Albums for Eternity with Bottle, the Curmudgeon

I thought i had way more time to kill, so i was halfway through writing the next installment of Bottle's Bootlegs. Screw that, Canada sent me records! Let's listen to On! Air! Library!'s only album i liked so much back when i liked it so much the first time a week or so ago.  They formed in 1998, got enough local buzz to put out a split with The Album Leaf, made their debut LP, toured with Interpol and The Secret Machines, broke up in 2005. Easiest discography i've ever reviewed.  Ha! Inner sleeve bent to hell straight from the manufacturer. Hilarious.  Experimental Ambient Post-Rock? Sure, that's about the best you can do for this total downer collage of lethargic harmonies, fragile melodic duets, and musica concrete soundscapes. This sounds like what The Bird and the Bee implies it feels like on the inside. Not gonna lie, this is an incredibly accurate aural depiction of what those days i tell you were a struggle feel like. They feel like this. I wanted to say the...

Philosophy will phuck you up, my friend. How about we do a complete 180 and peruse a Bottle's Bootlegs or several while the postal service (chemtrail Ben Gibbard reference, drink 'em up) does its continental traversing with my internationally acquired analog audio. Surely The Bird and the Bee will help us forget how terrible now is.  Nope, this is at least as worse. For starters, 2007 is the year both Baudrillard died and The Bird and the Bee's self-titled debut now existed. All i was going for is the ridiculous notion that WHEAD was Deerhunter's "pop" album. Madam Coincidence has her testical-kicking boots laced up apparently. This is 12 years earlier and 27 decibels louder. Inara sister, i might be dying too. I try as well. Supposedly this is a 7, but we've long since established those people who get paid to do this are morons. This album is a 10. For restarters, it's subtle not Edward Scissor Hands. For continues, it's 2007 and they are intentio...

Baudrillard. He coined the term "hyperreality." It essentially means that we cannot tell the difference between reality and simulated reality. I don't mean, and he didn't mean, a VR so realistic you live there like The Matrix, that's a naive surface interpretation. What he was really trying to get at was the facade of globalization becoming the only Truth we understand; the illusion that knowledge itself can reach completion. In short, we believe the propagandized version of reality and forget the agenda that propaganda advances.  His final posthumous book is titled Why Hasn't Everything Already Disappeared? That's also the title of Deerhunter's 2019 album. The book itself isn't the concept, the historical situation is the concept that envelopes the songs on the album. A philosopher predicting the disappearance of culture itself, but realizing that it has not happened during his lifetime. A prediction of the future in which we now live, sort of. ...

S: how are you feeling, Bottle? B: i'm fine. S: really? B: yeah. Sure. I mean, there's the normal not wanting to go back to work tomorrow, and i'm in total hypochondriac mode over the tooth i had pulled yesterday. I'm sleeping upright in an easy chair, my tongue is playing hockey goalie with everything i eat, i'm totally terrified the clot will fall out and i'll bleed to death, then i'll get a dry socket and half my face will fall off, plus i listened to 5 Rascals albums this morning and made 2 pounds of experimental chicken sausage. But more important, is Nektar's Remember The Future as good as i think it's going to be? The concept reads like a Mastodon album, but everybody says "wish there wasn't so much Funk on this one."  S: it's truly a mess in there, isn't it? B: yeah, for sure. But, imagine being a winged alien named Bluebird and every time you come to Earth half the people scream "ahhh! It's a blue winged alien,...

I think today we try to get a real grasp on The Rascals. I found two more of their albums yesterday, that should be enough to really dig into their shift from popular singles band to album oriented space cadets. Groovin', Once Upon a Dream, Freedom Suite, and Search and Nearness. I don't have a copy of See, but we could probably youtube it if it becomes necessary. That's not their full discography, but it is the official name change through the last album for Atlantic. The Young Rascals got their start competing with The Beatles and Rolling Stones for American attention. The 4 Seasons and The Supremes are in there as well, so it's a real big business agent/promoter/label free-for-all. What made The Young Rascals stand out was that they were very much an R&B band. They were the first white act ever signed to Atlantic, they refused to perform at segregated concerts, they were in fact the copilots to the Righteous Brothers under the moniker Blue-Eyed Soul. They had a t...

Have you ever wondered what Michael Stipe's Jello Biafra impression might sound like? Me neither, but that's Feargal Sharkey. He was apparently the lead singer of Irish Punk band The Undertones. I'm reminded of Johnny Rotten's Public Image Limited. This doesn't sound like that at all, but that's the kind of 180 turn the 80s seemed to do to everybody. I'm also reminded of Bob Dylan's Empire Burlesque.  This isn't in any way bad, but it is definitely weird. Hello Michael Kamen's string arrangements. I have nothing to draw on for comparison. This is just freakin' weird, big sweeping 80s pop ballads, but he's screaming them. Not like Sam Kinison screaming, but like that Patti Smith level of unhinged and slightly crazy. It really is like Johnny Rotten doing power ballads, or Rod Stewart on the down side of a cocaine/helium bender. It's manic when it shouldn't be. It's really growing on me. That's an impressive harmonica solo on...

Editor: What do they do?  Compy: Disco/Soul.  Bottle: The Disco side of funky Soul.  Sandra: New York City Soul, not Southern Soul.  B: Sure, that's a useful distinction. Think nightclub Soul, not Otis Redding. The group is a Linzer, Calello, and Randall vehicle post their 4 Seasons collaborations. Really good though. Much less flashy or dance-focused than 5th Dimension, but a totally enjoyable listen with flashes of Jackson 5, and a lot of Caribbean influence. Plus, that Ted Coconis watercolor is spectacular in its own right; there aren't many album covers that function as an actual visual overture like this. What a delightful album, I'm feeling better already. Feargal Sharkey

And i said to myself "self, we listened to Alice's Restaurant like the princess commands, and thanked our friends for not being mindless robots, wouldn't it be fun to have some discomfort chewing and reach in to feel that half of my top back molar is missing and schedule an appointment to probably end up having it extracted saturday morning?"  I replied "goodness me, that sounds delightful, make it so." --- Wisdom tooth gone, i wasn't even in the building for a full hour. --- Bottle: Gnn nuush. Bonnuln bagn.  Compy: what?  Bottle: Oh, sorry, forgot about the cotton balls. I'm back.  Editor: How was Minion City?  Bottle: It's still there, haven't been there in nearly 3 years, so lots of new stuff i'm not interested in. Old stuff is still where i left it, so that's nice. Interesting batch of records to torture you guys with.  Sandra: Joy. How do you feel?  Bottle: For a while there i was comfortably numb, but now i mostly feel like Stev...

Chapter 10  This is the end... of this relatively quick survey of self-titled albums... the only end, my friend. Time to close the door and meander in another direction. Skipped His Medication, Editor con Carne, is giving me that "was there a point?" look. Careful man, you keep making that face it'll stick that way. I keep telling you there ain't no morals to these stories at all, i just find it refreshing to wander the hallways and see how they are intersecting at the moment. It had a clear trajectory, right? Best to worst, least effort to most effort in terms of liking them, debuts to squiggly middle-ground to a definite ending. If absolutely nothing else, Speed City Records in Ontario confirmed my order and shipped 3 records for future us-es to enjoy on their own obscure terms. Never would have happened if it weren't for that little picnic at Punctuation Pavilion.  A whole week of albums. I had fun. What more could you possibly want? And so, back to humming. Th...

Chapter 9 Number 9...number 9... number 9... There it is, my dingy copy of the end of The Beatles, The BEATLES. Technically i'm supposed to take the "amazing mental kaleidoscope" hallway and talk about their TM retreat with everybody and their girlfriend's dog, and how everybody took a turn quitting during these final sessions before McCartney finally announced it. Meh. At heart it's a self-titled "we were The Beatles."  It is a kaleidoscope, i'll give you that. It's 4 dudes going back to being 4 separate dudes doing their own thing. Glass Onion pretty much sums up how they feel about that first half of their lives. As an album i hate it. It smells like cabbage farts in my brain. But, there's a light at the end of the tunnel that i'm positive isn't a freight train coming our way. You know what's good about it? It's a ridiculous behemoth double album and half the songs don't even contain a majority of The Beatles playing on...

Chapter 8  Upon this night that's not that dreary, Bottle pondered weak and weary, over many a forgotten self-titled album from yesteryears.  While he pondered, nearly napping, suddenly there came a snapping, upon his conscious mind a tapping, some minion of subconscious trappings suggesting albums self entitled for the feasting of his ears.  Suddenly awoke the Bottle, and combing through the crates full throttle, a scene we've grown accustomed to these desperate descending years. A look of wild and fervent madness, a cackle filled the hallway's sadness, as Bottle scarce concealed his gladness, and bellowed at the evening's invisible engineers:  Quoth the raven, I am Bottle, watch your step but do not dawdle, as we assemble ourselves for the listening to the Blood and Sweat & Tears!  Before we get there though, i feel like i should map out how we got to BS&T, it's a crazy contorted hallway, indeed. I liked On!Air!Library! so much i found a copy for sale ...

Chapter 7 - what if we add an exclamation point?  After i finished chapter 6 it dawned on me that a year ago on this very day i talked about the self-titled albums of Joe Cocker and Jose Feliciano, both of which have exclamation points. Crazy coincidence that one. Are there more like that? Excuse me while i wander the wild web yonder for a bit....  ... well, waddya know? We've got Gracious! and their first two albums Gracious!, and This is...Gracious! Then there are the guys who left Kraftwerk to form Neu! and debut with Neu! Ornette Coleman's 7th album is Ornette! On!Air!Library! Gives us the double whammy: self-titled EP becomes self-titled album. Andrew Hill's 6th album has 3 of the things, Andrew!!!.  I could keep going, but you get the idea. What a bizarre goldmine we've coincidentally chosen to dig in. Maybe we don't need to hammer each and every one into the ground like i tend to do, the point is that there is a whole subset of self-titled albums from anywher...

Chapter 6 - The Curious Case of Judith   Back in a former life with fluorescent lit hallways and eldritch doors  to rooms with piano and chalkboards i would often ponder seminars i wanted to give. One of my favorites was titled The Art of the Cover and we'd look at what happens to a song when you turn it into disco, or grunge up a Wham! song, or turn Neil Diamond into Reggae. Judy Collins did a cover of Salt of the Earth, and that would surely be on the list somewhere. Alas, this book is about self titled albums, so we have 12th album and the quagmire of legal vs familiar names. The coal miner's daughter is Judith Marjorie Collins, but we've all been calling her Judy. That means it's much less "hello, Denver, i'm Judy," more "will the real Jude Shady please stand up and sing some eclectic selections from her vast repository of brain songs?"  First time around we talked about the split personality and i said the real Judy Collins has to deal with ...

Chapter 5 - Self-Titled Sophomore?   The Sandpipers debuted with Guantanamera, and then followed up with The Sandpipers. That's weird. It's like saying  SP: Check out our debut album, Bottle. B: Who the hell are you guys? SP: Oh, sorry. Check out our second album, we're The Sandpipers.  Or, like "welp, that first album was sort of ok, time to do it for real." It's awkward. Even more awkward, their first album got great reviews, this one not so much. I don't know why, it's lovely. It seems bizarre to apply the standard i invented for this book from a future century, but i never said i wasn't awkward either. Maybe it felt weird back then too.  Unlike The Doors or Buffalo Nichols however, we have a couple problems with the cover art. Note the similarity between The Doors and The Sandpipers. Disembodied photo-studio superimposed head with band in background. Note the difference though. For The Doors it's Jim Morrison's head, for The Sandpipers ...

Chapter 4 - Buffalo Nichols   Tonight we get the real deal, my first listen to the self-titled debut of Buffalo Nichols. The vinyl i bought won't get here until December, but my bearded visage down there in the lower left-hand corner is just begging everyone to join me over at his bandcamp page:  https://buffalonichols.bandcamp.com/album/buffalo-nichols-2   I'm told we're in for some proper 21st-century Blues (i even managed to work an oblique Doors reference in here, how cool is that?) guitar from a world traveling man connecting to his heritage. It's "the soundtrack to a wandering soul."  Before we get there, though, i did an interestingly serendipitous thing. See, this was a staff pick from Plaid Room Records over in Ohio, and i instead went straight to his bandcamp page to buy it. I feel conflicted. I don't feel bad for choosing to support a musician in a way i think lets them keep more of the money i paid for it, i feel bad for not rewarding that love...

Chapter 3 - The Doors  Fun story about The Doors, they were the house band of the Whiskey a Go Go until Jim spoke those word things near the end of The End. That was the end of that. Strong first impression, as first impressions a go go.  That's our starting point, isn't it? If nothing else, the self-titled debut says "hi, we're the name we just called ourselves, you deal with figuring it out." Ok, but no guarantees, you know?  Obviously, populating a jury with people who've never heard the doors is a monumental task, but me pretending to be Drew Barrymore and wake up every morning with total reset amnesia is just as ridiculous. I can pretend it's our 900th first date, but i've seen Sandra's pick for first impression boots and skirt. Still makes a powerful statement, but my appreciation has inevitably changed over time. No getting around the fact i know i like it very much. While we're on the subject of objectifying albums, let's try being ...

The art of the self-titled debut  Perhaps since the dawn of humanity, woman, man, child, possibly even door-to-door salesmen have sat with their chins in their palms thinking delicate thoughts of a complex nature. How do i collect a bunch of stuff together and present that collection as a coherent idea, a gestalt that can simultaneously bridge the gulf between strangers and forge a common revelry in telling those guys over there they suck? We'll tell the awesome guys they are awesome, of course, but it's the "you suck" part i'm trying to get a firm grasp upon.  Ok, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, maybe it's just "how do i present a full synopsis of an idea in the form of a few small pieces of detritus i picked up and crammed in my pocket like a magpie or squirrel or something?" Anyway, long and fruitlessly the two-legged brain monster poked and prodded at his cerebral electrical fire, until one day it flashed into existence:  AHA! I shall ...

I had the whole thing done, but we're back to the garbage facebook app just closing the post i'm writing because it took too long, of course without saving a draft. Points: the 4 seasons never sold their master recordings, tie in to the long gone OKC restaurant Molly Murphy's, Valli and Gaudio are awesome. That's the gist, totally awesome end to my vinyl therapy session ruined by stupid feta, or whatever they renamed the company, who gives a crap? 6 years of opening this garbage prison diary was a good run. I'm not sure i made much of a difference, but 50 or 60 of you might hate me now, so that's fun.  Who am i kidding, i'll open this thing back up tomorrow like i always do. This aneurysm isn't gonna burst itself, you know? Cheers.

One of my greatest joys in life is picking up a decades old album that someone bought from a discount bin, never even bothered to open, then sold for certainly less than even that discounted price. Even better when it's awesome. You know Escape Club from their one hit Wild Wild West. Well, before they were heading for the 90s as a crap radio pop band, they made an alternative rock album. This thing is The Cure meets R E.M. at a Bauhaus concert. Holy hell, this is amazing. Who cares what i have to say? This is awesome, go listen to White Fields by The Escape Club. No grains of salt, this is fantastic.

Runt. It's so many things. Todd Rundgren's first solo album, the self-titled debut of a fake band, a studio version of McCartney drawing from Laura Nyro's Eli and the Thirteenth Confession, a do-it-yourself cornucopia of ballads and psychedelia, an amateurish adventure in learning how to produce an album with someone else's money. Mostly it's just sadness in the form of fun.  Broke Down & Busted leads off as a straight up 60s Psych-Rock relationship lament. Very "I Hear You Knockin'" at times.  Believe In Me is definitely a Laura Nyro style ballad, with the added fun of strumming inside the piano and an accordion, i think.  Then the big hit We Gotta Get You a Woman. It's an obvious radio single, but plenty of interesting stuff happening in the background.  Then the straight 70s Hard-Rock Boogie of Who's That Man?. Another radio friendly single, possible a few years ahead of its time. It's only 1970/71 after all. Power Pop.  Once Burned ...

"Watch out for these golf balls!"  I think we should talk about how everybody completely misunderstands Huey Lewis in general, so it's no wonder they completely miss the sarcasm of their 4th album, Fore!. Stuck With You is a good example, but Hip To Be Square is the most egregiously misinterpreted. You forget that he's up there fist pumping the punchline, 'cause these are the jokes, son. "Bourgeois Hippies" is hilarious.  Huey Lewis and the News is pure hustle, they're hamming up the night club act and mocking all the false sentiments. The problem is that they sound invitingly sincere, they sound serious so you take it serious. It's confirmation bias, you hear the mythologies you tell yourself and feel validated. Then they get back to the bus after the set and say "what a pack o' maroons." Huey Lewis the person thinks the songs are funny in the same way his cameo in Back to the Future where he says Marty's band is "just too...

One big problem we have is that the "American" definition of the word "socialism" makes no sense to the majority of the world. Rightfully so, those things a stereotypical American labels "socialist" are not by any historical or philosophical definition "socialist." Most of the programs, projects, the concept of "the Welfare State" as a whole, are in fact Capitalist devised compensations for the known structural flaws inherent to the division of labor itself. They are "remedies," or "medicine," to borrow a more accurate metaphor. Like medicine, many of these actions do not solve an actual problem. Instead, they simply postpone, reverse, or ease the consequences of the fundamental problem of monetary systems (universal equivalence) as a whole. A tangible example is the Infrastructure Bill, and we ask the question:  Which is larger? A) the amount of spending (aka the amount of new money created), or B) the savings of th...

I rock rough and stuff with my Afro Puffs... oh, wait, wrong Rage. Regardless, rock, excuse me, Metal on with your bad selves. Now people who absolutely hate this album generally fall into two camps. A) people who love their first album and feel like this gives up speed for silliness and the vocals are subpar at times. B) people who think the synths are ridiculously counterproductive. I dunno, i think it's fine. I don't hate this at all. Yes, it's a little clumsy in places, and some of the solo work is vapid noodling, but if you're making the obvious comparison to Megadeth meets Skid Row at a Candlemass concert, this has a definite stamp of originality. It's completely normal silly for late 80s non-mainstream indie metal. Not embarrassing at all, in my opinion. I'd throw this on in the background for almost any occasion, it's approachably enjoyable and surprisingly creative. I can see how the "atmospherics" might turn off the real hard-core speed/t...

Great news everybody, today was so brain-meltingly terrible in terms of constructed reality being completely not actual reality that i totally lost my train of thought.  You might think i could just take some time and rethink it and eventually pick back up again, but nope! Trash can that idea, we'll just listen to what The Motors did after Bram Tchaikovsky and the other guy quit but before the two remaining members quit too. I don't know what to expect from Tenement Steps, and i don't care enough to try to find out. I'll either like it or i won't and then we'll listen to an incredibly obscure Metal album that some metalheads love and some metalheads hate. Then it'll be actual winter and i'll be totally at a loss as to what to do next. Maybe i'll just sell all my stuff on marketplace and go full hermit (relax, it's just cold november raining and i'm exaggerating the SAD).  This album is annoyingly cut like that on purpose. Someone thought that...

B: how am i doing, Sandra? S: actually i have to admit you're doing good on those first 4 parts. There's a fair bit of curmudgeon in there, but you aren't being overly pedantic or unfair. Really, everything you've said is true. B: funny you should say that. S: funny how? B: calm down. Obviously i'm gonna slice it in some insane direction in the future, but can we all agree i'm making a real effort here? This is relevant industry stuff that corroborates my crazy hypothesis that most americans only ever experience the illusionary facade. E: that's a fair description. It's not heavy handed, just very salt-of-the-earth. B: ok, good. I yam what i yam. Last night's album was a bit much for any day, let alone Monday. Let's go back to Sandra's "true." I have Spandau Ballet's 3rd album called that, shall we? S: are they the "ha haha hai-hi" guys? B: excellent, yes that's the title track. It's the sample for PM Dawn'...

Part 1 So, you want to write a book, huh? Well, congratulations, it costs exactly zero, zilch, nada, nothing to do that. Think up an idea, actually write it, save it, and tada you're done. I'm proud of you, that was a lot of work. Now that that's over, who's going to read it? I don't want to make you sad, but at this first stage the answer is nobody. Nobody cares. Unless you already have people texting or calling or emailing you to find out when that book they want is going to materialize, there is no market for your book. I'm not a guru, and i'm not selling you anything, you create an audience by telling a person you wrote a book and asking them if they want to read it. Wash, rinse, repeat. Paying people to read it is totally your call, i personally say no to that one. I publish with Ingram Spark; it costs $49 to have them make your book ready to print and you can order 0 or many for yourself. Only you can order them unless you buy an actual ISBN and allow ...