatant pretensions he takes part in, ie. the index at the end of the book (why?), the Vice-vomit cover design, and that self-written magazine article he did, which I have yet to read, which might make the whole affair that much sillier depending on the route Lin took. Then of course there are the names of the characters and the book itself. Seeing the names Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning printed was mildly amusing for a few pages. With brevity in mind, Richard Yates would have worked really well as a (short) short story, however as a full length novel its humorous effect is lost well early in the book.

Tangential anecdote: when I was 16, I dated a 12 year old. She was my first girlfriend and I was under the impression that she was 14 for the first 3 months of our relationship, because that is how old she told me she was. 90% of our interaction consisted of chatting over aol instant messenger, 8% took place over the phone, and occasionally, we would see each other secretly in person, roughly 2% of the time. I’d sneak out of my house and drive an hour to see her, sneak into her window, and we’d have to be quiet because her parents were in the room next door. She took my virginity, and I took hers. Her sense of humor was cute and a little on the morbid side. I tried my best to be all the things I thought I was supposed to be – to play my role, while still being true to my emotions, which was often being discontent. I occasionally patronized her. We were both confused. It was uncannily similar to what I’ve been reading in Richard Yates, only I would never dream, not in a lifetime, that it would be worth writing about and sharing with others outside of my livejournal at the time.

Part of me is convinced that Tao Lin is playing a big joke - an elaborate trolling for his own amusement, and his supporters are all playing a part in it, and I am the gullible one falling for it. That’s what I want to believe. That would make me feel better about the world and the current state of literature. But, somehow this is doubtful. Somehow, all these heartless monkeys with English degrees who suck so badly at writing anything other than lab-language that they end up doing journalism, really do find Richard Yates to be funny, and to be some practical genius. But the question still remains, with Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning fresh in my mind: how is this book funny? Maybe it’s funny because it’s so fucking dull and boring, and it uses the same jokes and the same scenarios over and over and over for 200 pages – and that’s the big fat farcical joke. Ha ha. Funny like the comedic version of a 20 hour Tarkovsky film (but that would be giving Lin too much credit). Funny like a kidney stone that takes two weeks to come out, and you have to laugh at it to keep from blowing your brains out or stabbing yourself in the throat with a kitchen knife. Is this what humor has come to? Is unfunny the new funny and I just did not get the memo? Has humor expended itself and is desperately flailing around on the ground in a puddle of its own coagulated blood, trying to figure out a way to resuscitate itself?

Again, Tao Lin is a decent writer and obviously a pretty smart guy, if for no other reason than for his talent for marketing his unremarkable writing. But his name should never be uttered or written in the same sentence as an immortal such as Kafka and [insert Tao Lin book here] is certainly not the [insert lit-crit glowing superlative here] novel of the last however-many years. Richard Yates is solid and easy to read, 'cute' even, but painfully uninteresting and to regard it or its ideas as special in any way, is a far bigger inside joke on modern culture than the book itself ever hopes to be.

Ironic irony?

Bitter Springs - Best Bakers on the Island (2000)

I have fallen utterly in love with this album. After a certain point, when you've been digging for years, and you start to think you've excavated every last gem in the proverbial quarry, and you're tired of getting crap on your hands, something like this comes along and really surprises you. Brilliant lyrics, sheen-polished, abounding compositions in a jamboree of styles ranging from Captain Sensible-like toe-tappers to classy pub-pop to dreary brit-folk in the vein of Robyn Hitchcock, Best Bakers a joy to behold from start to finish. This record flows like a dream, and captures the romance and sadness and overall essence of Great Britain like only a distinguished, middle-aged English-born gentleman with a penchant for hooks could. Thanks again to Mike for this one. Fabulous work - don't miss!

Rating: 9/10

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Single from a 7" release by pre-Bitter Springs Simon Rivers and co:

Adam & The Ants - Kings of the Wild Frontier

Espresso for your ears

The Band of Holy Joy selected discography

Such an epic, under-appreciated band, so I'll just dive in....

It's hard to get used to a new tempo. Tempo is probably the biggest commonality tying together any style of music, and when a band maintains all other stylings of their contemporaries but plays to a different speed, it can be a little hard to adjust to. So don't be turned off if these guys don't click on the first listen. They will.

They have changed their tune over the years, and have the capacity to be dark and experimental as well as make hits-that-never-were-but-should-have-been. Most of the time they like a more upbeat Stockholm Monsters/Martyn Bates fused with The Pogues' Irish-y organs and instrumentation fused with Horses-era Patti-Smith's organic vocal meandering* but with exquisite - truly exquisite - pop layering and rich orchestration, whose lyricism and song-writing are both so fantastically good, it will shock you that these guys are so unknown.

*Note: Kind of. This is a stretch, but really couldn't think of a better way to describe this. Hear for yourself and let me know if you think this is a poor/accurate description.

Collection includes:

More Favourite Fairy Tales (1984) 8/10
The Big Ship Sails (1986) 7.5/10
Manic, Magic, Majestic (1989) 9.5/10
Positively Spooked (1990) 9/10

I recommend starting with Manic, Magic, and Majestic, and then Positively Spooked, and then their earlier releases, which can be more chaotic, lo-fi, and experimental (The Big Ship Sails sounds like what taking acid at a circus must feel like). When I get paid I'm going to try and download the rest of their stuff, but in the meantime there is a lot of quality to be found in this collection.

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The Band of Holy Joy - Tactless

Thanks, Mike

Cleaners From Venus - Corridor of Dreams

Really, really, really one of the best songs I've heard in some time. FEEL IT.