#John E. Smith

[dandelionjack]

finally calculated my type aka my favourite genre of man . basically post-punk adjacent even if they’re an actor or poet. they’re from this rainy island. perpetually pissed off with an acidic wit that hides their kindness. SAD EYES and a weird nose. is it really too much to ask for

[misforgotten2]

A book you very likely don’t have on your shelf #643

Cover by John Schoenherr -- 1968

[lieber-honig]

Post-punk, punk rock, new wave and no wave Christmas icons from a post-punk LiveJournal community (2007)

[sesiondemadrugada]

River's Edge (Tim Hunter, 1986).

[politicaldilfs]

Vermont Governor DILFs

Peter Shumlin, Jim Douglas, Phil Scott, Howard Dean, Deane C. Davis, George Aiken, F. Ray Keyser Jr., Franklin S. Billings, Charles Manley Smith, Richard A. Snelling, Harold J. Arthur, Horace F. Graham, John A. Mead, Joseph B. Johnson, Lee E. Emerson, Thomas P. Salmon, William Henry Wills, Mortimer R. Proctor, Ernest W. Gibson Jr., Robert Stafford, Philip H. Hoff, Allen M. Fletcher

[elvisqueso]

the thing about john smith in disney's pocahontas is that the people around him only really know him by reputation. like, thomas even says right out the gate that there's 'amazing stories' about him that even a lil guy like tom coming in green would have heard. and, like, john is aware of this. he's painfully aware of it. he doesn't go up the gangplank like everybody else, he hops on a cannon getting loaded and swoops up over the crew like the film is physically establishing right away for us this mental and social separation between smith and everyone else. and maybe part of it is having to be In Charge of the crew, so he has to be friendly but distant to be effective as a leader, or maybe he just really doesn't relate much to the others.

whatever the case may be interally, the outward action is that captain john smith will sometimes openly acknowledge the disparity and then brush right by it again, as if to say: 'i know you all admire and even like the idea of Captain John Smith, but we both know he's not actually me.'

like, he saves thomas's life and his hat, then answers the praise he gets with 'of course, you'd all do the same for me' said in such a pointed way that it can't be anything other than a chastisement of his own position.

and he doesn't initiate conversation or banter with the crew. he only ever talks to thomas regularly because thomas is constantly trying to talk to him. all the rest of his interactions with the other settlers are him maintaining a somewhat aloof yet amiable persona who does what he's supposed to until he can get away and do what he really wants to do, which is run around in the woods and breathe life in.

fuckin the first being he talks to in this film of his own volition, in a non-official capacity, is MEEKO (or possibly percy, if you count his quick 'hi-ya, see-ya' from earlier). but like, he has a whole-ass conversation with meeko the racoon.

i'm also thinking about how, following the colors of the wind segment, when thomas asks john why he's been 'awfully quiet the last few days,' john doesn't answer. lon answers: 'he's just mad he missed out on all the action!' his reputation answers for him and he balks at it bc 'oh my god that is what i'm known for, isn't it?' and so, almost immediately, he fucks off to find pocahontas again bc that's such a distressing thing for him to be confronted with now that he knows better that he needs to be around someone who doesn't see his reputation as him. someone who only knows him as himself, and, therefore, probably more completely than anyone else in his life until that point. someone he's maybe possibly wanting to know completely right back.

[skullislandproductions]

The “wet cement” image, from my previous post, here, painted by Craig Kelly, as it appears in the credits for “Little Go Beep,” with the list of animators, as well as an acknowledgment to the great Chuck Jones.

[musickickztoo]

The Fall - Peel Session 1980

The Fall's 3rd Peel session. Recorded 16/9/1980, broadcast 24/9/1980. 

Tracklisting: 1. Container Drivers (0:00) 2. Jawbone And The Air-Rifle (3:40) 3. New Puritan (7:04) 4. New Face In Hell (14:18)

[nerds-yearbook]

Man-Thing first appeared in the anthology Savage Tales 1# with a cover date of May, 1971. He was created by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Gray Marrow, and Steve Gerber (per Marvel Fandom). He came out the same year as Swamp Thing over at DC (House of Secrets 92#, cover date of July, 1971). The series broke from the limits of the comic book code that regulated most Marvel titles. The issue also introduced (to Marvel) Niord, Horsa, Old Gorm, Atali (their comic adaption created by Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor Smith), and Princess Lyra, Queen Vega, Syrani, (created by Stan Lee and John Romita Sr) . The issue also included a Ka-Zar story and a stand alone story about the rise and fall of the governor of Potonga named Joshua known as The Black Brother. The Fury of the Femizons storyline was continued on in Fantastic Four 151#. ("Conan: The Frost Giant's Daughter", "Femizons: The Fury of Femizons", "Man-Thing: ...Man-Thing!" "Joshua: Black Brother!", "Ka-Zar/Kevin Plunder: The Night of the Looter!", Savage Tales 1#, Marvel print Event)

[krispyweiss]

Quarter Notes: Blurbs & Briefs from Sound Bites

- In this edition: Willie Nelson; the Cure; Bruce Springsteen; & John Sebastian

LUCK REUNION RUNS INTO BAD LUCK: Willie Nelson’s Luck Reunion was pushed back one day to March 17 due to the potential for nasty weather on the 16th.

The shift rendered Guster and Mother Cain unavailable to perform; Margo Price was added to the St. Patrick’s Day festivities in Texas.

“Same venue, same vendors, same Willie - and a little more sunshine,” organizers said in a statement.

TICKETMASTER TRIES TO SUBVERT THE CURE’S CURE; OFFERING REFUNDS: When the Cure sought to stymie scalpers and keep ticket prices for its upcoming U.S. tour affordable, Ticketmaster responded by adding fees that more than doubled the prices for some tickets.

Robert Smith wasn’t having it and after doing some behind-the-scenes work, tweeted the monopolistic ticketing service “agreed with us that many of the fees being charged are unduly high” and will make automatic refunds of between $5 and $10 per ticket.

E STREET REOPENS: Bruce Springsteen’s streak of postponed shows ended at three and he and the E Street Band performed March 16 in Philadelphia.

HAPPY ST. SEBASTIAN’S DAY: John Sebastian turns 79 today and Sound Bites wishes him a lovin’ spoonful of his favorite ice cream.

3/17/23

[pier-carlo-universe]

L'ultimo tassello di Federico Musazzi: un thriller psicologico che esplora il confine tra arte e ossessione. Recensione di Alessandria today

Un viaggio intenso nei meandri dell’animo umano e del desiderio di perfezione

Un viaggio intenso nei meandri dell’animo umano e del desiderio di perfezione Federico Musazzi, con il suo avvincente thriller “L’ultimo tassello”, ci trasporta in una New York notturna e inquietante, dove il confine tra genialità artistica e follia è sempre più sottile. Con una narrazione coinvolgente e una trama ricca di colpi di scena, il romanzo esplora i lati più oscuri dell’animo umano e…

[aperint]

¿Qué es el libertarismo?

¿Qué es el libertarismo? #aperturaintelectual #juridicoaintelectual @luisrperaltahdz @luisr_peralta Luis Roberto Peralta Hernández

Por: Luis Roberto Peralta Hernández Algunas colaboraciones anteriores dentro del presente espacio, tuve la oportunidad de compartir con ustedes, amables lectores, el tema relacionado, con el multimencionado dentro del periodo presidencial actual del Neoliberalismo. Dentro del desarrollo de la misma, emergió el tema qué si bien, no es actual, pero que sí ha estado también rondando lo círculos…

[politicaldilfs]

Missouri Governor DILFs

Mike Parson, Bob Holden, Warren E. Hearnes, Christopher Bond, Forrest Smith, Eric Greitens, Forrest C. Donnell, Lloyd C. Stark, Guy Brasfield Park, John Ashcroft, John M. Dalton, Matt Blunt, Mel Carnahan, Jay Nixon, Phil M. Donnelly, Roger B. Wilson, Joseph P. Teasdale, James T. Blair Jr.

Governor Blair with Truman in the last pic.

[rbolick]

Books On Books Collection - Johanna Drucker

[sinceileftyoublog]

Jon Langford Interview: Serve the Song

BY JORDAN MAINZER

When you ask Jon Langford what he's up to in the near future, he'll likely list a few upcoming concerts and art exhibitions before you realize he's referring to just this upcoming weekend. For the singer-songwriter and painter, the Mekon and Waco Brother, his past, present, and future discography and levels of participation seem just as vast. During his most recent visit to Austin (of which SXSW was a mere part), Langford played twelve shows: four with The Waco Brothers, three with The Far Forlon (his Austin-based band that plays Langford solo and Mekons songs), and five with The Bright Shiners, his new band that just released their debut record, Where It Really Starts (Tiny Global Productions). But Langford views himself as a mere thread rather than the center. "I am lucky to get to work with people more talented than me," he said to me over the phone after returning from SXSW. Sarcasm aside, Where It Really Starts epitomizes that democratic approach. "I love having not all of the responsibility on myself to come up with stuff," Langford said. "It's not a solo album. It's better than that."

The Bright Shiners started when Langford and John Szymanski, his frequent musical partner, attempted to make a duo acoustic guitar record that resulted in some interesting tunes, but not enough to resist contacting singer and keyboard player Alice Spencer. That is, though the Austin-based Spencer played in soul-funk band Shinyribs, Langford and Szymanski were enraptured by her solo work and Mellotron playing. Spencer was on board, and then Langford and Szymanski brought in violinist Tamineh Gueramy. The four wrote the majority of the songs on Where It Really Starts, with Langford concocting first drafts, Spencer arranging, and the group taking them to fruition. The result is easily the most lush music of Langford's career, from the steadily chiming "For The Queen of Hearts" to the dulcet "I Have A Wish".

Where It Really Starts is rich without being overstuffed, a natural combination of layered guitars and vocal harmonies, piano, pedal-affected strings, looped percussion, and of course, Mellotron. In other words, it's folk music with contemporary touches, Langford's storytelling firmly in the present while sometimes sounding appropriately old-timey. His vocal delivery resembles that of a troubadour on the fluttery, swaying "Awake The Land Of The Shadows"; he passionately trills on "Seahouses". And on "Discarded", a duet with Spencer, the two finish each other's sentences like a sardonic country couple. "You can talk about love, you can talk about society," sings Langford, "But when push comes to shove, you wiped the floor with me," responds Spencer, atop brawny, off-kilter horns. "Seahouses" and "Discarded", specifically, contain a multitude of musical ideas Spencer brought to the table, the former's filmic feel and the latter's horns. And even producer Brian Beattie gets his kicks: The album's final track, which sounds like an outtake from or demo of "Discarded", was actually Beattie playing all of the instruments in the studio and recording his half-hearted attempt at the lyrics of "Discarded", which The Bright Shiners found so funny, they decided to put it on the album.

My interview with Langford was not set up through a publicist. I literally said hello to him when I ran into him at The Beer Temple, at which point he mentioned he had a new record coming out that he'd be down to talk about. Two weeks later, we spoke on the phone. He and The Bright Shiners signed a two-album deal with Tiny Global Productions, so you can expect to hear more, but who knows what else--spontaneous or otherwise--Langford will get up to. In the meantime, read our interview below, edited for length and clarity.

Since I Left You: When did The Bright Shiners form, and when did you start writing Where It Really Starts?

Jon Langford: It was more a social thing. We were talking. Alice Spencer was in a band...she's a keyboard player and a very good technical singer. She was doing other solo stuff which was really fascinating. She has a jazz background, but isn't into that virtuoso jazz stuff. We decided to write a few songs with John Szymanski and Tamineh [Gueramy.] John [had] been working with me, and I said to him [about Alice], "This woman's playing a Mellotron." And he said, "We should form a band with her." I didn't know there was such a thing as digital Mellotron. It's really kind of fascinating to me. Most of the songs are co-writes by the whole band. But I was handing over sketches and [Alice] was turning them into fully realized arrangements with vocals.

SILY: Did you come up with the lyrics?

JL: All the lyrics are mine.

SILY: How did you finish the songs? Was that a group effort?

JL: Yeah, the arrangements and the songs. The guy who produced it with us, [Brian Beattie,] had been working with Alice a lot. They'd done a duo together. The studio is called The Wonder Chamber. Alice was doing some recording there and sent me some video. I said, "Where is this? This is fantastic! If we do anything, this is where we should do it."

SILY: Is it in Austin?

JL: Yeah.

SILY: It seems to me that this album, more than your other solo albums, exists in the folk tradition but with more contemporary touches. Maybe that's the digital Mellotron. Would you agree?

JL: Yeah. We just wanted it to be kind of minimal. We started off with acoustic guitars, because John and I had been doing that for quite a while in a duo. We tried to make a record just me and him with acoustic guitar. It was alright, and we had a few ideas, but that's kind of on the backburner.

Music is so inherently collaborative. I've had solo records where I was totally in charge. This is basically something else. The song "Seahouses" was this epic thing Alice came up with based on something I'd sent her. I thought, "I don't remember writing this." It was mind-blowing. So beautiful, so different.

SILY: It definitely is a song that sounds like the seaside.

JL: There's something cinematic about it. I want to bash things down as simply and plainly as possible. That one has some epic moments. It's minimal in the sense that it's not a jam band. It's more like a dub reggae record where you have parts that lock and drive the song along and serve the record. When there's no singing, the parts get kind of detached from it. You can listen to these individual parts. It's getting away from the virtuosity and soloing: Just trying to serve the song.

SILY: Was there anything different this time around that inspired your lyrics?

JL: That's a good question. I'll have to talk to my therapist about that. [laughs] The lyrics are quite personal. They are inspired by the visual art I do. "For The Queen of Hearts", there was a painting called The Queen of Hearts that I made, a country singer that's like a playing card, body on top and repeated underneath. She's got two heads and is singing. The other one is a skull. I thought the song was kind of based on that.

SILY: Are you contextualizing each song with paintings you've done that might have inspired them?

JL: Some of them. "Seahouses", I went to a place called "Seahouses". It's a really dramatic place in the north of England, kind of bleak, pebbles rolling and smashing against each other, permanent and impermanent at the same time. The transitory nature of life and time itself, or something. It sounds really bonkers when I say it like that. [laughs]

Each song, I guess, has its own life. There's a lot of visual stuff in them.

SILY: There seems to be a good mix of songs that are reflective or internal and others more about storytelling, such as "Tell Me Your Story".

JL: I wrote that with a friend in Chicago, Jenny Bienemann. She had a project where she would write haikus and would hand them out to [people] to write a song from it to perform in a concert. There were 15 haikus, and she said, "Pick one you like." I thought "Tell Me Your Story" was fantastic. When you meet someone, you want to find out everything about them.

SILY: When you write or listen to folk music, do you tend to draw parallels between the modern day and the past?

JL: I think I write pretty much in the present. I'm not writing nostalgic or particularly optimistic [songs] anymore. I've tried to temper realism or pessimism.

SILY: A song like "The Emperor's Fiddle", with lines about talking to the dead and necromancing, and a line like, "We have more guns and disease than you can ever use" sounds like something that could be from an old folk song, but you could apply it to the modern day.

JL: You can apply it to the modern day. It's about going up the river and selling the Natives whiskey.

SILY: Why did you choose to throw in an unlisted track at the end that's basically an outtake of "Discarded"?

JL: That's actually Brian Beattie setting up the studio before we even arrived and playing all the instruments himself. [laughs] The first time I sat in the studio properly, he played me that. [laughs] I could have walked out. "Are you taking the piss? Are you making fun of us?" We all find it really amusing. "Is it you...I?" It grew on me in the end. I was like, "It's gotta go on."

SILY: It's like when people leave in studio chatter, but taken to the extreme.

JL: It exists. I don't know what else we were gonna do with it. Put it in a box and bury it somewhere? [laughs]

SILY: Did you do the album art for this?

JL: It's a collaboration between me and Jim Sherraden, the master printer at Hatch Show Print in Nashville. It's his woodcuts and my central figures.

SILY: How does it relate to the story of the album?

JL: It's parallel. I started working with him when we started The Bright Shiners. It was work that I was making. The idea of two people with a guitar flying through the air. There's an ethereal nature to a lot of these songs that ties in quite nicely. I like the idea of the printmaking. It's ornate. I like repetition. Mark E. Smith said, "It's not repetition, it's discipline." I find that in a lot of music I like. There doesn't have to be a high point or piano solo for people to show off their virtuosity. I thought that was a good parallel to the album. It can be beautiful and serious, but it doesn't have to be.

SILY: You can apply what Mark E. Smith says to listening, to, especially more repetitious songs that take a level of discipline or commitment, especially when they have abstraction to it.

JL: This is sort of artistic conceit. It wasn't just folk songs. We were definitely thinking about robotic, repetitive things going on. Some sort of hypnotic thing. "A Scale of One to Nine", I just wanted to [write a song] that sounds good when it comes back. [laughs] It's really relentless.

SILY: Any time you include wordless harmonies, it wriggles its way into your head.

JL: I don't like when people ask if I've made a concept record. Every record's a concept record to me. It's not like I've made a rock opera. It's a definable narrative. There's a story.

SILY: For how long have you been playing these songs live?

JL: [For] probably about eight months. After playing [at first], we understood what we wanted, and the writing process became a lot easier. We didn't do a whole album in one sitting, it was about four sittings, a few songs each time, and we got better at working. The song "I Have a Wish" is completely live. We wanted to see what it was like all playing together. It was really beautiful. We knew what we wanted to do. It's a simple song.

SILY: It has a really nice lilting melody.

JL: Alice is a really good singer. Most of the songs are duets. She really listens to phrasing and writes harmonies over the top. A lot of the time she's doing quite odd harmonies that are kind of cool.

SILY: How was it adapting some of the other songs to a live performance?

JL: It was pretty easy with this. We don't try making it sound exactly like the record. We did some gigs with a bass player and percussionist last year. Economically, we can't really do [that all the time]. We need to make it work as a four-piece. John and I have an understanding, telepathically, if I go up the neck, he goes down. The snare drum is often playing more percussively than he is, and he's finding notes that are similar to what's on the record but not exactly. Everybody sings really well, as well. We all sing together. There are beautiful moments. Tamineh uses pedals for the violin, and there are a lot of violin effects she's using. She'll use them in place of electric guitar on the record. Some Mellotron sounds are pretty fantastic. The violin with pedal delays can sound like a whole orchestra.

SILY: Did you put horns on "Discarded"?

JL: We did. Alice wanted to put a Salvation Army [brass] band on a track. I wasn't there when she did it. She got some people from Austin. I mirrored the part she was playing on the Mellotron and made it into something bigger. I wasn't sure about that song.

SILY: Are you always writing songs?

JL: Yep. I haven't for a while. I think when we finished the album, I definitely went through, at the end of last year, a phase where I wasn't doing anything. It's like a muscle. Once you turn it on again, it's like a tap. If you're not writing, you are writing somewhere in your head. A lot of things in the songs seem strange to me now because I didn't know what I meant when I wrote them, but sometimes, when we sing them on stage, I go, "Bloody hell, I wonder whether that's what that means." [laughs] It's kind of revealing tapping into the subconscious. That's where a lot of the stuff gets written.

SILY: Do you find it the same when someone in the audience might ask what something means or say a song means something different to them? Do the songs then change meaning for you?

JL: I kind of like the limitations of being a songwriter in the sense you can try and communicate something, but it might be misconstrued. I think that brings responsibility to what you talk about. It's so boring to set up a message, and say, "This song is about." It's a delicate balance to start writing songs and not be pedantic but still be authentic. Hopefully, people think about what you're singing about.

SILY: Is there anything you've been listening to, watching, or reading lately that's caught your attention?

JL: I listen to a lot of reggae still, but it's not new. I've got a vinyl player in my painting studio. I like that it stops every 25 minutes and you have to go and choose something else. You can't just put on a playlist. A lot of British reggae music from the 70s and 80s which wasn't appreciated at the time but is pretty fucking great. Steel Pulse, Misty in Roots. Bands I saw and played with at the time.

[skullislandproductions]

Wet Cement? Not for long! Image of Wile E. Coyote from the opening title sequence from "Little Go Beep," used on the card crediting the animators. Many are alumni from the animation studio StarToons, as well as several who were still there at the time of production, including Jon McClenahan.