Musings #12 & 35

I am getting up in the morning and packing my backpack and getting on an aeroplane. I am flying to London Stansted. Then I am going to see Pulp at the Brixton Academy. Pulp were the first band I truly loved. The band that thought me to listen to music by albums. Jarvis Cocker's wondrous lyrics, the brilliant ironic, cynical and sardonic take on the years between 1993 and 1995 (His n'Hers and A Different Class). The era that spawned the incestuous opening to 'Razzmatazz' the innate summation of the despair of the masses on Common People, not to mention the iconic Babies. Pulp are and always have been my favourite band. I will bore you further when I get back from the gig. I'll leave you with my top three Pulp songs.

I am lying about now dying for something bleak and slow moving so as to hasten my departure to the land of nod. I have stumbled across a couple of old favourites of mine that for me anyway fit the bill. Bark Psychosis released an album in the mid nineties that captivated the listener and delivered an epic journey through post rock heaven. The opening track is a big favourite of mine.

This title was inspired by the Bob Dylan song, another great opening track; Rainy Day Woman #12 & 35. The famous chorus line; 'Everybody must get stoned' makes stoners everywhere a little happier every time they hear it.

Apologies for having deviated from the journey into melodic and sombre slumber. We may resume with another track in that vein right here and right now. A far cry from his feel good rocker moments Bruce Springsteen toned it down and poured himself into Nebraska. The haunting vocals and the as expected; perfect songwriting and formidable guitar playing combine to create a fantastic album. I have gone with the second track here. The harmonica is great too it seems to join on and elongate the vocals at times.

Rounding off tonight's posting is Anomie Belle's song Down. It is my attempt at a trip hop equivalent of the recurrent theme.

Musings 412: The Return Of A Mind

Internet peoples; I have been absent from this blog of late and for that my humblest apologies. I was stuck right between a mouse and a hard place. I didn't have comfortable internet access. You know what I mean, the sort of internet access where once can be naked and picking crisp fat from one's hirstute upper torso. Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu once sung 'Listen to On Fire and pretend someone could love you'

He was referring to the Galaxie 500 album On Fire. An a bittersweet effort in melancholy and fuzzy ambience. It includes a wonderful rendition of the George Harrison song Isn't It A Pity. It truly is a remarkable album, Blue Thunder and Snowstorm are particular highlights for me.

Galaxie 500 enjoyed a short lived existence between 1987 and 1991. They were a trio: Dean Wareham on vocals and guitar, Naomi Yang on bass guitar and drummer Damon Krukowski. They originally met in London but began playing together whilst in Harvard. Early Galaxie 500 recordings feature a drum kit on loan to the band from none other than Conan O'Brien a fellow student of theirs at the time. On Fire is the bands best work and sits proudly as their greatest achievement, it truly is an outstanding album

Also popping around inside my head begging to be played is the Yo La Tengo album Painful. And this song in particular.

My ability to accumulate music has stalled recently due to laptop problems as it is suffering from being over stuffed with superfluous files and so generally just turns itself off at will.

Peace

A beer, a bass and Jeremy Messersmith

Minneapolis is home to one Jeremy Messersmith. When he is not busy being a resident of Minneapolis Jeremy manages to devote a little bit of time to being a really universe-rocking singer-songwriter. He has released three albums; The Reluctant Graveyard, The Silver City and The Alcatraz Kid.

I first came across his most recent album; The Reluctant Graveyard on a music forum a few months back. I enjoyed it from first listen, the wonderful melodies and quirky lyrics really sold themselves to me. A few days after seeing The Antlers in Chicago I noticed in a paper that Jeremy had been playing on the same night I was rather disappointed to have missed him.

Being from Ireland, you don't hold high hopes of your favourite relatively obscure Minneapolis based singer songwriter appearing in a theatre near you very soon. Upon crossing a large amount of the country and finding myself in Berkeley I plunged into the local gig listing and there it was. Standing alone and proud in black generic print. 'Hotel Utah Saloon, July 20th, Jeremy Messersmith'. The quoted price was 10 dollars, not too shabby I must admit.

And so on the evening in question my girlfriend and I donned semi-respectable clothes and hopped aboard the Bart, the Hotel Utah Saloon our destination. We got the venue and it was just a small cosy bar with a little stage and a little standing area a half floor below the bar. We listened to the two opening bands whilst choking down some inappropriately and formidably hot chicken wings. Having undergone the pain of handing over 14 dollars for two JD and coke's we moved to Pabst Blue Ribbon at a measly 3 dollars a pop.

We were in flying form by the time Jeremy took to the stage with his band. As you see in the photo he plays an improbably cool acoustic guitar with a white patch in the middle of it. He switched to another uber-cool instrument; a small Paul McCartney-esque bass guitar for some songs. I could tell you the songs he played or you could refer to the picture of the setlist which I now own having chatted up the guitarist and plundered it.

Lazy Bones and Dilinger Eyes both from his latest album really got the gig going for us. We sang along at the tops of our voices, tragically being the only people in the small crowd doing so. We couldn't help it really such was the infectious brand of indie pop being played by Jeremy and band. The guitarist in particular was amazing.

One song you will not see on the set-list is A Girl, A Boy And A Graveyard, upon which the title of this posting is loosely based. It is not included on the set list but Jeremy did play it after outlined encore.

'Well, why did he do that huh?'

He played it because we urged him too, honestly the two of us and a third chap we did not know started asking him to play it, calling out to him, beckoning him to ease our blues. The rest of the band the violinist apart had departed the stage for the bar. This didn't seem to deter Jeremy though as he produced a truly splendid, perfect and soothing version of the song. It was the highlight of our night. We also got a chance to speak to Jeremy at the end of the gig and he turned out to be a really nice and genuine guy, he took the time to talk to us and then posed for a few pictures with us.

Peace