Always an Honour....& Jandek, Faust, Wildfire and some pondering on quantity vs. quality!!!

...for Harvey Dog to be mentioned in the same sentence with someone as great as Jandek. Read here at e-Mole's blog.
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Speaking of Mr. Jandek - the more I listen to Jandek, the more I love his art (and it's art - make no mistake!!), and find new layers to explore. Here's a link for the Guide to Jandek.
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On the cd player now: Faust: Faust Wakes Nosferatu (1998) This is my first listen to this platter, and I'm finding it pretty great. Minimalist and probably more appropriate to be listening to this on headphones - while watching Nosferatu - while eating popcorn...still - pretty great latter-day Faust.
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I heard Wildfire: Smokin' (1970) and was pretty blown away by the fuzzed up guitars and driving hard rocking music. This was a real find! I love this kind of music!!! Click here for a great bio on these guys and a free illegal download!
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I was pondering the other day about quantity vs. quality. When I was younger I would listen to the same album many times over, on a daily basis...the words became memorized, I could sing along, layers of musical depth were explored. As I've become an older, more ancient man, I relish exploring and finding new bands to hear - new albums to rock my world - new albums to jazz my soul - avante-gardize my brain...BUT this has also led to hearing great albums, and then not putting them on again for months!!

What's better?? Fewer albums, more listens OR more albums more musical discoveries??? I get physical sensations of pleasure when I discover something new, something obscure with riches to offer...then again, I lose the pleasure of having an album become part of my life, part of my soul...now, it's more likely for a band to become part of my soul rather than a particular album. The closest I've come to the old days, is by listening to tons of Can, and becoming more and more familiar with their albums. In fact - I think after Faust, Can's: Monster Movie (1969) may be next on the player.

Yoo Doo Right!!!!
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Here's Jandek doing "Real Wild" from 2004 in his first ever live performance in Scotland. Yeh!!! Let's all make the decision....to get....real wild!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! thanks cjmarsicano.

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Rant: A beer garden available during the day at Hospital Days

Rant on a Beer Garden being run on Hospital Days

Hospital Days on Haida Gwaii - a beer garden! Look. This is supposed to be a family event, except for the dance at night, where I have no problems with it being licensed.

The alcohol problem is incredible here in Skidegate. Listen - it's a brutal problem on all reserves. I have a clubhouse member in the hospital because of his alcoholism [aside: when I mentioned this in a debate with a committee member in support of the beer garden, he said "whatever" and walked away. Sometimes - I really don't like people!], and at our clubhouses for Friday lunches, I have a terrible problem with guys coming to the clubhouse all pissed up.

So - the fucking hospital...is organizing a BEER GARDEN during the day. Hear me out - yesterday I was helping booths together and one guy was so fucking blitzed they called the cops to take him away. This was at noon. These guys will show up bombed, and now with the beer garden, there will be even more...

The fucking dances here end up with violence because of this alcohol problem. I know what I talk about cause I dealt with 20 years of my own alcohol problem, and it sucked
and it increased my natural depression
it wasted so many days hungover - I can't even imagine
it made me say terrible things to people who did not deserve my irrational wrath
it made me an asshole
it gave me a skewed view of life
that everything revolved around drinking.

It's an issue in our society, and for the FUCKING HOSPITAL to have a beer garden available just makes me think the people running the show are greedy fucking bastards or are totally desensitized and insensitive to the issues here on Haida Gwaii. I hope it's the latter.

There are times and places where if you wanna get juiced - go for it...BUT...the hospital supporting this????? What's the door prize??? A carton of cigarettes????????

Rant over.
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Next post - back to the music. I'm listening to Ghost "Lama Rabi Rabi" from 1996 and it's fucking awesome!!!
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Peter Brotzmann, Roky Erickson, the amazing Fugi and Embryo drop by with a couple of youtubes!!!!!

Rat a tat tat Peter Brotzmann's Machine Gun (1968) exploding in my brain...
this is some wild shit!!
Not sure I could listen to it every day, but when you're in the mood
for a little bit of
c
h
a
o
s
it can sure fill the bill,
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I know what dvd I'll be ordering next from amazoni.com..."You're Gonna Miss Me: A Film About Roky Erickson" (2007) Looks fucking incredible. Even better than "The Devil and Daniel Johnston"????? [aside: which was pretty fucking great]
We shall see rabbit
we shall see
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Listened to Embryo: Live in Italy 1980 - this is a primo -- and I mean PRIMO bootleg. This band has yet to let me down. There's an inherent beauty in this concert. This was around the time of "Embryo's Reise" and as the dreaded 80s approach, Embryo still sound VITAL!! If you're a fan check out Elastic Rock for this concert download. This is also an awesome site to find some great (are there any other kind?) Miles Davis boots from the 70s.
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Fugi: Mary Don't Take Me On No Bad Trip (1968) is incredible!! Funkadelic sized funk with great gritty street lyrics...who was this guy???
where did he go????
does anybody really know what time it is?????
who's the next canadian idol????
why does nobody know about the fugi man????
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It was the Guru's b-day yesterday!!
Happy Birthday Guru Guru!!!!
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Embryo's "Try To Do" from 1979. Great stuff!! thanks molestik

And here's Embryo with the Karnataka College of Percussion getting it on in the street in 1979. From a film by Werner Penzel - man, I'd love to see that!!! thanks ekp34!
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Weekly Ramble: Amon Duul II, Haida Gwaii, I'm Not There, dogs, shit and sunshine!!!

Weekly Ramble

I ramble
cause
I'm scattered

Another day on Haida Gwaii, how many more? The Guru's had enough of her job...Time continues to run out on my contract, and no FT computer job on the horizon. Gotta enjoy the beauty of the land while we're here! It is beautiful!!

Amon Duul II: Tanz Der Lemminge (1971) reminded me why I love krautrock so much. It blew me away...again! I love the stoned jamming, the stoned lyrics. There's some kind of exploratory research going on here and we don't know what is, do we Mr. Normal!

6 months without mary-ju-wanna and I wanna I wanna...I can get it from about 4-5 sources BUT they're all fucking clients!!! Can't risk my job...not yet, anyway...

Watched "I'm Not There" (2007) and it took me around 10-15 minutes to get into the pace and the structure of the movie. Once I did, though, I really enjoyed it a LOT. There was some pretty good acting going on. I really liked Marcus Carl Franklin and Cate Blanchett in this. Even Richard Gere was fine! Nice cameo by Jim James & Calexico and Richie Havens. Definitely a movie to watch a second time.

Listened to some more Bintangs (Genuine Bull from 1975) and loved it!! These guys rock, man!!

If you can't have fun with small dogs, when do you have fun???

Listened to the 2nd Comus album "To Keep From Crying" (1974) and what a come-down from the brilliant 1st album "First Utterance" (1971). I mean, it wasn't brutal or anything, but no comparison to the 1st one.

I'm feeling shortchanged at work lately. It's a little stressful to put on lunch for 15 schizo / depressed / mentally unbalanced broke guys every week, with no help whatsoever. Wait...a couple of the guys do actually help out, but no other Life Skills worker or Clinician. A bit of a stressor!! Oh well, I guess we plod on doing the best we can.

Been writing more poetry lately...at work. It's a nice relief and stress reducer. I feel the words are flowing better than they have in the past 10 years. Ya gotta let the shit simmer...I mean sometimes you want to put out all the demons in your mind and feed it to the page, then you think you're nothing but a downer...
gotta remember there's a ying and yang to everything...
a balance...
shit and sunshine in every breath
we're all on this roller coaster
who knows when we'll crash
but we will
and until then
might as well go with the flow...

I'm listening to HP Lovecraft's 1st album from 1967, and I really enjoy these guys. Great psychedelic folky stuff. Check em out.
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Here's some Amon Duul II from 1970 doing "Soap Shop Rock". thanks Louisfilth!
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Pre-I'm Not There Musical thoughts and ramblings

The Guru and I are just about ready to watch Todd Haynes' "I'm Not There". I saw a youtube clip of Cate Blanchett doing Dylan, and was very impressed. Let's see how the movie holds up. Why does one guy portraying Dylan on the back look like Eric Clapton???
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Speaking of whom - I just finished Patti Boyd's "Eric and George and me in a drunken drugged stupor getting abused constantly and loving it" memoir, and I did find it quite entertaining. George certainly came across as a nicer person than Eric, who came across like a spoilt rich rock star [aside: um, which I guess he is]. Not a bad read at all.
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Miscellaneous Musical Ponderings while waiting for The Guru

The Impressions were pretty shit hot.

I really like Nine Days Wonder...I was listening to "The Best Years of Our Lives" while walking The Bah and I was absolutely grooving to it. Singing out loud, pulled out the harmonica, and got into it's head space.

Dusk by Olivia Tremor Control was nothing like I expected. Beatles psychedelic pop mixed with some cool experimental shit. Very enjoyable! I'm not really sure what I was expecting.

Roky Erickson was a fun guy.

The Faces were quintessential rock'n'roll.

To show that I don't praise everything under the sun connected to krautrock - I found Da Capo's self-titled 1970 album pretty so-so. The odd cool groove, but overall pretty mediocre.

See?!

Time to watch the movie dudes.
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