#Rhythm & Blues Compilation

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

The Commodores – Easy

[renerox]

SATANIC PANIC! - 31 Tunes Proving That Devil's In The Music!

. Hello friends and surfers all over the globe. As you know it’s very hot these days especially in Mediterranean region, and in Belgrade today will be 40C, so it’s hot as hell, vinyl is almost melting 😉 Speaking of hell, here’s a brand new compilation made by my good friend Sergio (Mr. Fuzzter) from Spain, and it's dedicated to Mr. Devil and Satanic themed tunes from various genres as swing, blues,…

[theparanoid]

Various Artists - Las Vegas Grind! Volume Seven

2018 Compilation, Jazzman Records

Youtube Playlist | Bandcamp

[gallaxowelcome]

Tiny Bradshaw - Stomping Room Only (1983)

Krazy Kat KK 7419 (UK)

NM/EX (7)

[tfc2211]

Play ▶ Go Kat Go (Rockabilly / Rock 'N Roll Compilation)

Rollin' And A-Rockin' - Ruckus Tyler You Are My Sunshine - Carl McVoy Ten Cats Down - The Miller Sisters Hershey Bar - Boyd Bennett & His Rockets Rock House - Harold Jenkins Messed Up - Bill Swing You'll Never Walk Alone - Gene Vincent & His Blue Caps My Baby's Fine - Roy Head & The Traits I'm Gone Again - Rudy Grayzell The Big Bounce - Shirley Caddell & The Aristocrats Bop-A-Dee Bop-A-Doo - Hal Willis Razzle-Dazzle - Bill Haley & His Comets My Little Jewel - Tommy "Jim"Beam & The Four Fifths Atom Bomb Baby - The Five Stars Fancy Dan - Gene Summers & The Rebels Jack Rabbit - Ike Turner & The Kings Of Rhythm Matchbox - Ike Turner & The Kings Of Rhythm Wombat Twist - Glenn & Christy Summertime - Carlos & The Bandidos Dig A Hole (Bop Version) - Marcel Bontempi Jailbird Josephine - Peter and The Wolves Little Boy Sad - Johnny Burnette Rock Billy Boogie - Johnny Burnette And The Rock 'N Roll Trio Jake Legged Preacher - Connie Dycus Handcuffed Heart - Anita Tucker Gee Whiz - The Dazzlers Somethin' Baby - The Dazzlers Set Him Free - Jesse & The Al Luscan Lumberjacks Pretty Baby - The Kabooms   Don't Push - Don Deal Don't You Hear Me Calling Baby - Ronnie Haig Rocking With Rhythm & Blues - Ronnie Haig Mars Attack - Wild Wax Combo The Drifters - Wild Wax Combo

[gallaghersgal]

hi hi hi today i’m thinking about carmy (as usual oopsie) and his girl who loves him more than anything. she loves him so much she always supports him with the restaurant, she listens to his ideas, tastes his meals and gives her honest opinion, she makes sure to take care of him because he often forgets about that. she’s just that girl <3

and maybe for his birthday or their anniversary (or the bear’s opening day’s anniversary?) she spends months preparing a book similar to the dozens they have in their living room or in the office at the bear. you know those professional cook books? with the impeccable meal pictures and the chef in deep concentration and explanations about each piece? she spends months snapping pictures of carmy while he’s working at the bear (when the restaurant is closed and he’s trying stuff out), him and the rest of the team, she’ll snap pictures of the meals he makes and take notes when he explains the idea behind it to put it in the book. she asks to take pictures of his notes too and he says yes, she doesn’t tell him what she’ll do with them though (but it’s okay because he trusts her <3) and just compiles everything so she can offer it to him. she adds her own notes and maybe at the end a longer note where she tells him what she thinks of him and his work and how much she loves him.

carmy gets too into his own head and it keeps him from seeing all the good he does, the positive side of things, the fact that he’s loved and he has people who care about him. and this book just has it all <3

-🧸

sobbing bc i started writing this and then accidentally closed it and the draft didn't save so anyways. this is very sweet so here is a mini blurb. sorry for the wait my lovely 🧸

carmen can't believe how lucky he is, to have someone like you as his wife. sweet, thoughtful, smart, and caring. he isn't an emotional man by any means, burying his feelings in nicotine and the rhythm of the kitchen. you've realized that even those closest to him don't know his intricacies, not in the way that you do. it's hard to break the surface of him but you've done it.

a lone tear trails down his cheek while trembling fingers flip the pages of your meticulously crafted anniversary gift. a cookbook, full of the most significant recipes in his repertoire. the pages were adorned with scans from his sketchbook. there were pages upon pages of old draft menus, sketches of unperfected dishes, and his handwritten recipes. each item included a 'professional' photo of the dish—courtesy of sugar and the fancy camera she bought before the baby's arrival—recreated by the bear staff and others you'd tracked down.

but the part that really gets him comes at the end. a faded photograph of mikey, sugar, and himself at the beef, holding up sandwiches and grinning. his childhood order is written in your handwriting, his choices annotated in a way that teases him even through the page.

"bear?" you ask quietly, poking your head into the office. you knew he was opening your gift, you'd been pretending to care about something on the hostess stand. too nervous. your heart is a little too bare on the pages.

carmen looks up with blue eyes sparkling and lays the book down on his desk. "you. c'mere, right now," he mumbles, extending one strong arm to hook around your waist and grapple you into his lap. his soft lips flutter against your neck, jaw, and cheek, and your giggles keep him from kissing your lips effectively.

"happy anniversary carmen," you whisper. his head falls to the crook of your neck, almost like he's hiding. and maybe he is, with what he tells you next.

"you, are the best wife, a man could ever ask for," he mumbles against your skin, each pause is punctuated with a kiss. he sounds choked up, and you pretend not to notice. "an' i thank whatever powers-that-be ev'ry day that i get to call you mine."

[familiarscars]

Lost In Control | Bad Omens | CHAPTER 08

adult content | minors do NOT interact.

⋆ 𝐏𝐀𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐆. Bad Omens X ex-girlfriend and singer!Reader.

⋆ 𝐒𝐘𝐍𝐎𝐏𝐒𝐈𝐒. You and Noah had a difficult ending but you still need to support each other for the band.

⋆ 𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆(𝐒). melancholy, ex-boyfriends, difficult relationships, alcohol abuse, swearing, drug addiction, violence.

It's okay to not agree with the characters' attitudes during the fic. It's good to remember that the story is fiction from the author's sick mind and of course they will make dubious decisions according to my fantasies. Nothing is done to be compared to reality.

Your eyes seemed to burn from the intensity of the light streaming through the window as your eyelids slowly peeled apart. The sound of a beeping monitor, a white room, and unfamiliar blue bedding came into focus, along with the IV lines running from your arm, causing discomfort whenever your body moved.

The sides of your head throbbed with such unbearable pain that your fingers pressed against your temples, as if fearing they might detach from your neck at any moment. Everything in your mind was a dark blur, with no identifiable cuts of clarity.

Yet the one certainty you had was why you’d ended up here—your body’s reactions made that abundantly clear. Your mouth was so dry that your lips stuck together, and your heart threatened to pound out of your chest with its relentless rhythm. Taking a sip of water seemed like a good way to silence the gnawing pain in your stomach, but as soon as you stretched your arm toward the bottle on the nearby table, it slipped through your fingers as a wave of dizziness clouded your vision.

“Shit,” you murmured, barely audible.

A sequence of claps drew your attention to the door, and your body instinctively straightened in the bed, despite the lingering pain in your left arm. Each clap synchronized with a step, and the expressions on his age-marked face clearly conveyed his lack of enthusiasm to be there, along with a palpable sense of disdain.

“Congratulations!” Gerard ceased his clapping as he stopped beside your bed. “It’s astonishing how you continue to surprise me with your incompetence.”

His eyes scanned your state with the air of someone examining something detestable, and when they met your face again, he shook his head in a theatrical display of disappointment.

“As if it weren’t enough for your face to be plastered all over the internet because you lost it and attacked a fan, now I have to endure the media interrogating me about why one of my vocalists overdosed at a party in my house!” he hissed through gritted teeth, raking his fingers aggressively through his hair. “WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU?”

“I’d answer if I could remember anything,” you sighed in exhaustion, laying your head back against the pillow, wishing only for the throbbing, miserable pain to subside.

“Right now, we were supposed to be at the photoshoot for the band’s new winter clothing line, and guess what?” he emphasized. “They all refused to go because of you!”

“Want me to feel sorry?” you retorted with a scoff. “We’ve never even seen a dólar from those clothes. Looks like I did them a favor.”

Arguing at this point required more effort than your body seemed capable of mustering. Each word exchanged only amplified the pounding in your head, made worse by the grating irritation of his voice drilling into your brain.

“Noah’s decided it’s time for you to step back from the band and focus on getting help. He’s compiled a list of specific places for that,” Gerard gestured animatedly with his hands. “Isn’t that lovely?”

Amid the chaotic jumble of your thoughts, you forced yourself to recall flashes from the previous night. You couldn’t be certain whether it was your mind fabricating memories or if you truly heard Noah’s desperate voice, even though it sounded distant in your ears.

If it had happened, and he still cared enough about your recovery to suggest stepping away, it meant that, in some small way, he still cared. But why did this realization prick at the fabric beneath your skin? You couldn’t find an answer.

“I accept.” You agreed, snapping out of your thoughts, raising your eyes to Gerard, who stood with arms crossed, leaning against the bed. “I want to go to rehab.”

“No, that’s not how this works.”

Your brow furrowed at the sly tone in his voice as he stepped closer. Instinctively, you leaned back, trying to distance yourself from him, but the edge of the bed stopped you.

“We have two festivals in the next two weeks and a tour starting next month, and I’m not letting you ruin them like you did today’s shoot. In our last conversation, I gave you incentives to endure the routine, just like we’ve always done since you proved to be weak. It’s your obligation to learn to moderate!”

“Get out of my room! Stay away from me!” Your voice cracked, the edge of its firmness faltering. Keeping composure was no longer possible when all you felt was exhaustion, and even that wretched emotion he insisted on suppressing.

“Of course, sweetheart.”

Slowly, he leaned over you, gripping the curve of your elbow where the IV was attached, pressing the needle into your skin. Your body flinched at the sharp sting tearing through your senses, and you found yourself forced to meet his expressionless eyes.

“But when Noah walks through that door, you’re going to be a good girl and convince him you don’t need help. It’s not like you’ve never lied to him before, right? You’ll return to work and fulfill your schedule without letting that idiot interfere with my plans to keep the band together! I’m not losing money!” He enunciated every word, never breaking eye contact. “And do you know why you’re going to do this?”

“You’re hurting me.”

“Because you don’t want me giving a statement that your overdose was caused by your ex-boyfriend, who just happened to be in the same place where the emergency team found your body,” Gerard said, pressing his thumb harder into your skin. “It won’t be hard to make them believe me when they find what I’ve planted in his room.”

A warm trickle of blood seeped from the IV site as he pressed on it, the same pace at which it began to sting.

“You’re contradicting yourself when you claim to prioritize the band’s integrity, yet your first ‘mature’ decision is to destroy it entirely. You know my absence won’t affect Bad Omens’ performance, but doing this to Noah would tear it all apart. It makes no sense.”

Actually, a realization struck you faster than you anticipated. Gerard knew that when it came to the band, you and Noah had always been as one, and any disturbance to one pillar would inevitably shake the other.

As had happened before.

“I met someone who helped me with this dirty work, and I found it fascinatingly ironic when I discovered he’s a mutual acquaintance of ours: Seth Reigh,” you said, sarcasm dripping from your tone. “There aren’t many guys with that name in that city, especially one with an identical name in your history. Seth is one of Richmond’s best suppliers. But, to my surprise, it took me less than half an hour of digging to learn everything about him, including that he’s your stepfather. The same one who’s been hunting you like an animal for years since you ran away from home.”

How far could someone go when determined to own another at any cost? This was the dirtiest move you’d ever witnessed in your life, hitting you like a slap to the face. Hearing Seth’s name after nine years still made your body react the same way it had years ago. As if nothing had changed.

“All this time, you’ve been safe, with my men guarding each and every one of you. He could never reach you, couldn’t even come near you. But with just one call…”

“You’re the filthiest creature I’ve ever met!” you snapped, your jaw aching from holding back tears of rage.

“And you’ll learn to honor contractual clauses. If not for yourself—which I doubt since you don’t care about your own life—then for Noah’s. He’ll be terribly upset when he gets reported for illegal drug possession after his ex-girlfriend hid them among his things...” Gerard feigned a pitiful tone, as if thoroughly enjoying himself. “No love can withstand that, right?”

You already felt guilty for wrecking the life of the man you’d loved since the day your paths first crossed. Burdened by the mess of your cursed history, you couldn’t forgive yourself for dimming the light in his eyes over the years. You couldn’t be responsible for another.

As though he had managed to plant what he wanted in your mind, Gerard released your arm, the dried blood trailing faint marks where it had flowed. Your head still refused to process the moment, and like a shadow swept away by a lapse in time, he vanished from the room. But unfortunately, this time, it wasn’t a fabricated memory.

That conversation had actually happened.

The nurse brought your meal; everything looked anemic, tasteless, impossible to digest. You weren’t sure if the food was truly bad or if you just weren’t hungry, feeding on hate instead. Your fingers absentmindedly nudged the chicken piece back and forth on the plate, letting it roll alongside a green jelly that smelled like plastic.

“Hey.” A male voice whistled from the doorway, tapping twice before stepping in.

Your smile came unbidden, and he returned it as he walked toward you, hands tucked into his pockets. As always, a cap paired with the hood of his sweatshirt, he was dressed entirely in black and smelled so good you dared to think it was the first scent you’d noticed since waking up. Noah wore the same clothes as yesterday—he hadn’t gone home, hadn’t left you alone.

A restless kind of peace came with him, and he had no idea that it was exactly what you needed.

“As always, I’m giving you trouble…” you began, a little embarrassed, but his soft chuckle cut you off as he gently moved your leg aside to sit on the edge of the bed.

“That doesn’t matter, but I’d like to know how you’re feeling.” He sighed, glancing at the tray beside you. “Why haven’t you eaten yet?”

You just wrinkled your nose with a grimace that made him smile.

“Come on, at least a little, okay?” he coaxed, adjusting the tray in front of him. With infinite patience, he cut and gathered the food onto the utensil, then brought it toward you. “Watch out for the airplane!”

Stifling a laugh, you accepted the food and closed your mouth to chew. Determined not to upset him, you ate two more bites before he moved the tray aside again.

“I don’t know if you’re well enough for this, but I can’t think of a better time to have this conversation with you.” Noah hesitated, running his hands over his thighs and biting his lips before looking back at your face. “I promise that the person sitting here in front of you right now isn’t your work partner. It’s Noah. I don’t know if you even remember him, but he used to be yours.”

“Please…”

A warm sensation ran through your skin when he placed his hand over yours, his thumb tracing over the exposed bones.

“I know what it feels like to lose you, and I swear to God, it doesn’t compare to how I felt yesterday when I found you in that place.” Slowly, he raised his face, his dull, lifeless eyes brimming with emotion. His lips trembled, but his touch didn’t falter. “That was one of the most selfish things you’ve ever done, and believe me, you’re the most selfish person I know.”

As though it were an involuntary command from your body, a single tear fell from your left eye just after one rolled down his cheek.

“I’m so sorry for that.”

“I can’t take this torture anymore—being forced to watch you die. Every part of me rots along with you every time you choose to hate yourself this way because I’d never do that to you. I’d never treat you like that.” He looked up, gasping for air, before continuing. “So, if you still hate yourself too much to want help, do it for me. I’m still your biggest fan.”

Your chest felt like invisible strings were being pulled tighter and tighter, suffocating you. But you couldn’t expect much from yourself. Closing your eyes, you prayed for this moment not to be real, for it not to demand that you say the things that would break him again. But when you opened your eyes, he was still there, as vulnerable as the night you first kissed.

“Noah…”

“I’ve found good contacts. It’s not too far, the treatment would be short, and I’ve already planned to visit regularly and…”

He was talking so fast that he could barely hear himself.

“Noah, I don’t need help,” you blurted, closing your eyes again to avoid seeing the moment the words hit him.

“What?” he asked in disbelief, adjusting his position on the bed. “Do you have any idea what happened yesterday, or are you going to ignore it like you’ve been doing all these years?”

No one warns us that struggles with addiction are destructive not only to the user but to everyone around them, reducing their world to a single life—yours. No matter how much you try not to make it about you, they relentlessly, almost obsessively, pursue your cure, forgetting they’re deteriorating along the way. But who catches the strong one when they can no longer hold themselves up?

“I know I crossed a line yesterday, and that’s enough for me not to repeat it, but not enough to accept being admitted as if I’m some addict!” You didn’t even believe your own words, but you needed to hold your ground. “If you really cared about me like you say, you’d never suggest something like that!”

“You’re acting like you didn’t hear anything I said!” Noah pressed his hand against his thigh, preparing to stand, but you grabbed his wrist just in time to stop him.

Gently, you got to your knees on the bed and crawled toward him, feeling the wind from the window brush against your back, exposed by the hospital gown. Noah was breathing heavily, his face damp, his red, irritated eyes framed by strands of hair tucked behind his ears. He didn’t resist your touch as your hand cupped his cheek. Shutting his eyes, he moved slightly when you tilted his face, shaking his head as though the scene was something he had lived through before.

And in truth, he had.

"Hey, I'm still here, look at me!" you whispered, and after he refused once again, you opened your eyes, anguish etched into your face as your foreheads collided, breaths clashing. "There’s no one else in this world who knows me as well as you do, so give me one more chance when I say I’ll get it right this time. I want to be better. I want to be good again, but I can’t do that unless you believe in me. Unless, just once more, you believe in me, Noah."

Your voice held steady, resisting the urge to falter, and for a second, in his silence, you thought he was considering your words. The way he listened so intently, down to the rhythm of his breathing, made you hope. You couldn’t resist the subtle way your skin brushed against his, even though desperation lingered in the air.

But something shifted in his eyes. They darkened, fixing on you with an expression you had never seen before. Noah seemed to take every ounce of his accumulated weight—exhaustion, fury, repression—and throw it all down at once. Gripping the hand still resting on his face, he let it out.

"I. DO. NOT. BELIEVE. YOU." His voice was strong, firm, rough, and left no room for argument. He pronounced each word deliberately, not once breaking his gaze.

Noah shoved your hand away from his face as if it carried a contagious disease, and in the next moment, he stood up from the bed in a hurry. He turned back toward you, eyes scanning your frozen figure, still on your knees. It seemed to hurt him as much as it hurt you—evident in the way his breathing hitched, his chest visibly weighed down.

"If you really want another chance to fix things, then accept my help. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for me and all the time I stood by your side, even when you least deserved it, even when I forgot the way back home." Noah insisted. "But if you don’t, I want you to forget I exist outside of the stage. I want to be dead to you, just as you will be dead to me the moment I walk through that door."

Though his words wavered with hesitation, they struck like a promise. Avoiding his gaze long enough to keep him from noticing your cracks, you lowered your head, offering him only silence in response.

But he would never understand.

"Hey..." Three heads peeked around the doorway, and both of you turned to see Folio, Jolly, and Ruffilo entering, pretending they hadn’t been eavesdropping just outside.

"Didn’t know we’d be walking into a funeral. We can come back later," Folio said with a flat smile, gesturing his thumb toward the hall.

"No need, boys. Noah was just leaving," you said with a friendly smile in their direction. From the corner of your eye, you saw him nod and storm out of the room like a furious bolt of lightning.

The trio exchanged glances, silently communicating in their own cryptic way before each of them found a spot on the bed, squishing together to keep you company. As the conversation flowed, you tried to distract yourself, even laughed at the absurdities spilling from their mouths, but your mind kept drifting back to the same place.

This was the first time you’d truly kept a promise to him.

You had finally broken his heart.

Once again.

⭑ @collisionofyourkissmakesitsohard ; @iluvmewwwww75 ; @anarchydomainglory ; @foliosgirl ; @lma1986 ; @chey-h ;

[ox-imagines]

Nights Like This

Tohma x f reader - coworkers to lovers

wc: 5k

This work contains smut!! I'll put the cutoff before the smut for anyone who wants to read up to that point! !!MINORS DNI!!

This was requested by @mastering-procrastinating as an expansion of my Romance Tropes headcannons. I hope you enjoy!

(ps. the little breaks in it signal that it's a different night they're working)

“I suppose the cup in the microwave is yours?” You heard a voice over your shoulder.

Tohma Ishibashi. You were promoted several months ago and had worked with him since, though never directly. You’d had no reason to deal with him, thus you hadn’t.

“Yeah, it’s mine; sorry,” you stood and brushed past him to get your cup. “I just thought I’d get some coffee, you know, since we might be here a while.” You’d reheated the coffee still in the pot from the workday to get some caffeine in your system in preparation for what you’d expected would be a long night. From what you knew, Tohma tended to be a hard worker, and you weren’t sure what it would be like to work on a project with him.

“Good thinking. You could’ve just made a new pot, though.” Tohma’s disposition was… hard to decipher. He was courteous, and seemed friendly enough though you’d never gotten the impression he cared on a personal level. You could respect a ‘business is business’ mindset, though, so you didn’t question it or push further. He set his dinner in the microwave and leaned back against the counter as he waited for it to heat up. Focused, steely blue eyes, settled behind a monocle of all things, surveyed you as he reached for his laptop, balancing it on one large hand while he opened it and tapped on his keyboard with his other. “We already have the creative team’s content and market research prepared. We need to make infographics from it, get the presentation in order, and rehearse. I intend to be completely done with this come Friday morning.”

“Sir, yes sir,” you murmured, slightly mocking his commanding, driven tone while simultaneously mourning the loss of your next three evenings. He did little more than raise an eyebrow at you and didn’t even look up from his screen, though you could’ve sworn his lips had quirked up slightly. Setting his laptop back on the table, he retrieved his warmed food and sat down next to you.

He opened the project file and slid out several pages, handing you half of them. “Here. Start the infographics for that data.”

You did as he said, though you couldn’t help but feel a little begrudging. After all, you were in equal positions, even if you were newer to yours than he was; what right did he have to tell you what to do?  Then again you would’ve done exactly that had he not told you what to do, so what was the use in being irritated with him? Maybe if you were just calm and cooperative, you’d find him more agreeable.

The two of you fell into a silent rhythm as you worked. You were glad you’d figured out Excel pretty quickly when you started your new position; you thought if you’d had to ask him for help making the data displays you’d have rather just passed away. You glanced over at him. His brow was furrowed subtly, his striking eyes focused intently on his laptop as they reflected its glow. The strong lines of his nose and jaw pulled together a shockingly handsome face now that you were really looking at him up close.

“Do you need something?”

“Oh, sorry.” He’d caught you looking at him. You hurriedly returned to your work, your cheeks heating marginally. From the corner of your eye, you caught him smirking.

°°••....••°°

“Did you bring dinner tonight? I’m ordering mine, if you’d like something,” Tohma’s icy eyes peered at you over his phone, glimmering in the fluorescents of the little break room. The previous night, the two of you had decided to be done once all the infographics were complete. Tonight, you were going to share your files and cross-check each others’ work before compiling and organizing it into a single slideshow, giving you two nights to rehearse your presentation.

“Oh! Um, sure, I brought a snack and drink but I haven’t really eaten much today,” you weren’t sure why you’d decided to give him more information than he needed; maybe the thoughtfulness of his including you had caught you off-guard. Without another word, he handed you his phone to look at the menu of the restaurant he was ordering from and make a selection. “Do you have PayPal, or Venmo, or Cashapp, or..?” You trailed.

“No need, it’s my treat,” he nodded, crossing his arms and leaning back against the counter as he watched you.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Are you finished?”

“Sorry,” you quickly finished picking something and handed his phone back. “And thank you. For dinner, I mean. You really don’t have to.”

His hand lightly brushed yours as he took his phone back. “I don’t mind. You’re a good worker, and clearly, management doesn’t reward for that regularly, so I thought it might be nice for us to have a little something to keep us going.”

“I appreciate it,” you thanked him again, once more a bit taken aback by his friendliness tonight. However, he fell quiet, slipping his phone into his pocket and opening his laptop.

“Have you already sent me your work from last night?”

“I did,” you absentmindedly tapped on the table with one hand while the other dug your computer out of your bag. “I emailed it to you before we left last night.”

“Perfect.”

More silence, aside from the light tapping of keys as he typed. The quiet wasn’t awkward, thankfully, instead feeling more like he was fine to work calmly at your side rather than needing to fill the space with small talk. You clicked over to your email tab, finding the files he’d sent. You were happy to find that they were of about the same quality as yours and therefore yours should be to his liking. Before you knew it, he had his folder out again and was finally sitting down, divvying up the papers like he had the night before and handing you the opposite stack this time.

“Once we’ve checked that each others’ data is all accurate, we can compile it into the empty presentation I just shared with you.” No sooner than he’d gotten settled in his seat, he was up again, checking his phone. “The food arrived; I’ll be right back.” You noticed the smoothness with which he moved as he pocketed his phone and exited, and the graceful lines of his figure in his well-tailored suit.

Why are you thinking about that? You shook your head and leaned back in your chair, hooking your feet on the bar under the table so you could prop the chair back on just the two hind legs. Sure, Tohma Ishibashi was objectively an attractive man, but there was no reason for you to be thinking about it just because he was nice enough to buy your dinner. You didn’t even know him on a personal level in any way; for all you knew, he could be part of a gang, or in a relationship, or just be a terrible person outside of work.

Your eyes blew wide as you felt the chair’s back legs slip. You’d gotten distracted and leaned too far back. With a sickening smack, your head hit the counter behind you as you fell backward, courtesy of your feet still hooked under the table preventing you from falling straight down with the chair. “Damn it,” you groaned softly, pressing a hand to the back of your head. Sure enough, you felt the telltale dampness of blood. Keeping your hand there, you scrambled to your feet and stood the chair up. If Tohma came back to you on the floor and hurt, he’d think you were an idiot, or at the very least childish. You checked to make sure there wasn’t blood on the counter before wetting a paper towel at the sink, wringing out the excess and holding it to the back of your head. Maybe if you sat in front of the wall he wouldn’t notice anything wrong or different with your head. You slid your computer and phone over to a different chair and did just that.

“I’m back,” Tohma announced, his ashen hair falling just over his eye as he shouldered the door open. He set the bag of food and his drink on the table and eyed you curiously, noting that you’d moved seats. “Did you not order a drink?”

“No, I have one I brought tonight,” you smiled politely at him and mentally crossed your fingers that he wouldn’t ask any questions about you moving.

“Okay; just making sure the delivery wasn’t missing something,” he smiled back.

Once you both had your food out, you grabbed the energy drink you’d brought, earning you an interested and possibly amused glance from your coworker. “Honestly?” You said as you returned to your seat. “I don’t think caffeine really does much for me. I like this brand of energy drink, though, and I still try it for times like tonight when I’m working late,” you shrugged.

“Interesting. I’m a tea person myself, so that’s usually how I consume my caffeine. I’m not sure it affects me much either, though; I usually don’t bother to check whether or not a blend is decaf.”

You found yourself smiling softly. You could picture him sipping a cup of tea in his monocle, maybe sitting outside at a fancy cafe in a long, expensive coat. Oddly enough, though, you’d noticed he had two piercings in his ear, and that his monocle was chained to one of them. It was a curious accent to his otherwise tidy demeanor, and undoubtedly made you all the more interested in learning more about him.

“Shall we?” He gestured to both the food and the data sheets in front of you.

°°••....••°°

“I said I’d deal with it this weekend,” Tohma gruffly spoke into his phone. “Unlike some people, I am busy. I will talk to you later.” He hung up with a soft huff. If he was a bird, his feathers would most certainly be ruffled. As it were, his brows were pulled together slightly and his lips were pursed in a soft, irritated frown. He set his phone down on the table before fixing you with a customer service-esque smile. “I apologize. Just a friend of mine who thinks I can drop everything to help him at any moment.”

“Oh, no problem. Is there something you need to take care of?”

“No, not at all. He can wait a couple of days like I originally told him to.” As if he was finally present, he noticed the box in the middle of the table.

“I hope you like pizza, I got enough for both of us,” you gave him a reassuring smile as he sat next to you. That was the first time you’d seen him not uphold his careful composure, and even now his composition seemed somewhat strained, his steely eyes a bit more unfocused than usual and something tired about his expression that didn’t seem to belong there.

“Thank you. I’m not especially hungry at the moment but I’m sure I will be before too long. Are you ready to start rehearsing?” He scooted his chair in and leaned on his elbows against the table. Tonight he was sitting a bit closer to you than the previous two nights, close enough that you could make out several notes of his scent. Something herbal and a bit minty, a slight musky scent of some sort of aftershave or cologne, and the faintest hint of smoke. You couldn’t deny that he smelled quite nice, or that his scent suited him well.

You snapped yourself out of the thoughts, once again ridiculing yourself for having them in the first place. “Full transparency, I get a bit nervous when presenting stuff; once we get started I should do fine, and can at the very least bullshit my way through convincingly, but it might be better if you start the presentation.”

“Very well. Do you think if I kick us off with the introduction you’ll be able to follow in smoothly with the first set of statistics?”

“I do.”

“Perfect. Once you do that, we can work together to get through the rest. Tonight we’ll figure out where it feels most natural to alternate and whatnot.” He rubbed his neck as he stared at his computer. “Think of me as a safety net. If you’re doing well, I won’t step on your feet or cut you off, et cetera, but if you start struggling I won’t hesitate to jump in and take over. I have a lot of practice reading situations and making sure they turn out in my party’s favor.”

“Good to know. Thanks, Tohma.” You’d been a bit worried about how he might react to learning that the person he was doing a marketing pitch with was someone who wasn’t exactly the best at presentations, but he’d once again remained calm and good-natured, even despite seeming a bit worn out and on edge tonight.

The two of you fell into a comfortable repertoire, your rehearsal going smoother than expected. He really was a natural at directing the conversation.

“Can we be done now?” You sighed softly after yet another run-through of the slides.

“We can be done once you know your script well enough not to skip important information. If you like we can take a break for a few minutes, but we certainly aren’t done tonight. I’d like to get through it at least three more times, or until you know what you’re talking about.” Noticing your disgruntled attitude, he chuckled softly and leaned back. “The more we practice tonight, the less time we have to spend here after work tomorrow.”

Something in your chest twinged at his words as you realized he was right. Tomorrow would be your last night staying late together working on the project. You hadn’t realized you were actually enjoying his company enough that you’d miss doing overtime with him every night instead of going home. “Fine, let’s just get this over with then,” you sighed.

°°••....••°°

Tohma wasn’t there yet. This was the first time he wasn’t already in the break room waiting for you when you got there. You turned on your laptop and sat, trying to force yourself to think about something else. He wouldn’t ditch, right? Your eyes flicked to the clock. 6:36. Maybe he was just in the bathroom. Pulling up the presentation, you forced a deep breath into your lungs. He’d been happy with where you’d ended your rehearsals last night, maybe he’d decided another night of practice wasn’t necessary and had neglected to tell you he wasn’t coming.

As the time on the clock changed to 6:39, the door swung open. Tohma’s long legs easily brought him across the room to the counter, where he promptly set his bag. His shoulders were held upright as usual, but tonight there was a certain tenseness in them. He was frowning slightly; lines of tension were etched across his pristine face as well. “Is it a bit warm in here?”

You were a little startled by the rapidness of his appearance, and the question in place of a greeting, and all you could do was stare as he unbuttoned and removed his jacket. Without the extra layer, you could tell there was a clear definition to his muscles, more so than you’d expected. He wasn’t some steroid-ridden gym rat by a long shot, but he was certainly also no soft-bodied office worker. “A-are you alright?” You stammered as you looked him over. It was unusual of him to seem so uncollected.

“I’ll be fine, let’s just get through this,” he sat next to you, not bothering to get out his own computer since you already had the presentation up on yours.

Your rehearsal felt a bit more stunted than the night before, despite you being more comfortable with the information now. Eventually, you just stopped to look at Tohma. “Are you sure you’re okay? Because something definitely seems wrong.”

“I’m-” he sighed, leaning back and rubbing a hand over his neck. “My friend I mentioned yesterday is just getting on my nerves a bit more than usual. I know he’s got his issues, and I have a lot of patience, but he seems intent on wearing it out.” He turned to meet your gaze with a soft huff. “I’m sorry, none of this is your problem.”

“No, it’s fine.” You couldn’t manage to look away from him, subconsciously noting the myriad colors in his eyes; a sweet, somewhat-lavender cornflower tone, the light blue of a shadow on fresh snow, tiny flecks of a deeper, almost indigo color. You realized he wasn’t looking away either, nor was he saying anything. The tension around his eyes seemed to ease slightly, and there was the minutest shift in his expression. When his eyes finally broke away from yours, it was only for the briefest second; they flicked down to your lips before returning to your gaze. For a moment, you’d thought you were imagining it, but the blood rushing in your ears and your heart threatening to pound out of your chest made it hard to hear yourself think.

You moved toward him slightly, and he took it as an invitation. His hand pressed against the nape of your neck, pulling you to him, and his lips lowered to yours. They were impossibly soft, and fitted against yours like it was what they were meant for. Your eyes fluttered shut as you savored the sensation, letting out a soft whimper as he slid his tongue along your lower lip before gently biting it.

He pulled back, subtle disappointment curling in your chest, but then he grabbed the arm of your chair to turn it toward him. “Here,” his voice was quiet but tinged with an unusual roughness, an urgency you’d never heard in his tone. His arm wrapped around your waist and the warmth of his hand against the small of your back seeped through your shirt as he guided you over onto his lap. Without a second thought, you obliged. His thighs were firmer than you’d expected under you as you settled onto him, but you didn’t have much time to ponder before his lips were on you again. He kissed you deeply, insistently, like he was starving. His tongue pressed into your mouth and carefully played with yours while his hand slid up into your hair. Bringing your hands around from the firm planes of his back, you loosened his tie without breaking the kiss.

This is insane, you thought to yourself vaguely through the haze that was clouding your brain, but you weren’t about to complain. Once his tie was undone you wasted no time in unbuttoning his shirt, too. As you ran your hand over the warm expanse of newly revealed skin, your hips bucked against his, drawing a groan from him that sounded like honey. There was no doubt in your mind that he was already very hard under you. He leaned back to look at you, his thumb rubbing gentle circles against your waist. His sky-blue eyes were wide, glowing with a soft vulnerability you weren’t expecting to see there. You reached up and carefully slid his monocle from his face; the way it was connected to his earring hindered you for a moment, but it was worth it once you could admire his stunning face completely unobstructed.

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” he whispered, yet showed no sign of stopping. He stood, lifting you and gingerly holding you to his chest, and set you on the table, nuzzling his face into your neck with a gentle nip. One hand on your waist to hold you steady and the other slowly tracing over your body, his tongue flicked out over the little bite marks he was leaving on you. He deftly unbuttoned your shirt; his hands felt cool against your heated skin. 

Deep, aching desire coiled anew in your gut as Tohma’s steely eyes roamed your newly bared skin. “Do you want this?” he asked against your cheek. His breath tickled your skin and you sighed blithely. 

“I want you,” you confirmed, and he kissed you with a fresh passion. His hips eagerly rolled against yours, creating a friction that only deepened the aching in your gut. With a pause, he pulled away, slipping his wallet from his back pocket and unbuckling his belt. The clank of the buckle sent a shiver of anticipation through you.

“You know,” he chuckled quietly as he drew something from the wallet. “One of my friends insisted I carry this; I told him I wouldn’t need it, but I suppose I’ve proved him wrong.” His fingers toyed with the condom for a moment as he looked it over, the wrapper crinkling, and then he set it on the table next to you. “I guess we should be thankful I gave in to his advice, hm?”

His fingertips brushed along your sides as he leaned back down to you. His lips found their way back to the sensitive skin of your neck and trailed languid, messy kisses down to your chest whilst his hands unhurriedly slid your waistband down your hips. The brush of the fabric, the short heated breaths against your skin, the soft pressure of him standing between your legs, it all had your head reeling desperately. 

The vulnerability you’d been so sure you’d seen before was gone, his eyes shrouded with thick, hazy lust and an almost wicked half-smile playing across his lips as he divested you of what was left of your clothes. You felt like a mouse trapped by a tomcat, but you would happily let him devour you whole. One of his hands came to rest on your shoulder as he moved back to finally rid himself of his own pants, lightly pressing you down, the tabletop cool against your back. His fingers were long and elegant and easily pushed the garment down out of the way to better reveal the outline of his raging arousal. But, before also moving his underwear, before you even knew what was happening, you felt those slender fingers press against the intense heat between your legs. You gasped at the sudden contact, your head tipping back and your thighs tensing as he rubbed his fingers along your entrance. He was prepping you, you realized.

“T-Tohma,” you groaned as one of his fingers pushed into you, encouraging and spreading the wetness pooling there. At the sound of his name falling from your lips, his eyes blazed with an all-consuming desire, no trace of his earlier tiredness or tension present in his defined form. He pulled his hand back, the air filling the space coolly, and slid down his underwear. You couldn’t bring yourself to lift your head to look, not with the dizzied feeling pulsing in your skull with every shaky breath you drew. You’d feel him soon enough anyway. The soft, ephemeral crinkle of the condom’s wrapper let you know this was truly happening, any moment now.

“Oh, darling, you’re divine,” Tohma’s voice dripped with a corrupting, anticipatory tone, his hungry eyes raking over your form as you lay there ready to take him. His hands came to rest on your hips, gripping them firmly and holding them down against the table, and as he moved toward you you let your legs slide open a bit more and wrapped your ankles around the backs of his legs. You wanted him close, impossibly, unmentionably close. One of his hands left your hip to guide him between your legs and the head of his cock rubbed against your core as he leaned down to kiss your throat. You arched up into the feeling, whimpering and writhing, but he pulled back slightly. “Now, my little minx,” he whispered with an amusement that was adjacent to cruelty, “hold still. Be a good, patient girl for me.”

The commanding edge to his otherwise soft voice made you groan again but you listened, stilling under him as he closed the distance between you again. His hand squeezed your hip almost painfully as he eased his cock into you excruciatingly slowly. Bliss bloomed through your core as he entered you, the discomfort of his girth stretching you even dulling into ecstasy at the way he unhurriedly filled you. “Please,” you gasped, begging him to move.

He grinned, though now his disciplined expression was strained, his control threatening to slip at the wonderful sensation of being surrounded by your warmth. “Good little minx,” he nipped at your throat and slowly slid almost fully out of you, shuddering at the friction. Without further warning, he thrust himself in to the hilt with a near punishing force. Your hand resting on his wrist turned into a clawed grip, wanton cries spilling from your lips as he set a harsh pace. Each thrust was deliberate and sent a new wave of ecstasy through you.

As if that weren’t enough, Tohma had begun making noises that were sinfully sweet; desperate, saccharine whimpers and moans as he drove into you relentlessly. He’d placed his hand on the table next to you for support when he’d started, and now his arm was trembling, his nails digging little crescent marks into your hip where his other hand still rested. A light sheen of sweat formed over his sculpted, porcelain chest as it rose and fell more erratically, his head resting in the crook of your neck as his quivering grew worse. Dragging along your hot skin, his shaking hand uncurled from your hip and moved down to your thigh, his thumb carefully burrowing between your legs. Stars burst in your vision as he found your clit, a ragged groan escaping your throat and your eyes fluttering shut as he rubbed the sensitive spot. He continued, eliciting cries of his name from your lips as his hips started to stutter, his resolve crumbling completely as his movements grew more unstable.

Your walls trembled and constricted around him and you shook uncontrollably, grabbing at his neck and back to try and ground yourself as your climax tore through you. He cried out in pleasure as he found his release too. His forehead came to rest on yours as he weakly and unsteadily thrust into you a few more times for good measure, thoroughly riding out your orgasms. He finally stilled, panting hard, and moved off you to lay next to you. Though he didn’t pull you over against him, trying to cool off, he was still close enough that you could feel his breath on your cheek and neck, and he rested an arm around your waist.

You took a moment to admire him like this as the haze in your brain cleared. His gently closed eyes, his swollen lips parted as he caught his breath, his flushed cheeks, his soft, ashen hair messy and sticking to his dampened forehead: you could’ve never imagined him looking this unkempt, but he was like a work of art. Slowly, cautiously, you moved a hand up to his warm cheek. His eyes flew open startledly, but then his expression softened again.

“I,” he paused as if looking for his next words. “Thank you.” Tentative affection stirred in his icy eyes as he looked at you, but then he blinked and cleared his throat and it was gone. “We should clean up,” he carefully got up from the table, striding over to the sink and dampening a paper towel before removing his condom, wiping himself off and wrapping the condom in the towel to hide the evidence before throwing it away. You pushed yourself up into a sitting position, watching him as he stepped back over to the sink. He then approached you with another wetted paper towel, meeting your eyes as he leaned down to you as if asking if it was okay for him to clean you. You nodded and he carefully spread your legs again. One of his hands rested on the outside of your thigh while the other meticulously cleansed you.

Once he was finished, he stood again and zipped his pants, retrieving his shirt from his chair. You kept your eyes on him, studying the way his muscles rippled as he slid the garment back on. “Well, are you going to get dressed, or are you just going to stay like that the rest of the night?” Tohma teased, chuckling, and you felt your cheeks heat.

“Right, sorry.” A bit self-aware now, especially after how you’d been blatantly staring at him, you turned away and pulled your clothes on.

Tohma put back on his monocle, and with it his cool composure. Any softness he’d shown you had melted away as if it were never there to begin with. “Will you be able to focus if we continue work tonight? Or should we just run through it again before we present Monday?”

You blinked at him a moment, then cleared your throat. It was a fair question; you didn’t think you could just go back to what you were doing and pretend nothing had just transpired between the two of you. “Oh, um, I think I’ve got it down now, so if you wanna be done for tonight I’m fine with it.”

He nodded and picked up his bag. “Well, I suppose I’ll see you in the morning then. Good night.” Something in your chest twinged as he turned to leave, but he faced you again, lowering his voice. “If you’re lucky, maybe this could become a more… common occurrence,” he smirked softly. Your voice caught in your throat at the implication, your mouth opening wordlessly. The low chuckle he let out at your state only flustered you further.

“I, uh, good night, Tohma. See you in the morning.”

[stxr-bxy]

Getting into the goth subculture

ok just to clarify, nobody asked for this but i’m making it anyway

here are some great influences for the goth music subcultures

i’ve been hyperfixated on pretty much every one except metal and grunge at one point or another so i think i’m pretty qualified to make this statement.

also some of these artists are problematic so please do your research before you promote them! also i don’t support any of their actions, they just have good music that’s very influential to the scene.

anyways…let’s get started

- siouxsie and the banshees are a really great band to start out and they’re one of the most popular goth bands. they have about 12 albums and 2 compilations. they had many members at different times but notable members are siouxsie sioux (lead vocals), jon klein (guitar), steven severin (bass + keyboards), budgie (drums), and martin mccarrick (keyboard + strings)

- another great goth band is bauhaus, they are one of the pioneers of gothic rock and are often credited with making the first goth song. they have five studio albums. members include daniel ash (guitars + saxophone + lead vocals + backing vocals), peter murphy (lead vocals + backing vocals + guitar + keyboards + melodica + congas), kevin haskins (drums + keyboards + piano + backing vocals), and david j (bass + keyboards + percussion + lead vocals + backing vocals).

- another great band to start off with is the cramps (i recommend their album psychedelic jungle). many people think of the cramps as more psychobilly or punk-ish but they are also considered gothabilly and have gothic elements. they have at least 8 (i’m not sure) studio albums, 2 EPs, 2 live albums, and 4 compilations. members include, Lux interior (lead vocals + harmonica + percussion), Poison Ivy (lead guitar + rhythm guitar + bass), Slim Chance (bass), and Nick Knox (drums + percussion)

in order for a band to be goth they must play either gothic rock, post-punk, ethereal wave, cold wave, dark wave, death rock, visual kei, gothic pop, gothic metal, gothic symphonic metal or another gothic subgenre.

some more goth bands include…

- the cure (post-punk)

- sisters of mercy

- christian death (death rock)

- she wants revenge (gothic rock)

- alien sex fiend

- sex gang children

- lebanon hanover

- type o negative (gothic metal)

- o.children

- joy division

- london after midnight

- bat nouveau

- horror vacui

- the danse society

- strawberry switchblade (gothic pop/synth pop)

- depeche mode

- cocteau twins

- switchblade symphony

- fields of the nephilium

- twin tribes

- the march violets

- xmal deutschland

- clan of xymox

- pink turns blue

- rosetta stone

- plastique noir

- mephisto walz

- corpus delicti

- 13th chime

- specimen

- skeletal family

- molchat doma

- drab majesty

- altar de fey

- inkubus sukkubus

- strawberry switchblade

- the birthday massacre

- killing joke

- this cold night

- japan

- the birthday party

- paralysed age

- the scary bitches

- scarlet’s remains

- mareux

- she past away

- bloody dead and sexy

- rose garden funeral party

- mephisto walz

- this cold night

- cold cave

and more!

edit: just a note. you do not need to dress goth to be goth. goth fashion is optional. if you choose to dress goth but don’t listen to goth music you are just alt. the only way to be goth is to agree with the beliefs behind it and listen to the music (you can also listen to other genres in addition to goth).

some beliefs of the gothic/alt community are:

- there is beauty in darkness, pain/sadness, and the macabre

- rejection of conservatism

- rejection of conformity

- anti-war

- anti-racist

- anti-fascist

- anti-authoritarian

- pro-LGBTQ

- pro-choice

- anti-capitalism

- and other leftist or anarchistic beliefs

also…

if you agree with the beliefs but nothing else you are just a leftist/anarchist

if you listen to the music or dress goth but don’t agree with the beliefs you’re not alt and/or you are considered a “poser”. right-wingers cannot be alt because they contradict eachother.

if you listen to goth music you are goth

if you agree with everything you are goth

[bitter69uk]

Born on this day: African American rhythm and blues nightclub chanteuse and transgender pioneer Jackie Shane (15 May 1940 – 21 February 2019). The regal and enigmatic soul diva (who often looked and sounded like a fierce hybrid of Little Richard and Eartha Kitt) originally hailed from Nashville, Tennessee but had to relocate to Canada to find acclaim and acceptance in her adopted city of Toronto, Ontario. Disillusioned with the music industry, by the early 70s Shane retired and vanished so completely off the radar she was widely assumed to be dead. Luckily, Shane lived long enough to be re-discovered and embraced by a new generation of admirers as a LGBTQ icon and for her long out-of-print recorded work to be compiled and reissued on CD. (You can listen to the 2017 album Any Other Way on Spotify – and I highly recommend you do!).

[hooked-on-elvis]

"Earth Angel (Will You Be Mine)"

The song was originally recorded by The Penguins in late 1954, with Belvin (using the pseudonym Curtis Williams) as lead singer. "Earth Angel" entered the rhythm and blues chart in early 1955 and was #8 on the Best Selling Singles chart. Other charting versions include Gloria Mann's version in 1955, Johnny Tillotson's in 1960 and The Vogues' version in 1969. Excerpt from site: elvis100percent.com

Album: "From The Vaults -'50s" (2016). Originally recorded in 1959 as a home recording (informal session).

LYRICS:

Earth Angel, Earth Angel Will you be mine My darling dear Love you all the time I'm just a fool A fool in love with you Earth Angel, Earth Angel The one I adore Love you forever and ever more I'm just a fool A fool in love with you I fell for you And I knew The vision of your lov-loveliness I hoped and I prayed that someday That I'd be the vision of your hap-happiness Oh, Oh, Earth Angel, Earth Angel Please be mine My darling dear Love you all the time I'm just a fool A fool in love with you

A private recording of Elvis singing "Earth Angel" in Germany (1959) appeared on the 1984 LP "A Golden Celebration" and the track was also later featured in other of Elvis' posthumous albums such as "From The Vaults -'50s" (released in 2016 as part of the monumental 60-CD set "The Album Collection" made by Sony DADC, Austria, which includes also "From The Vaults - '60s" and "From The Vaults - '70s" in the set) and the FTD reissued of the 1959 compilation album "A Date With Elvis" (released in 2017).

Elvis Presley: A Golden Celebration LP cover (1984) -- A few of the private recordings Elvis taped informally at home while stationed in Germany (Army period) are featured on this album, including 'Earth Angel' by the Penguins. The 50th Anniversary LP contains 3 discs with recordings of some of Elvis' most iconic moments in his career, including tracks from Sun Records Sessions, TV appearances, the Mississippi-Alabama Fair And Diary Show in Tupelo, MS (1956), some tracks recorded during the '68 Comeback TV Special (NBC, 1968) and even some unknown-recording-dates tracks discovered in Graceland ("Collector's Treasures"). More info about this album here: discogs.com.

Credits/Sources: Wikipedia; elvis100percent.com; elvisoncd.com; discogs.com.

[renerox]

SURFIN' ON WAVE NINE [1963]

. Due to popular demand, here’s an pretty rare 60’s comp. on King label, with R&B and surf instros featuring THE VICE-ROYS, THE NU-TRONS, THE TRAMPS, THE WOBBLERS and MICKEY BAKER. Enjoy! Here are more infos on bands from “Zero to 180’s�� site: The Vice-Roys would record their songs for King in three sessions: c. Nov/Dec 1961 (“Moasin’”); c. September, 1962 (“Seagreen”); and April, 1963 (“The…

[extraordinaryhistories]

#22 - 'Far Physician's Son' (non-album track, 2001)

Somewhere early in his career, Sufjan Stevens discovered something incredible: acoustic guitars could be strummed. Before this point, Sufjan did one of two things on the acoustic. He would fingerpick, which made up the bulk of his nascent folk material, and it sounded great (just as it would later in his career, when he became iconic for this sound.) Or he would bash. The sound he gets out of his guitar on a song like ‘A Winner Needs a Wand’ isn’t a strum, it’s an attack, ugly chords getting hammered out of his guitar. There was rarely an in-between. If you want a soft song, you pick; if you want a loud song, you bash. Such was the binary along which he operated for a while.

Then something changed. There was a realisation. There was no need for all this abuse; just sit with it and strum. Listen to the word escaping from the guitar – strum. Listen to all the beautiful resonances. Listen to the syllables as they play across the strings. Listen – really listen – to how the sound fills the space. Listen to six notes interacting as they choose. And then: out of it let music pour.

When Sufjan finally lent himself over to this most traditional of folk guitar styles, he created some really gorgeous work. His feel for writing chord progressions was developing rapidly, and that’s essential for strummed guitar, one of the more direct ways of conveying complex harmonic movement. Suddenly he was evolving out of elementary uses of the instrument, like those we see on ‘Happy Birthday’; the melodies were now being supported with a harmonic framing that served as the yin to their yang, a complementary – but slightly distinct – source of light and colour. A less immediately evident source of the refinement of Sufjan’s music, but one that’s present nearly everywhere, if you care to look for it.

Find it, if you will, in ‘Far Physician’s Son’. This song’s provenance is typically obscure: it was released with three other Sufjan songs on 8.21: A Blue Bunny Compilation, and if you haven’t heard of it, it’s because just about nobody has. On it you will find ‘Woman at the Well’, an early version of ‘Year of the Ox’, and then this, sandwiched between a tinny slacker rock song and a long slab of musique concrète. Listening to it in sequence is quite striking. Sufjan spent about fifteen years of his career (up until Carrie and Lowell) relishing in the fact that he was sort of uncool, an oddball English major writing knowingly kitschy songs based on musical tropes that were very much not in vogue, certainly not in the indie sphere. 8.21: A Blue Bunny Compilation is the perfect microcosm of what Sufjan was becoming as an artist. In the midst of all this wild laissez-faire experimentation comes this, a precious, beautifully-performed folk ode to Jesus. Not quite the recipe to win the alternative glitterati over, is it?

So yes, like ‘Joy! Joy! Joy!’, like ‘Woman at the Well’, like ‘God’ll Ne’er Let You Down’ and a host of others, ‘Far Physician’s Son’ is orthodox in just about every sense. The one daring element here is the time signature. It is our second-ever Sufjan song to feature 5/4 metre, and he continues to demonstrate here his natural gift for making non-standard timing sound like nothing out of the ordinary. This is one of those uncommon songs in five that sounds as effortless as the flowing of a stream – it might take several listens (around five, in my case) before you pick up on any strangeness at all.

We can attribute that effortlessness to the guitar playing. There’s that word – strum ­– wide, yearning chords, played at a confident pace, that fill up both channels with their close-miced honey. The assuredness of the rhythm draws the ear away from the metric oddities perfectly, make it sound orthodox despite being anything but. This is the first time an acoustic guitar has sounded this rich on a Sufjan song, and thankfully by no means the last – but songs like these are the origin point of so much of Sufjan’s later sophistication. The arrangement here is otherwise remarkably tasteful. Some flutes here, some vibraphone there, all following the vocal melody, nothing feeling garish or out-of-place. ‘Far Physician’s Son’ is not a song designed to challenge you. Sometimes, orthodoxy can be undervalued.

Thus we are encouraged to focus on the symbiosis that underpins all the finest Sufjan songs: the slow-dance between lyrics and melody. Predictably for this man’s early work, ‘Far Physician’s Son’ is a song about Jesus. (As an aside, I have at times theorised that Sufjan was considering a full-blown career pivot to Christian contemporary music around the turn of the millennium, given how nearly every vocal track written between A Sun Came and Michigan is explicitly religious. Religion as a thematic focus came back in a big way on Seven Swans, of course, but there it is treated with more complexity and metaphor than ever before. Early throwaways like ‘Far Physician’s Son’ accept the premise of God’s fundamental goodness without question. Simplistic? Yes, but then again, so many beautiful things are.)

‘Far Physician’s Son’ is a mostly straightforward song that references a passage in Luke 4, where Jesus goes to the synagogue of Nazareth (‘Went to Galilee / With the scroll again’) and announces himself as a saviour – the man who will save humanity from the ills that befall them (‘Heal the poor and stung / Steal the hurt and hung’.) The song emphasises Jesus’ fundamental humanity, and thus his staggering glory; he is ‘Joseph’s son’, child of a common man but saviour of the wider world. Again, there’s not much to this one, but there doesn’t need to be. Jesus’ goodness – his ‘is’-ness – is self-evident. It is written that the person who speaks to God in a few honest words is blessed over the person who speaks to God with ego and articulation. No more words are really required in a song like this than the repeated refrain, the ideological core of the song that inhabits its latter half: ‘he will arise, he will arise’.

It's that phrase, and the melody attached to it, that always beguiles me when I listen to ‘Far Physician’s Son’. This is a feathery song, with lighter-than-air melodies and effete instrumentation – and yet we find this great counterweight at the end of the song, ‘he will arise’, repeated ad infinitum, with its doggedly deep and flat melody. It takes me out of the song sometimes. And yet there is a keen reason to it. ‘He will arise’ is the final truth of the New Testament, the promise and end state of Christianity, the thing above all things. Of course it has to sound weighty. Of course it has to read like a mantra in the context of the song, Sufjan singing it over, and over, and over. It’s only logic. It’s only everything.

Addendum: literally mere weeks before I wrote this, a Sufjan show from the year 2000 was unearthed, and a rendition of ‘Far Physician’s Son’ was in it. A pretty standard version, but a version nonetheless. Massive news for annoying people.

[vintage-tech]

If you're of a certain age, you remember the ads for the compilation albums by Ronco and K-Tel -- "20 original hits by the original stars" was always the tagline -- but there were other companies out there putting out mixtapes on vinyl, like Sessions, and then there is this two-record collections by a company called I & M Teleproducts which has 23 releases listed in Discogs.com -- several of which are Lawrence Welk, but many of which are contemporary collections.

Dreamin' is from 1979 and I approve of the tracklist. While Ronco was putting Wild Cherry's "Play That Funky Music" and Barry Manilow on the same record, or K-Tel was mining the latter half of the Top 100 with Forgotten Charting Singles By Major Artists, I & M was attempting to stay a bit more on-topic and contained mostly music that neither of the bigger names had tapped but you knew. And being a two-record set, you felt like you got twice as much tunage when actually you didn't (21 songs) but there was a better chance of higher quality sound due to the uncompressed groove on the vinyl. It's up to personal opinion whether the line "21 original hits by 18 original artists" sounds impressive, especially since the songs by those repeated artists have been pretty much forgotten.

Here's the track list and you do know many of them:

A1 Samantha Sang– Emotion A2 Dan Hill– Sometimes When We Touch A3 Gladys Knight & The Pips– Best Thing That Ever Happened To Me A4 David Soul– Don't Give Up On Us A5 Paul Anka– The Times Of Your Life B1 Kenny Nolan– I Like Dreamin' B2 Gladys Knight & The Pips– The Way We Were B3 Atlanta Rhythm Section– So Into You B4 Mary MacGregor– Torn Between Two Lovers B5 Jessi Colter– I'm Not Lisa C1 Peter McCann– Do You Wanna Make Love C2 Eric Carmen– All By Myself C3 Jennifer Warnes– Right Time Of The Night C4 LeBlanc & Carr– Falling C5 England Dan & John Ford Coley– Nights Are Forever Without You C6 Daryl Hall & John Oates– She's Gone D1 Roberta Flack– The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face D2 Paul Anka– There's Nothing Stronger Than Our Love D3 Dorothy Moore– Misty Blue D4 The Spinners– They Just Can't Stop It (The Games People Play) D5 Gladys Knight & The Pips– So Sad The Song

Trivia: The Bee Gees wrote "Emotion" though didn't record it themselves for many years. David Soul was Hutch on the TV show Starsky & Hutch. Many of us can't help but think of Kodak film ads in regard to "The Times Of Your Life". Peter McCann technically makes two appearances on this list because he also wrote "Right Time Of The Night". "The Way We Were" is a Barbra Streisand cover from a 1973 movie by the same name, and the spoken introduction to the Gladys Knight song is "Try To Remember" from the long-running 1960 Broadway musical The Fantasticks.

[bubblesandgutz]

Every Record I Own - Day 835: Minutemen Double Nickels on the Dime

If I were to lose my entire record collection in a fire, the first albums I would replace would be Miles Davis' In A Silent Way, Rolling Stones' Exile on Main St, Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, and Minutemen's Double Nickels on the Dime. Of all those albums, Double Nickels has been in my life the longest.

It wasn't the first Minutemen album I owned (that would be the Post Mersh Vol 1 compilation) nor would it be the first Minutemen album that I really fell in love with (that would be Buzz or Howl Under the Influence of Heat), but it's the album that best encapsulates and captures all that I love about Minutemen.

With 45 songs at a runtime of over 80 minutes, it's a very dense album. As the San Pedro trio was fond of explaining, this was their "art album," which presumably means they were straying even further from the punk formula of their SoCal peers. Bassist Mike Watt ditched the pick and started playing with his fingers, nudging the band into funkier territories. Guitarist D. Boon revealed an aptitude with his instrument only hinted at on previous recordings and established his place as one of the greatest players in the punk scene. Drummer George Hurley slowed the tempos and leaned into the groove. There is very little on Double Nickels that sounds traditionally punk, unless you look back to the guitar dexterity of Television's Marquee Moon or the stabby rhythms of Gang of Four's Entertainment! To further confuse things, there were covers of Creedence Clearwater Revival, Van Halen, and Steely Dan on the album, and they blended in seamlessly with the original material.

It was a lot to process as a 15-year-old punk back in 1992. Minutemen had been big with my peer group in Hawaii, but I'd moved to Washington over the summer, and none of the punks or skaters I knew on the mainland gave two shits about the band. The "cool" factor for the band had disappeared in the move. But there was still something fascinating about Double Nickels, even if the music felt a bit unapproachable.

There was almost a kind of separate culture that surrounded Minutemen. Their vernacular was strange... a combination of SoCal surfer-speak, trucker slang, working class drawl, and literary sophistication. Their lyrics were both topical and cryptic. The incorporation of Raymond Pettibon illustrations in their album art added another layer of tension, mystery, and irreverence. They had a blue-collar aesthetic with a political bent and an art-minded approach. There simply wasn't another band that looked, sounded, or exuded the same aura as Minutemen.

There were Easter eggs hidden all over the album. Watt had just read Ulysses and seemed intent on mirroring the book's layers of meaning and sly humor (there's even a song called "June 16th" in homage to Bloomsday). The album title was a poke at Sammy Hagar's "I Can't Drive 55," with "double nickels" referring to the 55 mph speed limit and "the dime" referring to Highway 10, which leads into their hometown of San Pedro. The album cover, an homage to Kraftwerk's original Autobahn album art, captures Watt in his car with the speedometer at a steady 55 while the highway sign for the 10 is seen through the windshield. The sequencing of the album was an homage to Pink Floyd's Ummagumma with each member getting a side of the record to curate at their will and with all the remaining songs allocated to side D.

The music was a riddle in and of itself. Songs like "#1 Hit Song" and "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing" seemed to reinforce the album title's criticism of pop music's banality while basking in contradictions, such as the puzzling decision for Boon to drop a blazing guitar solo in the latter after singing "if we heard mortar shells, we'd cuss more in our songs and cut down on guitar solos." There's the intensely autobiographical "History Lesson pt 2" but also the self-referencing diss track "One Reporter's Opinion." The ominous and odd-timed "God Bows to Math" segues into the country two-step of "Corona." Hurley prioritized the clatter-and-scat of "You Need the Glory" as the opening to his side of the 2xLP over the power anthem of "Themselves."

And there were the lyrics to parse out. What's a punk kid supposed to make of lines like "me naked with textbook poems / spout fountain against the Nazis / a weird kind of sex symbol?" Or "the world was wrong and I was forced to march in line / but it felt like handcuffs / machines disregard my pronouns?" One moment it's "no hope / see, that's what gives me guts / big fucking shit / right now, man," but then it's "let the products sell themselves / fuck advertising / commercial psychology / psychological methods to sell should be destroyed."

I eventually made a commitment in November '92 to listen to Double Nickels in its entirety every day of the month. It was partially an endurance test. Could I do it? But it was also an attempt at deciphering what I was hearing. Surely this must all make sense somehow. And here I am 34 years later, still intrigued, mystified, and engaged by the album. I still hear something new every time I listen to it. There are still more in-jokes, references, and nuggets of wisdom to glean from it. It's a work of art that requires patience and attention, but it's also just a straight-up piece of celebratory joy and working class angst.

There's an entire world embedded in Double Nickels. It has its own language. It's own philosophy. It's own musical logic. It's own humor. It's own cultural reference-points. And it continues to be a world I want to visit on the regular.

[rhapsodynew]

#Did you know that this is a cover?📌

"But we all often glorify the former, not knowing that we glorify only the latter..." (Part 2)

"Gangsta's Paradise"

But here the cover is clearly better than the original. Although the original is good, because it was composed by none other than Stevie Wonder back in 1976. Yes, the song "Gangsta's Paradise" did not immediately become a harsh rap. At first it was called "Pastime Paradise". To the same string part played on a synthesizer, Wonder sang about social problems (segregation, isolation, exploitation) and that one should not dream of paradise, but do everything to bring it closer.

However, in 1995, rapper Coolio took over the song and, together with his sidekick L.V., composed his own lyrics to the same tune - this time about "Gangster Paradise". The text came out angry, sarcastic, hopeless and fit very well into the film "Dangerous Thoughts", dedicated to disadvantaged teenagers. However, at first Wonder did not give permission to record the cover, demanding to remove obscenities from the text. Coolio fulfilled the requirement. After that, "Gangsta's Paradise" became the best-selling single of 1995, and probably the most famous rap of the 1990s.

«Over The Hills And Far Away»

The Northern Irish guitarist Gary Moore once performed not only blues "slowies", but also martial hard rock. Listen, at least, to his 1985 hit "Over The Hills And Far Away", recorded together with fellow countrymen - the folk group The CHIEFTAINS.

This song experienced a rebirth in 2001, when it was covered by the band NIGHTWISH. The author himself was not enthusiastic about the cover of the Finns - they say, nothing new - ordinary karaoke. You can't argue with this, although Tarja Turunen's pseudo-operatic vocals still deliver…

«Das Model»

Without exaggeration, the members of the RAMMSTEIN group can be called brilliant compilers of the German musical heritage: from hard metal and industrial to electronic music and even eurodiscoe. Unsurprisingly, in 1997 they paid tribute to the KRAFTWERK band by recording a cover of their song "Das Model".

The song was first released in 1978 and was a classic KRAFTWERK electronic composition with lifeless vocals and a mechanized rhythm. RAMMSTEIN added brutality and harsh guitar riffs to Das Model, but the authors didn't like this version.

«Stripped»

Another tribute to RAMMSTEIN was paid by recording a song for the tribute album of the British synthpop band DEPECHE MODE "For the Masses" (1998). The choice fell on the song "Stripped" ("Naked"), in which natural beauty was contrasted with the urban landscape. The song became a track on DEPECHE MODE's album "Black Celebration" (1986), and was also released as a single, which reached number 15 in Britain.

RAMMSTEIN made a very decent version, without spoiling the original at all. But it caused a resonance not so much by itself, but thanks to the scandalous clip. After all, archival footage from Leni Riefenstahl's film, shot for the 1936 Olympics, held in Nazi Germany, was used there.

«Tainted Love»

Surely there will be those for whom the song "Vicious Love" is associated with the "scarecrow" Marilyn Manson. But it became a worldwide hit in 1981, performed by another synth-pop duo SOFT CELL.

The song has been waiting for its hour for a very long time - since 1964! At first, composer and producer Ed Cobb wrote it specifically for his ward, the aspiring black singer Gloria Jones. However, "Tainted Love" was pushed onto the second side of the single, and no one noticed the song (however, as well as the song on the first side). But even in the original recording it sounded great - it was such a very energetic soul with a memorable rhythmic hook.

SOFT CELL made the song a new electronic arrangement and slowed down the tempo, which made it sound more menacing. Also, due to the fact that the original was sung from a female face, in the line "I gave you everything a girl can give", it was necessary to replace "girl" with "guy". As a result, according to the apt remark of one critic, "Tainted Love" began to resemble a song by an "offended homosexual." Nevertheless, Gloria Jones herself praised the cover, saying that she liked it more than her own version.

As for the 2001 version of Marilyn Manson, there was nothing special new there. Except for a more sinister performance and a clip with vicious girls.

https://youtu.be/CCTBuOheUpE?si=xONtubrpBj2VSmbJ

Part 1

To be continued. ..