#I don't care about your half priced moon rocks

[paulisded]

The Ledge #565: Some More Home Plays

This week is another show devoted primarily to music I've been listening to around the house. The first half is dominated by new tracks recently sent to me by various labels, and sometimes the artists themselves. There's a new tune from Sioux Falls' own Thought Patrol. There's Big Stir's latest projects featuring former Standells leader Tony Valentino. There's the usual handful of Rum Bar Records releases, including the return of The Short Fuses.

The second half of the show are highlighted by recent box set releases of The Velvet Underground, Dead Moon, and the legendary live 2Tone Dance Craze soundtrack, along with favorites by the New York Dolls, The Mummies, The Creation, The Pretty Things, and Paul Revere & The Raiders. There's almost 60 years of fabulous rock and roll!

As for this week's edition of "52 Weeks of Teenage Kicks", I don't have a lot of background information regarding the version by a band called Funeral Service. All I've managed to find out is that they were a French band that put their cover out in 1986 as the b-side to a version of the classic "Pills". If you have any info on this band, please let me know.

And please, please, please pass the word on that I'm still looking for brand new covers of The Undertones classic tune. If you have the capability to record your own version, or know some great musician friends, get on it and send the recording to paulisded @ gmail dot com.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE SHOW!

1. Funeral Service - Teenage Kicks

2. The Cruzados - Dead Inside

3. Kurt Baker - Secrets

4. The Anderson Council - Alone With You

5. Thought Patrol - Coyote Fever

6. The Short Fuses - Drop The Needle

7. The Dogmatics - Drop That Needle

8. Angela Tini - Let's Talk About It (Duet with Big Sandy)

9. Cindy Lawson - Don't Come Crying to Me

10. Ann-Margret - Born to Be Wild

11. Tony Valentino - Riot On The Sunset Strip

12. The Ducks  - Mr. Soul

13. The Waco Brothers - Backstage at the Boneyard

14. Lee Taylor - Cut & Run

15. Les Lullies - Ze´ro Ambition

16. The Len Price 3 - Christian in the Desert

17. The Pristeens - (I'd Go The) Whole Wide World

18. THE PRISSTEENS - HOW DOES IT FEEL TO FEEL

19. The Creation - Painter Man

20. Paul Revere & The Raiders - Just Like Me (Remix)

21. The Velvet Underground - Ocean (outtake)

22. The Velvet Underground - Head Held High (alternate mix)

23. New York Dolls - Jet Boy

24. The Pretty Things - L.S.D.

25. The Specials - Too Much Too Young 

26. The Beat - Twist and Crawl

27. Madness - One Step Beyond 

28. Bad Manners - Wooly Bully 

29. Dead Moon - Evil Eye

30. Dead Moon - 54/40 Or Fight (Live)

31. Chesterfield Kings - Stop

32. The Mummies - She Don't Care

33. Daniel Johnston - Speeding Motorcycle 

[isaactea]

Kinda hate that Tumblr decides to break the scroll functionality whenever they show an ad

[siderealxmelody]

Kin {Aleksander}

@xdarklingx

@madraya

@waywardlightbearer

She scoffed and glared at him.

"You're acting like some sniveling child. You went around the world looking for your siblings?"

"I know they exist mother, I've heard the rumors. Where are they? Did you kill them is that why -"

Aleksander stumbled backward, the shadow curled around his throat like a vice. He struggled his own power now working on his mother’s. She looked away, the shadow falling away like smoke. Aleksander noticed she didn't use her hands.

Had she never used her hands to summon?

She sneered at him and carefully took her shawl off. She placed her cane on the side of her chair and rose to her full height.

"You want to meet your siblings? Here, meet them."

The room swelled with shadows but they were different from his own. They didn't move like his did - they shifted and swirled around Baghra.

She sighed and shooed them away. Slowly the smoky shadows coalesced into humanoid forms. They reached for him and only his training as a shoulder kept him rigid.

Their fingers were cold, like ice. They touched his neck, face, cheeks.

"I - what is this?"

He wasn't sure if he was more horrified or in awe. His mother had sat down and rocked in the chair Genya and he had made her only the spring prior. He was surprised she liked it as much as she did.

"Your siblings, the things your grandfather did - it tainted us Aleksander. It cursed us."

He didn't feel cursed, Genya and Hebe seemed far from tainted. He could hear their laughter outside - where they talking about the spring festival? How long had he been gone?

"I - no - this - I and my sisters are -"

"Normal? Grisha? Choose whatever word you wish. Even then I wouldn't call any of you ordinary grisha. Genya has never gotten sick, even before her powers manifested. Did you notice that? Did you ever notice that no posion ivy or Nightshade harms her skin? Do you think that is normal boy?"

He swallowed and looked back at the - what were they? His siblings?

"Did - did...did father know?"

She hummed and began to knit.

"He helped me birth them. He worked with death Aleksander, these aren't fully alive. The first one nearly killed me."

He refrained from asking where that first one was.

Did she name them? Did she still have them? Why did they happen? Did she - did they speak?

"Go on, get your incessant questions out. I don't want to ever talk about this again."

"Where do they go when they don't manfest, are they invisible? Do they stay -"

"They are with me, or wander around our property. They don't speak so much as have flashes of curiosity."

"Do you - do you name them?"

"Why would I name things that aren't fully alive? They are half-things. Doomed to never truly die but never truly live either."

He felt an ache in him at that - he'd felt that for years. How many times had he thought he'd found a home only to be chased out of it?

"I will never seek you brother. If you say we are related then I hope to never see any of our kith or kin again. Death and darkness follow you and I will not have you drag me down."

Hadn't that been what Ulla said when he had met her? When he had tried to help her only for her to reject his kinship? Would she have loved their sisters? Would she have understood their mother better than he did?

He moved to turn away from them, to never acknowledge them. But they pulled at his clothes, at his hair - teach us brother, give us a purpose. They seemed to be saying.

What had Nika always said?

"We have no army Aleksander. How do we ask Grisha who have been beaten and left for dead to fight for us? That isn't a life my moon, that's suicide."

But this? They didn't feel anything did they? And they clearly wished to help him.

He turned to her, careful to keep his tone neutral.

"I - there are things that shouldn't exist. But they shouldn't be hidden mother. Let me have them, let me care for them."

She narrowed his eyes at him, but she had hope then. Hope in her son's compassion, in his love, of all things.

"Take them, they exhaust me."

He shivered as a felt a wave of coldness rush over him. He could feel them now, a brush against his own power. As if they were an extension of it.

"How - how many of them are there?"

"I do not know, they are smoke and shadow Aleksander. There could be 2 or 2,000 they split and merge often enough. I stopped trying to count them years ago."

He turned to the mass of shadows, to the void filled eye sockets.

How many of you are there?

He wasn't sure why he thought to think it, but slowly the shadows stilled and stared at him. He nearly jumped a the voices that answered in him in his mind.

11, brother. We can become more or less. Whatever you wish brother. We will see things with you yes? We wish to see things.

He didn't answer them, not when his mother was watching him so intently. He turned and walked out the door and to the woods.

"I will show you everything this world has to offer, I will let you experience all of it. There is only one things I ask of you."

Name your price brother, we will do it. We wish to make you happy, to protect you.

He hadn't assumed they could lie and this only confirmed it. He could feel their emotions, their sincere earnestness.

"Fight for me, kill for me. Will you be able to do that?"

His siblings didn't even pause after he had spoken.

Yes, yes we are familiar with killing. We will kill whoever you wish to brother.