#for bernie? i actually have not come up with that verse yet.

[tangerinesour]

at any given moment i am thinking of the feral supernatural version of my muses.

[snek-snuggles]

A band au where nice demons are in a grudge/rock band with FemCrowley as the lead singer and the FemZira who recently broke off from their band and is going solo with a Hozier like vibe songs. The recording company is late so the demons have to wait and watch Zira until she gets done and Crowley falls in love with her voice. Zira is curious about their band and stays behind to listen.

This is a really great idea but my brain rearranged it a bit and well...here, havve some Crowley and Aziraphale in separate bands who hate each other. 

Aziraphale sits at the mic, listening to the playback of her most recent take. The rest of the band is on break, standing around and gossiping quietly while she continues to try to get the second verse right like she wants it. 

The album deadline was quickly approaching, and they were nowhere near ready. The label had already extended the deadline once, she couldn’t stand the thought of asking again. And nothing was right- they still had three more songs they had yet to even attempt a rough cut for, one of them wasn’t even technically fully written. Half the album still needed to be mastered, and no one could seem to focus long enough to sit down and give a serious take on the song they were trying to record now. 

The band’s first album had been an absolute smash success. After that, the res tof the group had really stopped trying. They seemed to be under the impression that they were too talented to have to try anymore; and thus, what they did have done was, in actuality, utter garbage. And Aziraphale was well aware- her lyrics could only carry them so far. She tried to put that to the back of her mind for now. If they didn’t finish the album, there would be no contract renewal. And without that, she would have to go back to what she was doing before, using any means just to get a few square meals a day. 

Suddenly, there was a high-pitched commotion in the hallway. Akin to cats, or nails on a chalkboard. Screaming and shouting erupted into the studio, as a few members of The Sisterhood came barging in. The tall one, the redhead who sang lead, tried to calm everyone down, pulling her drummer off of Gabby, the keyboardist to Aziraphale’s band Beneficence. 

The redhead leaned into the speaker and pressed the button, interrupting the playback and speaking into Aziraphale’s headphones in a genuine-sounding apologetic tone, “Sorry love, your time’s up. We’ve got the studio booked from four on today.” Her Liverpool accent thicker than ever. 

That can’t be, Aziraphale thinks. Bernie promised them the studio all day. She put down her acoustic guitar and stood, intent on figuring this out. But as she stood, the two bands continued to fight and brawl viciously back out into the hall. Aziraphale tried to reply, but she couldn’t be heard over the screaming. The redhead seemed to have had enough, slamming the door shut and blocking them all out.

“Sorry, what?”

“I said Bernie promised me the whole day. Can you check the schedule for me?”

“Course, love.”

The tall one picks up the phone, dialing down to the front desk and asking for the schedule. The fighting continues outside as Aziraphale tries to breathe deeply. If they lose the space today, they stand no chance of finishing on time. 

“Right...right. Yeah, right. Cool. Thanks Karen.”

She hangs up the receiver, turning in the chair to face Aziraphale.

“Sorry, then. Our bad- it’s all yours. We’re across the hall.”

“Oh, oh good. Oh, thank you.” Aziraphale sits down, closing her eyes and breathing in relief. She looks towards the hallway, and back at the clock. Four already, and almost no progress today. She bites at her lip, desperately trying to hold back the tears that have been heavy behind her eyes all day. 

The other woman sees, though. She rolls closer to the sofa where Aziraphale sits, head in hands, and puts a gentle hand to her knee. 

“Alright, sweetheart?”

Aziraphale snaps, “I’m not your sweetheart!” And then immediately bursts into sobbing hysterics. The redhead moves to the sofa, the two of them folding together into an embrace as Aziraphale cries. The redhead soothes at her back and holds her gently, stroking her hair. 

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry,, that was rude. I shouldn’t have snapped at you. I appreciate your kindness, I do.”

“Somethings’s not right then, yeah? You wanna tell me about it?”

“Oh, it’s just...we’re nowhere near done and we’re almost out of time. Everyone expects an even better album then the last one, and no one wants to put in the effort. It all falls on me, since they’re my songs, and if I lose our contract I’ll have to go back to...”

“Back to...?”

“Well...it was very unpleasant. Let’s just leave it there. I can’t, I can’t go back, we have to do better, and no one...seems to care, they’re all too busy-” She gestures towards the door. The sound of a smashing bottle startles her, cringing against the redhead’s shoulder. 

“It’s awful of me, but sometimes I wish I could just...just...”

“Make your own shit?”

Aziraphale sighs, wiping her nose. The redhead dabs at her eyes, trying not to smudge her mascara. 

“Yes.”

“yeah, me too. I love them, but none of them are serious about it. I put so much into the music, but no one writes anything worth half a listen to sing with it. I’m Crowley, by the way.”

“Aziraphale.”

Crowley takes a long look at her. Bright, blue eyees, long blonde hair. Dressed in pastels and flowing layers. She’s heard their stuff, it’s not half bad (although her band mates sure love to trash their music). Aziraphale sings like an angel and her lyrics are straight poetry. And here she is, breaking down in Crowley’s arms, on a gross old sofa in a rented studio on Sunset. 

Crowley gets up- Aziraphale assumes she’s leaving. But she locks the door instead. 

“I’m in the same boat, ya know. But fuck them- do you wanna write something? With me, jsut for fun?”

Aziraphale looks at her with confusion. Crowley is dressed in black jeans and a black t-shirt, with scary looking metal chains on her jewelry and these big black leather boots. Her hair is pushed back messily, and she looks like she hasn’t slept in days. Why would she want to write with me? Aziraphalle wonders.

But she hasn’t written seriously with anyone who actually wanted to be there in months, and right now she can’t stand the thought of trying another take at that other song.

“Yes, alright.”

They sit on the floor of the studio, talking and writing for several hours. Crowley pulls out a bottle of wine, hidden behind a false panel in the wall. “Put that there last year, thought it might come in handy someday.” They pass it back and forth, swigging from the bottle (Aziraphale tries to be prim about it, but as she relaxes, she takes bigger, less delicate pulls from the bottle neck. 

Eventually, they notice the screaming has stopped. They call out for Chinese late tha tnight, and finish the song back at Crowley’s place as the sun rises. 

In the morning, they both go back to their bands. But after their contracts both end a few months later, the two sign to a new label as a duo, and release their first single. 

They become synonymous with sapphic love songs infused with a bbit of edge, and catch the attention of Hoxier’s management, who book them to open for the UK and european legs of his next tour. 

(yeah...I might have to add this to my writing list.)

[soaptunes]

Soap’s 2020 AOTY Reviews: JPEGMAFIA - EP!

This EP (!) is really just a collection of all the loose singles Peggy dropped on a roughly monthly basis over the course of 2020. Despite that, and maybe even because of it, it’s still a contender for best rap project of the year.

I feel like I’m getting tired of saying that JPEGMAFIA is one of the most creative artists making experimental hip-hop right now. Even more tired of that appellation is Peggy himself, who on one track here proudly shouts out, “Fuck the underground, I’m going pop.” Of course, on the same song (the raucous, clattering “COVERED IN MONEY!”) he claims he beats his dick when he looks in the mirror and compares his gun to Portia La Rossi’s strap-on, so. Take that as you will. 

It’s strange that Peggy’s 2019 album All My Heroes Are Cornballs is over a year old now. That isn’t that long ago, but a lifetime has happened since then, and the thing still sounds more immediate than most projects that dropped this year. The same is true of 2018’s Veteran, but both projects have some songs that fall short. I won’t get specific, this isn’t a review of those albums, but a few tracks on both are experiments that don’t pan out - they get lost in the weeds of harshness and strange samples, they lack strong hooks or funny bars, they follow an obscure groove that’s hard to get a handle on. EP! proves that cut down to its essential moments, a JPEGMAFIA record can be a 25-minute blast. 

This is only 8 songs, we can take it track-by-track, which I think we’ll be doing for any EP reviews I do on here.

The first song is “BALD!,” a song that dropped in February, just before the pandemic turned this singles series into a quarantine project. If your first thought is that the beat sounds like something out of an obscure Nintendo racing game, that’s because it is - the main sample here is from Ridge Racer 3D for the 3DS. In pretty much every picture of JPEGMAFIA you can find from before this song’s release, he’s wearing a bandana or sweatband or something around his forehead, but this song literally served as the announcement to his fanbase that he’d shaved his head. This is a fucking hilarious concept for a song to begin with, but the beat is genuinely pretty and Peggy’s flow is merciless. Knocking the breakbeats out from under the synths makes them wash out and sound like the audio equivalent of a shitty screensaver, which I mean in the best way possible. 

BEST BAR: “Hairline proof God needs balance, BALD.”

“COVERED IN MONEY!” is a serious contender for song of the year for me. I would absolutely love to watch this guy figure out a beat, because the instrumental on this goes unbelievably hard and simultaneously makes no sense at all. It’s squeaky, stomping, clattering, shambolic, and feels like it’s completely falling apart. Does a beat like this come together in his head first? The drum pattern is borderline nonsensical, did it just come from him messing around in ProTools? I would genuinely love to know, he’s seriously a gifted producer and I wish he’d produce more for other rappers. Somehow Peggy hops into a triplet flow on top of this wonderful mess, the overall impression ending up somewhere in the ballpark of a cartoon character rapping while bouncing on a rusty pogo stick. The man namedrops Ving Rhames, Cannibal Ox, Bernie Mac, and the aforementioned Portia La Rossi all on the same song, and he’s really out for blood on this one, it’s one of his best flows ever. The way he makes the listener wait for the “fuck the underground” line is flawless, he’s slipping between time signatures effortlessly. He does an amazing job of wrangling the herky-jerky rhythms of the beat on the hook, making one of his stickiest choruses yet with the instant-classic line about “borderline dressing in drag.” There’s a beat switch about halfway through the song, which Genius tells me is a second half tilted “The Devil Wears Prada,” but “BALD!” has a lyric about them fucking up his lyrics on Genius, so, you know. It’s not as much fun beat-wise but his bars are just as good, and the song ties up with Peggy repeatedly apologizing and claiming he’s just been “shitted on.” This track is a must-listen, in my opinion, definitely one of the best of the year.

BEST BAR: “I’m covered in money, I’m out for the bag, I flew out the country, borderline dressin’ in drag.”

The sensual R&B of “BODYGUARD!” isn’t a total departure from stuff Peggy has done before - “Jesus Forgive Me, I Am A Thot” had some of those vibes and “Free The Frail” proved that not only can he write a great melodic song, he’s a respectable singer. Bodyguard is Sexy Peggy coming to full fruition though, warm synths draping around  soft beats and lyrics that could’ve come out of any 90’s hit. Peggy’s ear for a nice chord progression is evident, and there’s still strange touches like clipped vocals, off-kilter melodies, background chatter, and what sounds like a bicycle chain winding as part of the beat. This one took awhile to grow on me but it definitely did, and it provides a much-needed moment of calm on the EP.

BEST BAR: N/A, but I do like “who’s gonna turn me? Bitches gotta earn me.”

Then comes the remix of “BALD!” with Denzel Curry. The beat kicks in in the same way as it did before, and Peggy’s first verse is identical, but the entire back two-thirds of the song is one furious verse from Denzel. At first, his section gets a more muscular version of the racing game beat, but midway through, Peggy drops the drums out and just lets Denzel do his thing over a skeletal, washed-out instrumental. He spans a wide array of topics, from his stress over violence in his hometown, to loss of touch with his friends, to how cutting his famous dreads let him feel freer and more in control of himself. It’s a very cool verse, and I appreciate him linking it back to the haircut theme in an original way.

BEST BAR: “Dreadlocks had your boy like Sideshow Bob”

“CUTIE PIE!” puts Peggy on a genuine boom-bap beat, with nonstop flexing about his production chops. He gets pretty specific, and the title is apt given how genuinely adorable the sounds on the beat are. This one rolls almost normal for a JPEGMAFIA song, and despite the trove of weird references and the colorful atmosphere, it feels almost like a breakthrough, like he’s being more realistic or candid in his boasting. Like these are genuine points of pride for him and not just braggadocio, you know? Props for the music video here too, it’s definitely one of the best of the bunch. Super distinctive and weird, with Peggy hiding behind cacti and dancing in the middle of the desert with a near-nude woman.

BEST BAR: “Your beats inaccurate, muddy low end and you over-compressin’, ‘cuz you don’t know what you doin’, so y’all be stackin’ it, don’t know the diff so they just hold and attack it.”

The beat on “THE BENDS!” is almost oppressive, orchestra hits and a glacial pace lending the track a dark atmosphere. Autotune slurs Peggy’s bars, and the lyrics are relentlessly cynical and bleak. His actual political beliefs are obfuscated behind humor like “caught a body in a MAGA hat” as usual, but he ends the song with a breathy “fuck Trump,” so that much is clear. The glowing synth lines under the heavy saw bass give the first verse a cinematic quality, the “fantasies, fantasies, fantasies” line only adding to that. This is one of the briefer cuts, and one of the weaker ones too, but even this one has a ton of personality. 

BEST BAR: “Strap on my hip ‘cuz I’m bitter and old, Mountain Dew sippers, they hating the scroll”

“ROUGH 7” is EP!’s only true miss, and it’s definitely not Peggy’s fault. The beat is shadowy and evasive, and his verse is ice-cold, but the featured rapper, Tommy Genesis, kind of flattens the song. Her adlibs are cringe-inducing and her rapping is flat and devoid of personality, she tries to do the emo-rap scream double-track but it doesn’t work with her style, especially since what she’s rapping about isn’t tragic or even sad at all. The track picks up instantly once Peggy comes on, as usual he can slither into the cracks of an unusual beat and inject his cartoonish, acrobatic character into it. This is a topically unremarkable verse by JPEGMAFIA standards, but he leans into the beat’s rhythms like on “COVERED IN MONEY!” and it ends up working out in his favor and restabilizing the song by the close. His dejected “wow.” and “huh.” and “nasty.” adlibs help make it too, it’s really kind of ridiculous to compare his adlibs to Genesis’s.

BEST BAR: “Light a square n*** up like Billie Jean.”

Peggy closes the EP with “living single,” probably the second-best song either. He sings a surprisingly heartfelt interpolation of Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby” as the hook, bringing to mind his has-to-be-heard-to-be-believed cover of “Call Me Maybe.” This beat could pass for vaporwave, its slurred groove and downshifted vocal snippets lending an atmosphere to it like Peggy is sitting outside a club smoking after too much alcohol. The stabbing synth riff that breaks through the fuzz keeps him on his toes and lets him work up a relatively speedy flow over the dazed instrumental. I’m not sure why I rate this one so highly, but the vibes are excellent and this is one of the best verses on the project for sure, it’s another one where he really hooks his flow into the off-kilter lurch of the beat. That may be my favorite thing about him as a rapper, the way he can tie himself to a beat and make sure it’s working for him instead of being outshined by it, even if it’s completely insane.

BEST BAR: “Champagne for the pain and sufferin’, fans same color as voice of Tim Duncan” 

Hoo, I wrote a ton about that. Maybe I won’t go track by track for the next EP, this is way too long already. In any case, I think due to its brevity and release method this great little record is going to get passed up on a ton of year-end lists, which is a damn shame. It has easily some of JPEGMAFIA’s best work on it - with no time for filler or botched experiments, Peggy delivered a tight, consistent, outrageously entertaining experimental rap joyride.

[rauzadian]

Writing tag game

I was tagged by @fortytworedvines. Thanks!

AO3 Name: Rauz

Fandoms: On Ao3, only Holby City (On FF.net, Stargate SG1, Battlestar Galactica and even Lie to Me, but I haven’t posted anything on there for years)

Tropes: Fluff first and foremost, friends to lovers, pining, and a teeny tiny bit of smut. 

Number of fics: on Ao3 - 3, so that’s easy. ^^ (On FF.net I have about 30 I think.)

Fic I spent the most time on: The one I’m writing right now. So much so that I’m actually a bit tired of writing it.

Fic I spent the least time on: One that hasn’t been published yet.

Longest Fic: The one I’m writing right now, 22.2k and counting.

Shortest fic: The one that hasn’t been published yet.

Most hits/kudos/comment threads/bookmarks:

Hits - Absolutely, friend

Kudos - Same one

Comment threads - Same one

Bookmarks - Same one 

Total word count: 7114 on Ao3. 

Favourite fic I wrote: Uh ... either Absolutely, friend or the one I’m writing right now. 

Fic you want to rewrite/expand on: I don’t feel the need to rewrite anything, but I’d like to write another chapter for my coffee!verse

Share a bit of a WIP or a story idea you’re planning on:

“I wish there was a magic cure for Alzheimer’s. Maybe if I could get some blood from one of those rare golden unicorns… Do you think that would do the trick?” She asks with a very amused grin.

“Hm.”

Coming to stand next to Serena, Bernie lifts an expectant look up towards the computer screen, wondering what could possibly have her friend so fascinated she didn’t take one word of her babbling in, and that’s when she realises that Serena has been staring at a blank screen all this time.

Her face now sporting a worried frown, Bernie gently touches Serena’s shoulder, bringing her out of her thoughts and startling her in the process.

“Wha -” Serena starts absentmindedly before fully coming back to the present. “Good God Bernie, you scared me half to death,” she exclaims, bringing a hand to her chest as a reflex to calm down the erratic beating of her heart.

Bernie apologizes, while also taking a step back for good measure. 

“You were away with the fairies,” she explains.

It’s Serena’s turn to frown.

“Was I?” “Been talking for a good five minutes before I realised you weren’t even listening,” she laughs lightly. “You probably didn’t even register that I had entered the office.”

“I’m so sorry Bernie,” she says before straightening up in her chair.

One thing is now clear to Bernie, for some reason, Serena seems extremely uncomfortable. Since she came back to herself, she’s been all fidgety and hasn’t once, been able to look at Bernie in the eye. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Serena answers, a little too quickly, her hand flitting to the nape of her neck.

“Serena, you’ve adjusted your hair and your collar so much in the last thirty seconds I’m afraid one of those will just tear itself away from your body.”

Bernie doesn’t miss the not exactly aborted eye-roll.

“Nothing’s wrong,” Serena repeats with a stronger voice, and this time, she does spare Bernie a glance though she doesn’t hold it long. “I just have a lot on my mind, is all.”

“I’m not arguing with that… It’s just - well - no, it’s none of my business, but you know you can come talk to me if you need to, right? About anything.”

Tagging I don’t know who to tag so, whoever wants to play the game, feel free. ;)

[makingnewenemies]

Hi Hi Hi. Here is a little blurb I wrote off the top of my head about all my friends on this year’s Group Picture Vol. 8. I love them all. I love their songs. And I love that we still keep up this stupid tradition; and somehow the comp keeps getting better and better. Thanks everyone! Merry Christmas / Happy Holidays :) - walt

Sour Guy - All Those Plans Were Wrong

Last summer Kris Schobert (Sour Guy, Walter Etc. / Mitty core member, Ernie…) was admitted to the hospital… and then again… and then again…. I think he spent like a month total in the hospital. It was not chill. But when he got out, the whole experience gave him a bit of clarity and new perspective on his life and the decisions he has made thus far. I won’t speak any further for him, but Kris… hey, nice song! And your quality home recording production and continuation of the WMAHMO slop sound doesn’t not go unnoticed! This song made me tear up in a coffee shop the first time I heard it. 

Slaughter Beach, Dog - Big Band

Slaughter Beach, Dog are randomly GP staples by now but also one of my favorite bands and greatest friends. This song is a bit of a sound change for them, swapping mid tempo soft rock John K Sampson vibes for a theatrical late 60’s / 70’s sound that is a bit more light hearted than normal and I LOVE IT. It’s catchy, it makes me laugh, yet its so true. Glad to have these boys back this year.

Teal & Jer - Alphabet

Portland’s dreamiest duo Teal & Jer (Chain, Riled, Loose, lots of projects) bring a quirky alt edge to our otherwise bland and boring comp. Without them, we’d just be us. I personally would like to hear more Teal solo work??? Teal???

Milk Flud - Rodeo

If you don’t fuck with Milk Flud then you can get out.

Chase Hoyt - Health

Chase Hoyt (Ubu Roi, Feed, Chaz and the Minions of Chaz, The Rodeo…) is a GP fixture by now, and important asset to MNE because it’s his classic rock sensibilities that balance out the overload of folk / indie rock that we swim in. This song not only has a comically true message (health is the most important, i agree Chase) but the vibe, especially the chorus, has my head bobbing and me feeling like I’m on a grassy hillside at an outdoor concert in the 70’s, but also one glass of wine deep making homemade pizzas at an Air BNB with a girl I love, and that is a nice combo of feelings. “Let’s wrap it up / I’ve embarrassed us all enough”

Dry Goods - Learnt Nothing

You hear that flawless acoustic finger picking? That masculine story telling voice that sounds somewhere between a suburban Bob Dylan and a cowboy singing to the emptiness of the high desert? Yup, its Russell Park AKA Dry Goods and FKA Weston Bookhouse coming at us with another folk masterpiece, but this year adding in some new elements we aren’t quite used to- namely some cruisey guitar solos! Rumor has it Dry Goods is in the studio recording a new album right now and I would not be bummed out if this song were on it.

Byronius Punk - Beautiful Things

I just spent 3 weeks with Byronius Punk (Ian Farmer of Slaugher Beach, Dog / Modern Baseball) at his studio The Metal Shop in Philadelphia making a record with his beautiful mind and his new drum machine- so this song really hits home for me. I could write an essay on why this is the perfect Group Picture song- my three main points being - 1. It is a song about the act of creating. (“in everything that exists there lies a certain beauty / I want the world to know how much it all means to me”) which is exactly what Group Picture aims to celebrate. 2. It’s a song written and performed by someone who is usually more in the background of his bands (bassist / backup vox / recording engineer) but here has a platform to express his own individual style and skills, which is exactly what Group Picture wants to promote. 3. It has a Milk Flud name drop, which is a classic and classy GP / MNE move. Thank you Ian. You rule.

Dante Elephante - It Bothers Me

Dante Elephante are Santa Barbara legends and their new album “Rare Attractions” shows them evolving their sound into more loungey and ethereal territory. I am so glad they have joined GP this year, because I see singer / songwriter Ruben almost every weekend when he DJ’s at The Tavern in Ventura and I drunkenly annoy him / vaguely fan boy out on him. Dante being on Group Picture is a sign that our friendship extends beyond Saturday nights at the Tavern. Also their album vibes hard. Check out Rare Attractions on Spotify.

Peanut Butter Cups - Highest Quality

Petition for Aaron Kovacs (Peanut Butter cups, Lauren Records CEO, Winter Break and Summer Vacation drummer) to finally put out a full album? This catchy lo-fi pop rock is undeniably infectious. Fun fact: I’ve been hanging with this boy for almost 10 years and I’ve never heard him sing, but then he sends me these recordings and I’m like wtf your voice is so cool! If he makes a full album, MNE will put out the LP and still give him 100% of the digital income. That is how much I like Aaron’s style. 

Anika Pyle - Young Love

I once wrote a song with the lyric “I’ll probably see her on tour but she won’t be on Group Picture this year.” I’m so glad I was wrong. Welcome to GP Anika Pyle! Anika (Katie Ellen, Chumped) plays raw emotional pop rock songs and this gem “Young Love” is just the tip of the iceberg. When her vocals max out at the end of the tune and you get a little bit of musical goosebumps, that is the feeling you get for a full 30 minutes of watching her play live. Anika, please come in and stay for a while! 

Walter Etc. - This Would Only Happen to Me

Ok ok enough of the soft emotional bullshit. Here’s a song about someone coming to kill me! It’s 100% true. If you’re reading this, help!!!

Jake Lee - Good Run

Jake Lee (Bleeding Gums Murphy) strikes again with a lo-fi indie gem in which we hear Jake Lee reflect on his gaime from last year. Sounds like he made some interesting choices and is coming to terms with them? Or did I miss the mark, Jake? He is and always will be one of my favorite songwriters and his voice in this fuzz effect is not a bad look, I have to admit. The only way my life would be better is if Jake made a full album. Cheers homie.

Babytooth - State Quarters, OR

Technically, this is Babytooth’s official debut on Group Picture, but Portland, OR singer / songwriter Isabel Zacharias had a song on the comp last year that blew me away. It was her vocals and lyrics that hooked me then, and are still yanking me now. Now backed by a full band that gives dynamic range to her songs, it was still that first line “now you know you want a girl without a phone” that had me nodding “yup i love this”. Fingers crossed for Babytooth to become a GP staple.

Trashbike - Weasel

Trashbike is Bread (Blowout, Walter etc., Donkey Lips) and his homie Ru playing the pedals. He told me he wrote this song while stumbling home from the Bye and Bye. Bread is like a sexy emo prince, can’t you hear it? This song rules and I really hope Trashbike is more than just a one and done GP band. I would listen to a few albums of soft songs like this, wouldn’t you?

Banned From Japan - Vegan X

Welcome back to the Socal Valley punk rockers Banned From Japan! If you know that singer / songwriter Matthew Earle has been sober for a few years, this song is hilarious, simultaneously poking fun at vegan straight-edge and himself. The music rips and his vocals are catchy af. Fat Wrecks Chords come and sign Banned From Japan asap!

Walter X - Winter Shy

Ok. This is a bit meta. Walter X (Michael Mahaffie and his WMAHMO / Walter Etc. hardcore chip tune cover project) covers an old Walter GP song as his own GP song. Pretty niche MNE content! This song, in this Lifetime-esque style, his vocals so clear but so gruff, those guitar harmonies, the creative intro and chip-tuney bridge…. this literally gives me chills and is so much better than the original. I encourage anyone reading this to go check out his own original music under the name Jump Cut. It sounds just like this but with Michael’s own songs, shedding the limitations of the musical simpleton Walter songs.  Also, check out the full Walter X album on Spotify! What a talented dude…

Curling - Genkai Trip

Curling released their MNE album “Definitely Band” this year and the musical arrangements / song structures absolutely floored me. Genkai Trip is a song that got left off the album, but lives on through GP! Singer / guitarist Bernie Gelman noted “There's some pretty wacky guitar overdubs where Jojo and I each doubled some guitar parts while the other person was playing with the trem on the guitar, so you get this really weird detuning effect.” and yup that is Curling in a nutshell for you. Always excited to play around with gear and recording techniques that are way beyond my level.  I think this is an extremely underrated band and highly encourage the world to check out Definitely Band on spotify!

Ali Muhareb - DIY Hell

Ali? What the hell did you even make this song? It’s intriguing in the verses and then when the chorus busts out it sounds like if Dough Martsch were an up and coming artist in Portland in 2018. I actually had to text Ali to ask what these guitar sounds were and, if anyone is interested, he responded, “I compressed two guitars together through a virtual amp. And they’re both running through this sick pedal I got called the Data Corrupter.” For sure Ali! Thanks for a bad ass tune.

Dakota Loesch - Don’t Solve My Mysteries

I’ve been listening to a lot of Dakota’s music (solo, Animal City, Lemp Lungs) recently. I keep coming back to it, and its not a mystery. After hundreds of songs in his pocket, songs like “Don’t Solve My Mysteries” still sound musically and lyrically fresh, like Dakota has never had writer’s block in his life. When I listen to his music, I feel like it vicariously breaks down my own creative barriers. For instance when I first heard this song and he dropped the hook “just don’t solve all mysterious” I had that knee-jerk urge to ditch what I was doing and go write a poem or something. His will to create is just that contagious. Combine that with the Casio-keyboard bedroom drum machine vibe that I love so much about his songs like “The Basmati Rice” and you have a 10/10 GP banger. 

Jerbear - Nowhere Girl

Jerbear is Jeremy Murphy (Teal & Jer, Riled, so many) and he is the king of a few things: weird bad guitar tones, asymmetrical organic song structures, rad lyrics that I never understand, and a voice that is universally loved. He stole my heart with Cranberries in the Cosmos on a previous GP, but I think Nowhere Girl takes the cake. Jer- when do we get the full solo album? Please don’t fall into the category of GP lost wonders. You’re not too shabby at this music thing! 

Hemingway - Catch My Cool

Catch My Cool is a B-side from Hemingway’s You Will Never Be Happy.

I played drums in Hemingway at this time and I always vibed that Benny didn’t really like the way this song came out int he studio. I don’t get why? That vocal melody, soft sad and surfy guitar leads… it makes me wanna hold hands with a girl on Christmas Eve while walking down some bougie street looking at Christmas Lights. It sounds like a Starflyer 59 worship track and I love it for that. Benny, you made a mistake. This song should have made the album. 

Alex Maddox - The Hypocrit’s Dilemma

I’ve heard Alex play this song when we get together to jam, and he always laughs it off as a Walter Mitty rip off song. But honestly, this is what I wish WMAHMO would write about if we made a folk punk record today. If you listen to this song knowing that Alex Maddox was a guy who quit his high paying job to travel Europe in his van, surfing and skating and working on farms, the lyrics to this song are way more wanna-be Walter Mitty. The song depicts a transformation in his paradigm and is completely raw, authentic, and sincere. Alex inspires me to chase a wholesome life that is designed for and by myself, rather than the obvious and sterile template that is provided for us, and this song exemplifies that 1000%. 

Uncle Uncle - Nira (I’m Alive)

We played with Uncle Uncle last year in Santa Barbara and I honestly think we should have opened for them. They are actually a good band, both live and recorded. Stylish, friendly, and comically laid back- they might be the quintessential Santa Barbara band. A semi-new band, Uncle Uncle is gaining momentum quickly, and I won’t be surprised when the day comes that Kevin and Dom big time me on State st. Til then, I’m just glad I get to claim that they were on a Group Picture. 

Humphrey Orlando - Set U Free

Ah, Humphrey. No, Humphrey accompanied by Toast. Two legends as old as MNE itself. What is there to say? I could listen to their wandering ballads til I fall into the Big Sleep, and still the melodies linger on…

[taytay4ever]

Amid So Many Stories About Bad Men In The Media, Taylor Swift Strikes Back With ‘Reputation’

In the run-up to her sixth album, Reputation, Taylor Swift has been discussed first as a global brand, with the media analyzing her every machination and whether it has induced her possible “obsolescence,” and then as a musician. But now that this record is finally in the world, let’s start with Swift’s music for a change.

Reputation is a cold, convoluted, often surly record, heavily weighted with overly complicated prog-R&B arrangements, awkward attempts at rapping, and lyrics that underline every reference to Swift’s casual hook-ups and late-night binge-drinking. At the risk of libeling Swift’s usual stable of expensive pop-auteur collaborators — headlined by Max Martin, Shellback, and Jack Antonoff — some of the songs seem almost pasted together, with verses barging indelicately into pre-choruses as tempos shift in jarring fashion. The elegance of previous Swift blockbusters like 2012’s Red and 2014’s 1989 has gone missing.

And yet, Reputation adds up to a fascinating and often moving, self-portrait. On the biggest possible stage, Swift has fearlessly exposed some of her rawest vulnerabilities. For the first time in years, Swift seems like a rather ordinary human being, with all the unattractive flaws and nagging hang-ups that suggests.

As was the case with Reputation‘s bewildering first single, “Look What You Made Me Do,” the album is initially off-putting, as sour and difficult to like as Swift’s previous pop album, the candy-coated retro-pop showcase 1989, was sweet and catchy. Swift is nothing if not a pop-music prodigy, a seasoned hitmaker at age 27 who already displayed preternatural gifts for crafting heart-rending earworms more than a decade ago, at a time when her peers were struggling to write essays on The Great Gatsby (which Swift pointedly references on Reputation) in high school.

Swift’s franchise is creating the types of songs that people like without even trying to like them. And yet Reputation is decidedly not in that tradition — sure enough, the album’s early singles have not captured the public’s imagination the way those undeniable world-beaters of 1989 did. It seems intuitive that this represents a failure on Swift’s part. But then you dwell on this album’s lyrics, which are laced with violent imagery and obsessed with control and score-settling, and all of a sudden the turbulent, herky-jerky music makes more sense.

Reputation doesn’t fail at being likable, because being likable for once doesn’t seem to be Swift’s agenda. Rather, this album succeeds at expressing a litany of deep, intractable resentments by a world-famous pop star who seems alienated from all but a tight circle of trusted confidantes. “Here’s a toast to my real friends,” she crows on the album’s bitterest track, “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things.” You suspect she’s not addressing more than a few people.

Who is Taylor mad at? Who do you got? No specific names are mentioned in the lyrics to Reputation, so instead there are opaque references to “older guys,” “the world,” “what I can’t have,” and “the liars.” But, above all, what haunts Taylor is the proverbial “they” — in “I Did Something Bad,” they are “burning all the witches, even if you aren’t one.” In “This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things,” Swift loves her baby because “he ain’t reading what theycall me lately.”

The songs on Reputation don’t necessarily lend themselves to the sort of “Which boyfriend is this one about?” parlor games that people usually play with Taylor Swift albums. The animus instead here feels intangible and existential, which is why Swift’s belated embrace of hip-hop, while artistically tenuous and bound to be viewed cynically by those who believe Swift is an opportunist, is such a crucial development on Reputation.

It’s easy to laugh at Swift’s stilted flow in “…Ready For It?” or puzzle at the ill-advised “street speak” of the chorus. (“I, I, I see how this is gon’ go.”) But the overt feistiness of rap allows Swift to front-load emotions that she has previously kept concealed behind frothy pop hooks and that iconic “Oh, I can’t believe my good fortune!” award-show face. “I bury hatchets, but I keep maps of where I put ’em,” Swift spits in “End Game,” which shoehorns cameos by Future and Ed Sheeran that would seem preordained by a streaming-service algorithm if Swift were more enthusiastic about streaming. (Reputation is not yet available on any streaming platform.)

Swift has written similarly barbed lyrics in the past, of course, but back then there was usually a trace of playfulness. When she refers to herself as “insane” in “Blank Space,” you can sense the self-deprecation and implied eye roll. But Reputation — aside from that stray cat joke in “Gorgeous” — is mirthless. This time, when Swift buries a hatchet, she draws blood.

Swift has been a magnet for criticism lately — some of it fair, much of it not. The media narrative has turned so rapidly against her that it’s almost hard to remember that, for much of her career, Swift was a darling of the press. As late as 2015, the New York Times was still inclined to refer to her as an “underdog,” and there were no shortage of Swift defenders in the press eager to call out perceived slights, whether it was an indie-music site not reviewing 1989 (even as virtually every other outlet on the planet lavished the album with coverage) or the sexism of Ryan Adams covering the album in its entirety.

But nobody sees Swift as an underdog in 2017. Now, she’s an establishment foil for Cardi B, whose scrappy smash “Bodak Yellow” removed “Look What You Made Me Do” from the top of the pop charts after “just” three weeks this fall. “Look What You Made Me Do” has sunk precipitously ever since, along with the followup single “…Ready For It,” which peaked at No. 4.

Certainly, it’s worth noting that these songs haven’t made the impact that singles like “Blank Space” and “Shake It Off” did. But the whispers that Swift is now finished as a pop star, as Spotify-powered rappers storm the charts seems a tad premature, given that Reputation is projected to move an impressive-in-any-era two million units in its first week.

Did anyone really expect Swift to keep on churning out 1989-sized pop bangers in perpetuity? Who faulted Beyoncé when Lemonade — which like Reputation is clearly conceived as an album rather than a playlist of singles — also didn’t produce any lasting chart hits? (The highest charting single from Lemonade, “Formation,” peaked at No. 10. At least Taylor spent the better part of a month at No. 1.)

Here’s a criticism I agree with: Swift should condemn the alt-right cult that reveres her as some sort of blonde Aryan goddess. Her apparent stubbornness on this issue is strange, considering that sending out a press release against Nazis is literally the easiest thing in the world to do. (I suspect she doesn’t deem it necessary to declare her anti-Nazi bonafides, as opposed to being reluctant to anger conservatives, a frequent charge from critics. But letting the controversy linger nonetheless is nonsensical.) However, the larger argument that Swift’s stock as a pop star has slipped because she’s maintained a largely apolitical public persona doesn’t wash.

Swift, like virtually every artist, is a narcissist. And, by and large, that’s why people like her, because when Swift sings about herself, she does it in a way that makes millions of people believe she’s actually singing about them. That is the job of a pop star. This weird insistence that a musician who has previously shown no inclination to be a political commentator must suddenly register her yay-or-nay take on Donald Trump, Black Lives Matter, or Hillary vs. Bernie says more about our displaced reverence for pop stars than it does about Swift’s supposed moral obligations.

Isn’t it possible that Taylor Swift genuinely has nothing to say on these matters? And isn’t that okay? If given the choice between performative wokeness and authentic non-engagement, I’ll take the latter, please. Besides, as we’ve seen demonstrated time and again lately, the personal is political, particularly when it comes to one of Swift’s primary subjects: The power struggles between men and women.

Reputation arrives in the midst of an ongoing moral apocalypse in the entertainment industry, in which sexual harassment and assault have been properly re-contextualized in the popular consciousness as expressions of dominance and humiliation, typically by straight white men over women. Swift herself has been victimized by this power imbalance, by a Colorado radio DJ who groped her during a station visit in 2013, when Swift was 23. (Swift won a civil suit against the DJ this summer.)

It might be hard to conceive of Swift, one of the world’s most famous women, as somehow subordinate to a faceless radio jock. But consider how country radio has suppressed women, or how chart success (which is still enabled greatly by radio airplay) has come to dominate, dubiously, how we determine relevance or even artistic merit in popular music. If the fallout from the Harvey Weinstein scandal has taught us anything, it’s that even famous women can be abused by much less famous but nonetheless well-connected men behind the scenes.

But with Reputation, I sense that Swift is finished with that. In her new songs, Swift always has the upper hand. If anyone is going to get broken, it’s the guy in the equation, who’s typically an older (and therefore patriarchal) figure. (“I’ve been breaking hearts for a long time / And toyin’ with them older guys / just playthings for me to use,” she seethes in the dirge-like “Don’t Blame Me.”) If she does decide to settle down, it’s up to the other person to accept her shortcomings, not the other way around. (“Even in my worst times, you could see the best of me,” she sings on “Dress.”) Either way, she gets to be the dominant one, the person who always gets what she wants, including the last word.

After listening to Reputation, I think I understand why Swift’s been seemingly indifferent about her recent bad PR choices, including her threat, via a lawyer, to sue a blogger who criticized her silence on the white supremacist issue. And I get why she’s retreated from the media to the comfort of her massive cult on Tumblr, an audience inclined to perceive her venting and femme-fatale posturing as cathartic, rather than merely petulant.

If Reputation had a nutgraf, it would be, “Why should I have to explain myself?” To Swift, going through the paces of tending to her “perfect” public image seemingly provokes the most resentment of all, since it only seems to make people expect even more from her. Haven’t they already taken enough?

Uproxx

[irarelypostanything]

Unnecessary Arguments - Presidential Election 2020

Person #1: Biden is going to win, and the nightmare is finally going to be over. We can finally get this country back on track

Person #2: ...to socialism, an unnecessary and seemingly never ending lockdown, and all the Obama policy Trump had worked to overturn

Person #1: Exactly, a return to normalcy. And no, Biden is not a socialist. Biden represents moderate democrats

Person #2: Before you know it, there won’t be a such thing as moderate democrats. Biden’s rhetoric has been bending to the will of Harris, who has voted with Bernie Sanders 93% of the time

Person #1: Oh, how horrible. A moderate democrat attempting to appeal to progressives like Bernie Sanders. It’s almost as if Americans were finally waking up to the fact that they had elected someone who was putting children in cages, denying climate change, fanning the flames of racial division, and consistently responding to every situation by saying and doing the worst possible thing a president could

Person #2: Actually, the polls were completely wrong because Americans DIDN’T reject Trump the way mainstream media claimed they would. No blue wave in the house. No blue wave in the senate. Biden hasn’t even won yet, but if he does it’s going to be an incredibly tight election. Why do you suppose that is?

Person #1: You know, I still remember the day in 2016 when Trump was elected. I took a deep breath and asked myself...is this really because people hate Hilary that much? Or is it because this country has become so completely lost, so utterly fked that it has chosen the worst human being imaginable to lead the country?

Person #2: Significant support among Latinos. Significant support among Black voters, Asian voters...the numbers haven’t gone down, they’ve increased. Why do you think this is happening?

Person #1: Enlighten me

Person #2: These are Americans who recognize the threat of socialism. These are Americans who left dictatorships to come to a country that stood for freedom. Now the democrats have used COVID-19 to turn this country into a police state...unless of course they were out protesting racial injustice, in which case everything was fine

Person #1: Did you just lump in Black voters? Yeah, their ancestors came to this country because they wanted more freedom

Person #2: Though they can’t be generalized, republicans tend to believe in freedom. The second amendment, for example, ensuring that we have the means to prevent a horrific communist dictatorship from rising to power like it has in so many other countries. The freedom to worship freely. The freedom to visit their dying loved ones, to come home this Christmas without worrying that their family gatherings will be broken up

Person #1: Trump does not believe in religious freedom, as he demonstrated in the Muslim Ban

Person #2: Travel Ban. It targeted the countries most likely to bring in terrorists, in fact it did not apply to countries that had more Muslims

Person #1: Muslim Ban, something he campaigned on and only pretended to go back on later when he realized how illegal his actions would have been. Visiting your dying loved ones? 236,000 Americans died because of COVID-19

Person #2: Right, and you’re acting like Trump personally assassinated every one of them. Look at the rest of the world...no one had a good plan for COVID

Person #1: Trump downplayed the threat, provided inconsistent directives, ignored health experts...Trump is responsible for how bad things got

Person #2: No, the Chinese government is responsible for intentionally suppressing critical information. Because that’s what they do

Person #1: You really love blaming China, don’t you?

Person #2: Yes, because they ARE to blame. They also pose a threat to us in military might, and Trump was providing the defense department and the military the resources they needed to address this threat.

Person #1: Yeah, it’s a good thing Trump has such overwhelming support from the military. Just ask Defense Secretary Mattis, or McCain’s family, or Colin Powell. Oh wait…

Peson #2: If you look behind the occasionally unwise rhetoric

Person #1: “occasionally unwise rhetoric”

Person #2: ...and just look at policy, Trump has been a fantastic president. He has removed restrictions and allowed our economy to thrive...until COVID-19, which no one had seen coming.

Person #1: According to numerous sources, Trump had

Person #2: ...Trump got us out of the disastrous Iran deal, which gave millions of dollars to - well, the enemy, really. Trump has championed policy for Christians and pro-life people. He has raised defense spending, stood by the police, brought back jobs, put republicans in the Supreme Court. Trump is for order, a thriving economy, and the half of this country that believes in its ideals, believes that it is the greatest country on Earth. Biden and the democrats are becoming increasingly radicalized and unwilling to accept any form of dissent. They want to tear these institutions down, rewrite history, take away our freedoms, and cancel anyone and anything that stands in their way

Person #1: I get it. You’re angry. You’ve been watching a lot of Fox News, and you believe that the democrats are universally against you. You’re a Christian, so you’ve elected a president who went on national television, said The Bible was his favorite book, and couldn’t name a single verse and said he likes the old and new testaments equally because he’s obviously never read it. You believe in the military, yet you’ve elected someone who mocks them. You believe in big business, so you’ve elected a corrupted individual who has had numerous bankruptcies and lawsuits made against him for openly unethical practices he has carried out. You believe the effects of climate change are exaggerated, so you elected someone who tweeted, and I quote, “The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.” You believe in tightening border restrictions, so you’ve elected someone who used emergency defence funds to help build a wall that even the majority of republicans are against. I can understand the rationale behind some of your policy, even if I disagree, but this man you call a president is completely out of his mind. THAT’S why Biden is going to win

[bonnissance]

For the fic ask thingy: M, U, V

M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

we could be here for eons if i went for actual backburner, but top three of the short list of things I want to write but might never make it to: 

1. yet another folklore and fable au: holby is staffed by mythical creatures w latent powers/human+mythos hybrids (Morven is a reaper, Serena is a Dionysus, Bernie is a Valkyrie or an Artemis, Fletch is a Leprechaun, Raf is an Eros, Hanssen is a (tiny) Giant, etc) and none of them really know about their powers so things keep going wrong while they sort it all out and try to live their lives like normal human.

2. tit!pic fic: Bernie accidently sends a photo of her boobs to Serena bc she’s trying on dresses and then asks for help getting ready for some do. Serena thinks Bernie has deliberately sent her the pic and then asked her out and is ‘oh god, oh my, oh yes pls’. Cue flirting over dinner until Serena is like ‘stop mucking about and kiss me already’ and Bernie is like ‘wot?’ Serena freaks out bc it was all a misunderstanding and Bernie is gobsmacked bc Serena wants her, Serena thought she was asking and said yes but doesn’t manage to get her mouth working until Serena has frog-marched her to the front door. Cue making out against door and then all the way up the hall.

3. Berana selkie!au: Bernie lives in an isolated little village along the coast, works as the local doctor, is all alone now her family has passed on or moved away. 

One day, she finds a naked woman washed up on shore, a bundle of rags and fur at her feet, and takes her and the bundle home. 

‘Serena,’ she says, that night in front of the fire. ‘My name is Serena.’

It sounds familiar, like she already knew, as if she’d always know. Bernie is certain she’s been waiting to hear that name all her life. 

She cares for her, for months, while her legs heal and she learns to walk again, and begins to feel herself caring about this woman. 

There’s something about Serena that makes her feel right, makes her feel like Bernie can become someone she likes, makes her feel she’s someone she can living with being for the rest of her life. She thinks she might love this woman, thinks she might as Serena uses all her might to put one foot in front of the other, one step in front of another, until she’s certain. 

She loves this woman. Bernie loves Serena the way Serena loves the sea. Looks at Serena with the same adoration and want as Serena whenever she looks out over the ocean from the window of their cliffside cottage. 

Bernie knows what she is, knows why Serena loves the ocean so, knows one day she’ll have to go. She desperately wants to keep Serena here with her, and the thought of her leaving is heartbreaking. But the thought of harming Serena in any way hurts so much more. 

So when Serena is healed and healthy enough to leave and the ocean calls her, she offers Bernie her pelt because she wants to stay too. Bernie refuses, says she trusts Serena enough to come back again, if she wants, that Bernie will be waiting for her if she ever comes back.

Serena’s eyes sparkle in the moonlight as she kisses Bernie goodbye, as she stands at the waters edge, as she slips on her skin.

‘Will you? Come back?’ Bernie asks, voice breaking, because she can’t bear the thought of never knowing. 

‘I hope so,’ Serena calls over her shoulder, promising Bernie her heart, before heeding the call of the tides and diving below the waves.

U: Share three of your favorite fic writers and why you like them so much.

my fave babes are over here

also shout out to @belligerently and @applebottomclaudiajeans bc they posted banging fics in the past few days and reminded me how much I love them bc they’re so freaking good I might just mcdie ❤️

V: If you could write the sequel (or prequel) to any fic out there not written by yourself, which would you choose?

first thing that springs to mind is Kate/Osgood Modern Unit Inferno!verse. Technically it’s unfinished, but the first chapter is complete enough to conceive of any continuation as a sequel. I’d never actually write it, but I do think about them navigating their relationship in that universe an awful lot: Kate mellows bc she really does love Osgood despite the structures around them and Osgood hardens bc she’s finally safe and can stop being meek and scared of everyone and they become a partnership of Empire Builders.

[fic ask for y’all curious beans]

[thesteadydietofeverything]

RTJ3, Motherfuckers

The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States in November came as a shock to sheltered white liberals who could’ve sworn that our country had moved past it’s fascist, racist, sexist past.  But Killer Mike already experienced a big disappointment earlier in the year when his buddy, the immortal Bernie Sanders, lost his campaign to under-reporting and DNC fuckery.  Likewise, El-P’s verses have never not sounded like they were incoming transmissions from some dystopian future.  In short, it feels like this was the moment these guys have been bracing themselves for since they first teamed up.  So while many Americans sat stunned at finally realizing the rampant criminality inherent in domestic politics and business, Run the Jewels put the finishing touches on their third and best album yet, the unsurprisingly titled Run the Jewels 3.  In the months following the election, concerned Americans have finally mobilized into groups large enough to do something, with the realization of what must be done when the government no longer represents the will of the people.  In the week since Trump’s inauguration, this mobilization has reached historic numbers in resistance to the President’s tyrannical executive orders and Republican’s attempts to dismantle the few supports the country maintained as an attempt to give a bit of equality to its stratified class system.  And RTJ3 has graciously provided the soundtrack to this resistance.

Weighing in at 14 songs in 52 minutes, RTJ3 is the group’s longest and heftiest record yet, and it’s all the better for it.  Run the Jewels 2 was my favorite album of 2014 largely for the visceral thrill that the majority of that record provided - it was a masterpiece of righteous shittalking and creatively bragadocious hyperbole that left practically no room for either rapper, let alone the listener, to take a breath.  This album proudly carries on that mission (often explicitly - “You’re running out of ways to go fuck yourself; I will innovate” El-P offers on “Oh Mama”) while at the same time opening it up to nuance that the duo has never showed time for in the past.  The first few songs are perfect examples of this, as “Down” opens the album in an uncharacteristically low-key way - low-key for the typically vicious duo, anyway, as the the track still simmers with barely contained existential rage, but keeps it under wraps enough to provide a newfound focus on melodicism and depth of production.  El-P’s tracks in the past have often intentionally felt like blunt weapons in the form of blown-out bass buzzes, and the lush synth orchestration here feels like a welcome evolution of the sounds the group is capable of making while barely mitigating the fury at the heart of their power.

That fury eventually gets unleashed, but even then the production remains thoughtful and detailed.  On “Talk to Me,” the beat cuts out for an entire half of El’s verse as a distorted guitar wail builds on one side, eventually reaching critical mass as the beat crushes back down.  On “Call Ticketron,” a pulsating synth loops remains just barely contained enough to be danceable, meeting its antithesis in the verse and they combine to impossibly echo Young MC’s “Bust a Move.”  Towards the end of “Thursday in the Danger Room,” Kamasi Washington’s sax solo blends gorgeously into the tender melody in a way that would have seemed entirely out of El’s production wheelhouse back in the beginning of RTJ’s run.

The raw emotion the duo shows on that track also comes as a surprise given their previous output, as El-P opens up with unprecedented vulnerability about his conflicted feelings during the process of his friend Camu Tao’s death, and Mike recounts a story of senseless violence.  Considering that their first collaboration came in the form of their consecutively released solo albums, both of which were produced entirely by El-P and contained a pretty serious blend of personal and political subject matter, it’s almost easy to forget that the first proper Run the Jewels album was mostly just a badass, fun exercise in the art of the hype track.  While there were some very standout political and personal moments on RTJ2 that solidified the group’s reputation as the best punk band that really wasn’t at all a punk band, it still felt fairly well grounded in the almost breezily ferocious style of their first record.  So it actually somehow feels like both an earned progression and a refreshing return to form that this album is their deepest dive into introspective and sensitive lyrical territory yet.

Of course, that comes with no shortage of the absurdist excursions into the equally hilarious and horrifying boasts that the duo’s made their signature.  Throughout the course of the album, moms get kidnapped during jazzercise, innocent animals get threatened, and scrotums get speed bagged, all for the look on their enemies faces, if there’s a single person left who isn’t in love with these dudes.  The chorus on “Panther Like a Panther (Miracle Mix)” repeats “I’m the shit, bitch,” just in case their thoughts about themselves weren’t quite clear enough.

But the best tracks are the ones that combine this formal mastery with heart-on-sleeve pathos that the group is becoming increasingly willing to indulge in.  “Thieves! (Screamed the Ghost)” opens with a Twilight Zone sample and ends with MLK’s declaration that “A riot is the language of the unheard,” perfectly encapsulating the headspace of both RTJ and the nation as the lyrics identify the violence that leads to violent acts.  “Hey Kids (Bumaye)” blurs the line between party and riot, especially when Danny Brown’s verse kicks in.  And “A Report to the Shareholders/Kill Your Masters” might be the best track RTJ has made yet, a song in which Mike and El simultaneously mourn for and issue a call to arms for a coming civil war.  They save the final verse for Zach de la Rocha, who mirrors the dystopian sci-fi and jazz he invoked with “Close Your Eyes (And Count to Fuck),” trading Blade Runner for Children of Men and Miles Davis for Charles Mingus, all the while giving perhaps the most rousing power-to-the-people declaration he’s mustered in his entire career as he seethes with threatening sincerity.  The last seconds of the track end with Mike’s entreaty to kill your masters, an official proclamation for revolution that stands as one of the most mobilizing moments in music I’ve ever heard.

10/10

[shirlleycoyle]

What Bernie Supporters Think of the Term ‘Bernie Bro’

Over the last few weeks, it's become clear that Bernie Sanders could actually become president. The Vermont senator is polling very close to Joe Biden in Iowa, has a large lead over everyone in the latest California poll, and seems likely to do very well in New Hampshire. The prospect of Sanders winning the nomination has the finance world freaking out—there are already reports of stocks falling as he climbs the polls—and has inspired a backlash from his many detractors. Centrist pundits have declared him to be unelectable, and his former competitor Hillary Clinton has denounced not just Sanders but the entire "culture around him," which she recently described to the Hollywood Reporter:

It's his leadership team. It's his prominent supporters. It's his online Bernie Bros and their relentless attacks on lots of his competitors, particularly the women. And I really hope people are paying attention to that because it should be worrisome that he has permitted this culture — not only permitted, [he] seems to really be very much supporting it.

The "Bernie Bro" stereotype isn't new, of course, but the notion that Sanders supporters are different from other Democratic voters, and even dangerous in some way, seems poised to dominate the never-ending debate over the 2020 primary. It scored a major piece of ink on Monday, when the New York Times ran a front-page story headlined, "Bernie Sanders and His Internet Army." It describes a passionate fan base who donates their money and time to their candidate, but also sometimes attacks opponents with insults and even threats.

"When Mr. Sanders’s supporters swarm someone online, they often find multiple access points to that person’s life, compiling what can amount to investigative dossiers," the Times wrote. "They will attack all public social media accounts, posting personal insults that might flow in by the hundreds."

If you’ve ever posted anything slightly critical of Sanders, this sort of dogpiling may sound familiar. (Full disclosure: I'm a Sanders supporter who yes, spends a fair amount of time online.) Interviews with dozens of Sanders backers find them admitting that the "internet army" can at times be vicious—a reality that many leftists themselves bemoan. But they also see the Bernie Bro narrative as an invention of the media and the Democratic establishment.

Standard-issue online sparring is often conflated with threats, and Sanders supporters feel frustrated they are so often associated with the worst behavior of their fellow travelers. "Most Bernie supporters online tend to be young, somewhat irony-poisoned, and angry. I'm including myself in this group," Joe Conley, a 33-year-old Sanders supporter, told me over email. He pointed out that there’s an "irony gap" between Bernie supporters and people on the receiving end of their ire. While tweeting a photograph of a pig with shit on its balls might be a standard-issue troll for a member of left Twitter, it’s perceived as online harassment from people who aren’t acquainted with this language of certain subcultures. At the end of the day, every political tribe has its toxic streak, so why do "Bernie Bros" get singled out?

Even as a self-identified Bernie Bro, I’ve gotten a fair amount of grief from leftist dudes on the internet. But I’ve received an equal heaping of hate from women who supported Clinton, anti-semitic Trump trolls, and beyond. Though fewer in number than Sanders supporters, Andrew Yang backers can be just as fiery online—notably, there are a significant number of irony-drenched #YangGang members from 4chan and other Trump-adjacent corners of the internet. Tulsi Gabbard, another Democrat with fringe appeal, has an intense fan base that contains members of the far right. In general, the culture around political celebrities has become more like regular celebrity stan culture, meaning fans feel intense emotions and share them online, and campaigns have little control over those feelings. (Sanders’s popularity is forever intertwined with his online army, but his campaign does not promote cyberbullying or misogyny—as the Times story noted, the Sanders campaign has publicly condemned bullying. That hasn't stopped it.)

One Bernie supporter sent me a dossier of all the abuse Bernie supporters receive from "loyalist Democrats" and "Donut Twitter." (Anti-Bernie liberals sometimes use a donut emoji in their Twitter names. It's a long story.) This collection of screenshots is really ugly, with people tweeting things like "I’m rooting for Bernie supporters' death," and "anyone that fucking supports Bernie Ratfucker Sanders is a piece of shit." There is also a glut of disgusting, unquotable, racist and misogynistic insults that have been hurled at Nina Turner, a Black woman who has worked with Sanders for years and co-chairs his 2020 campaign. (VICE was unable to confirm the authenticity of all of the screenshots and is not linking to the file, but did verify that many of the abusive tweets were real.) The fact is, the internet is a cruel place for everyone, regardless of who you’re voting for in 2020.

"I really think we are no more mean or aggressive than any other group of people," said Peter Graham, a 28-year-old who works for Disney and is voting for Bernie. "[It’s that] Bernie has younger supporters that are very online, [they] are probably better versed in sardonic Twitter dialogue, and there's more of them."

The stereotype of a nasty online leftist bro—unmistakably masculine, usually sneering—predates that election season. In 2008, the feminist writer Rebecca Traister (then a Clinton supporter) published an op-ed on Salon, bemoaning the rise of the "Obama boys." Young women who backed Clinton, she wrote, told her "about the sexism they felt coming from their brothers and husbands and friends and boyfriends [and] described the suspicion that their politically progressive partners were actually uncomfortable with powerful women."

Leftists have accused the mainstream media of using this stereotype as a club to beat Sanders with. "The ‘Bernie Bro' narrative by pro-Clinton journalists has been a potent political tactic," Glenn Greenwald wrote on The Intercept in 2016, calling it "a journalistic disgrace." And the idea that the democratic socialist's base is largely male is arguably just straight-up false: Polls have shown that Sanders supporters are diverse across racial and gender lines, with young women making up a larger proportion of his support than young men.

Yet the narrative has remained pervasive, likely because there are plenty of genuinely nasty Bernie supporters lurking online, and more recently, because Sanders has achieved frontrunner status. Since his rise in the polls, Bernie has received a deluge of negative press from mainstream publications. "This isn’t about Sanders supporters being uniquely toxic. It’s about Sanders leading in Iowa and New Hampshire and leading a genuinely diverse working class movement," one Bernie supporter tweeted in response to the New York Times article. "Elite liberals fear and despise the working class. That’s the reality."

"This is ruling class propaganda," another remarked. "And rather than keeping Bernie above the fray, the campaign's scolding of supporters was used to validate their false narrative of abusive Berners, as I feared it would be. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. So don't."

Peter Daou, a former Hillary aide turned Bernie diehard, expressed dismay about the Bernie Bro stereotype over the phone. He said that he and his wife, Leela, now "receive the same type of personal attacks" as he did in 2016, when he was loudly supporting Clinton online. "People are using the term ‘Bernie Bro’ in a targeted way,” he said. "It’s a toxic narrative, leftover from 2016. The idea of these raging white males online that all support Bernie is the establishment’s way of trying to torpedo Bernie’s campaign."

Jovan Prunty, a 31-year-old who works in construction, also takes offense at the Bernie Bro narrative. "As a Black man I think this term erases me and all his other women and POC supporters," he said.

Sanders supporters generally agree that there are toxic leftist men whose behavior is out of bounds. But they insist that those people are a minority. Jaya Sundaresh, a writer for the socialist publication Current Affairs, voiced that sentiment on her Twitter in a post that garnered 15,000 likes: "I'm just going to say it: the Bernie Bro stereotype might be bullshit, but there's a variety of irony-poisoned shithead leftist dudes who have caused nothing but pain for myself and my female comrades." Over the phone Sundaresh was careful to emphasize that even though shitty men do exist on the left, the phenomenon is not specific to one edge of the ideological spectrum. "I’ve been swarmed by Pete Buttigieg supporters," she said. "I’ve also had good conversations with them."

Small, persistent jabs from Bernie supporters are unsurprisingly hurtful to people who support other candidates. Zandy Hartig, a Los Angeles-based actress, who backs Elizabeth Warren, tweeted on Wednesday, "It sucks that I feel I can’t tweet about my favorite candidate. my friends are respectful when they argue with me, but random people will jump all over me. It’s not their candidate’s fault, but it scares me nonetheless. And maybe that’s the point." Unkindness ensued, with Bernie supporters informing her that Warren does, in fact, suck, and imploring her to "calm down."

"I don’t think it’s Bernie fault," Hartig emphasized to me over the phone. "But I don't want to comment [anything pro-Warren] because when I have, people come down really hard on me and I almost feel like going private." (Her Twitter is currently private).

"During the 2016 election, I really didn’t think there was such a thing as a 'Bernie Bro,'" Hartig continued. "But this time, we’ve got a woman running who is much more progressive [than Hillary]… I’m starting to think it has a lot to do with misogyny."

The nastiness of online political culture has resulted in a gap between those like Hartig, who feel attacked by swarms of online Bernie heads, and Sanders supporters who complain that they are being unfairly stereotyped. Misogyny exists in every corner of the internet, they say. So why are we mostly talking about Bernie Sanders? "You’re gonna tarnish an entire movement as 'bros'?" Daou said. "[It] erases all the women, the women of color. There’s an ageist, a sexist, and a racist component when you generalize a diverse movement under the term 'Bro.'"

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What Bernie Supporters Think of the Term ‘Bernie Bro’ syndicated from https://triviaqaweb.wordpress.com/feed/

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World Moving towards Global War -Prophecy Focus 2017-2018. This is just one of many articles we are focusing in on for prophecy and importance of things to come. We therefore bring it forward again as a reminder of where we have come from and where we are going! The WIBR/WARN Radio Global Prophecy 2017-2018 special edition

As concerning Israel ‘God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew’ -The Apostle Paul in Romans 11:2. 

Two cities, two nations, two people’s, many faiths; battle over the center of the world. Many solutions but nothing works. To those who live in these two cities and to both Jew and Gentile everywhere; many believe as concerning ‘election’, they are ‘beloved for the Fathers sake’.  It is here in this world we live in, that a tiny democracy lives daily amidst a sea of turmoil. Yet she continues to exist, however the battle for the land and it’s cities is far from over. Both Heaven and Hell look on, the answer lies in that which is truth and will come to pass!

The Tale of two cities and the survival of Israel

The Survival of Israel is never in question for those who support her. However her enemies are another story. In a related article found here Jerusalem, Tel Aviv ‘Tale of two cities’, on the WIBR/WARN Website we see the conflict. One city fights for survival as it’s capital; this is Jerusalem. The other modern city Tel Aviv speaks of the comfort of it’s residents. The division in Israel is that of both secular and religious; plus those who are neither. Like in many respects to America who has it’s secular, religious, and liberal leftists; plus those who are neither. Yet America is not Israel. Israel is Israel and no one should forget the difference between this tiny democracy in a sea of enemies and the rest of the world.

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Classic Comics issue #6 ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ By Chordboard – Self, from material in my possession., Public Domain

 The survival of Israel: The Tale of two cities London and Paris

Yet the author of this article chose to use the phrase ‘Tale of Two cities’. Which immediately reminded me of Charles Dickens book, of the same name; by the way. The Tale of Two cities is set during the French Revolution and compares two cities; “London and Paris”! It is that difference that strikes the chord of the book.  In the beginning of the book; at the start, Chapter one we read the following “the best of times, the worst of times”! The goes on to describe the opposites in the world at that time. Wisdom vs foolishness, belief versus incredulity [unable to believe something], light vs darkness, hope versus despair. In fact this describes society today. It also describes any city in America versus most of the cities in the western world or the middle east.  You find such opposites.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way – in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. Tale of Two Cities Chapter One

  The survival of Israel: The Tale of two cities Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

In the article Jerusalem, Tel Aviv: ‘A tale of two cities’ the author Marc Schulman writes of the same disparaging comparisons.  Marc regularly writes for Newsweek  authoring the Tel Aviv Diaries. He should know of the city he lives in and the one he compares it to; Jerusalem.  Marc writes that many in Israel believe there are no easy solutions, in fact finding any solution for peace is extremely hard. He then describes the problem. Here we find the same opposites, divergent views that Charles Dickens wrote about so long ago. However it is actually lived in one small nation, not two different countries like Dickens writes. England vs France or Israel vr itself! What a problem.

Those on the extremes, however, who live in a fantasyland, have it easy. Right-wing zealots contend we must exercise permanent sovereignty over millions of Palestinians—without giving them full rights—and that we can exert that same sovereignty over the Temple Mount without going to war with the Muslim world. At the same time, left-wing militants believe that all we have to do is agree to withdraw from the areas captured in 1967 and peace will break out. Meanwhile, the majority of the rest of us live in that complicated place that seems to offer no good solutions.

  Yet in America we have religious people, secular people, and even political hacks like the Jewish Bernie Sanders who hate Israel. It should come as no surprise that many times we find a Jew who turn against fellow Jews.

  Israeli Air Force F-16I Sufas over Tel Aviv By Israel Defense Forces – IAF Flight for Israel’s 63rd Independence Day, CC BY 2.0,

The survival of Israel: The Tale of two jews: Those who love Israel and those to turn against her!

Moreover; Michael Laitman author of the article in the Jerusalem Post titled “Why Bernie Sanders hates Israel” points out that in May 1985 Sanders was still mayor of Burlington Vermont and proceeded to invite Noam Chomsky to give a town hall speech. In it, Chomsky stated that “Israel doesn’t want a political settlement” in the middle east. Chomsky further asserted that Israel was a ‘surrogate’ murderer for the US and carried out mass killings.  Further, Laitman said “no one should be surprise that Sanders believers that Israel killed over ‘10,000 innocent people’ in the latest Gaza conflict”.  Then pointing to one of the most horrendous massacres of at the time, Laitman relates this story.

Throughout history, the Jewish people have seen fellow Jews turn against their own people. Titus’ Chief of Staff, Tiberius Julius Alexander, who was Philo’s nephew and whose father donated the gilded gates to the Temple, commanded both the destruction of Jerusalem and the massacre of 50,000 of his native Jewish community in Alexandria. Michael Laitman article source.

 The survival of Israel: The Right to exist

In addition we also must look at what many of those supporting Israel believe; ‘that Israel and the jewish people have a right to exist and do so in their own land given to them as a promise to Abraham.’ The issue for Israel to exist is not one of two views biblically, as far as I am concerned. However there are those in Christianity, both laymen and Theologians who seem to find the opposite of what I believe. The truth to Israel’s survive is one that is there in your face. There has always been jews living in the middle east and the fact that Arabs have been trying to push them out for over 2000 years doesn’t bode well to the issue of ‘has Israel been in the land for long’. Israel in the form of Jews whose connection is to David, Jerusalem, Solomon and the Temple; and the Davidic covenant as well; yes, these Jews whose roots go back this far have been in the land in some form or another. Here as just a couple of scriptures that also tell us the veracity of the covenant and that it is established forever. That means to you and I, it will not end.  The Apostle Paul writes in Romans Chapter Eleven and verse 28b “as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers’ sakes”.  While over the centuries since the time of Christ the Jews have been as Paul says in that same verse; that the Jews are enemies as far as the gospel is concerned saying “as concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes”. Well the Lord had many such enemies among the chief Priests, Sanhedrin, and Lawyers. The Apostles also and the early church well found out the hate of the Jews for the Christian and their faith. Over the centuries the enmity between Christendom and the Jew has been well recorded. Today, however; one revelation given to today’s Christian is the veracity of our Christian heritage founded in the Jewish faith and in the scriptures. You will find many, many Christians today who see that Israel and the Jews are indeed ‘beloved for the fathers sake’ as Paul wrote above.  Their support at this time is critical to helping Israel.

Psa 89:2-4 “Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations” (2) For I have said, Mercy shall be built up for ever: thy faithfulness shalt thou establish in the very heavens. (3) I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, (4) Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations. Selah.

There are those in the Gentile nations whose purpose is to politically and dramatically solve the Jewish problem, the Israel problem, and the Palestinian problem in one swell swoop. By coercing Israel to give in to all their demands. Now I have been following this procedure for a very long time. Whenever Israel gives up land for peace; they get terrorized. One example of recent memory here in question is Gaza. Israel leaves the area and then Arafat comes in and presto; an Arab militant state bent on destroying Israel.

I personally oppose the two-state solution. It is unbiblical, unrealistic, and will never work. To make peace with a people that do not accept your biblical right to the land or to even exist is downright stupid. Now I know that many Israelites want peace, but at what cost? In America many push this view without consideration of Israel. As long as there is peace, Americans can go back to their deep sleep. The church in America is asleep on many issues today, Israel is just one of the many symptoms this backslidden, fairy tale Jesus and bubble gum church has. The faith in America’s Christians and their church is “two miles wide and one inch deep”.

 The survival of Israel: The Tale of two faiths Christian and Jewish

Furthermore, Maoz Israel; a Tel Aviv based ministry writes in their latest June report from Israel; “Christ at the Checkpoint” Palestinian Christians Target Western Evangelicals, of the problem within the Christian community supporting Israel. It is here that Palestinian Christian leaders and their congregations all support the Palestinian cause and thus turn against Israel. The target for these Palestinian Christians are Western Evangelical Christians so they can persuade them to side with the Palestinians and against Israel.  The Article written by Shira Sorko-Ram of Maoz Israel writes of this:

Now, an entire movement among Palestinian Christians, promoted at Christ at the Checkpoint Conferences in Bethlehem, has risen up to join hands with Islam for the purpose of delegitimizing, isolating and destroying Israel with an enhanced version of Replacement Theology. It is the quintessential doctrine bred from anti-Semitism.

But now these Palestinians have gone much farther. They have created what is called Palestinian Liberation Theology. According to them, Jesus was not a Jew. He was a Palestinian. Israel has no historical or theological right to exist. Rather, according to the rewritten scriptures, the Palestinians are the chosen people. From Maoz Israel report June 2016

Again, Maoz Israel quotes Caroline Glick, editor of the Jerusalem post. She writes of the ‘importance of the Evangelicals to Israel’!  Caroline gives a number within the Evangelical community who support Israel, these she says ‘form the backbone of American support’ for the state of Israel. It is this support she declares and not of the Jewish community that makes the difference in America as to the US support for the Jewish state.

Today, Evangelical communities in the US number anywhere between 60 – 150 million people, depending on who is counting. They form the backbone of American support for the Jewish state. It is the support of the Evangelical community, rather than the Jewish community in the US that ensures that come hell or high water, no matter how Israel is demonized in the media and in academia, the majority of Americans continue to support Israel. 

There is a battle both for the minds of the people who support Israel and between the Jew in Israel and the Jew who disagrees with them. It seems that the Jews at times are their own worst enemy. Even in Christianity we find this synopsis true, the Christian in America is often their own worst enemy. Like many Christian denominations, who over BDS and their support of this ‘anti-semitic’  tool which is used to destroy Israel. They support this and demonize Israel; backing the Palestinians whose own charter does not recognize Israel nor the Jewish people to be in the land God gave them.

Thus as we see the Tale of two cities, the opposites they consist of; can be our society today. It can the Tale of two nations; America and Israel, the Tale of two faiths; Christian and Jewish, the Tale of two states; Israel and the Palestinians. In the world today there is the ‘Truth as many see it’, then there is the ‘Truth as it really is’! This fundamental truth is the the Lord is the governor of the nations. He is the one who watches over Israel. He is the one who sent his only begotten son to die for our sins. But the link between Christian and Jew goes back to Abraham and to the God of Abraham. It moves forward through the centuries and this movement is detailed in the Torah and the Tanakh. Today there is no doubt the battle for the survival of Israel is at stake. However, in the end; the nations will gather around Jerusalem and Israel. But even as the gentile armies seem to have their way, they will indeed meet the Lord of Lords and King of Kings. They will do so in judgment hoisted up them for their evil ways and rebellion. They will receive the just due for coming against Israel. This is just the beginning of judgments we will see one day.

Zec 14:1-9 “I will gather all nations against Jerusalem” (1) Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. (2) For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. (3) Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. (4) And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south. (5) And ye shall flee to the valley of the mountains; for the valley of the mountains shall reach unto Azal: yea, ye shall flee, like as ye fled from before the earthquake in the days of Uzziah king of Judah: and the LORD my God shall come, and all the saints with thee. (6) And it shall come to pass in that day, that the light shall not be clear, nor dark: (7) But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD, not day, nor night: but it shall come to pass, that at evening time it shall be light. (8) And it shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem; half of them toward the former sea, and half of them toward the hinder sea: in summer and in winter shall it be. (9) And the LORD shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one LORD, and his name one.

  The Tale of two cities and the survival of Israel A Commentary in the Writers Pulse by Dana Glenn Smith “Life Expression in it’s simplest form is simply life in words” Dana Smith has written three books, and numerous E-books. He has written articles, and published well over 10,000 articles in over 18 years on the WIBR/WARN sites.

Visit our website:  www.danaglennsmith.com

Jer 33:10-15 “I will cause to return the captivity of the land as at the first” (10) Thus saith the LORD; Again there shall be heard in this place, which ye say shall be desolate without man and without beast, even in the cities of Judah, and in the streets of Jerusalem, that are desolate, without man, and without inhabitant, and without beast, (11) The voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, the voice of them that shall say, Praise the LORD of hosts: for the LORD is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: and of them that shall bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of the LORD. For I will cause to return the captivity of the land, as at the first, saith the LORD. (12) Thus saith the LORD of hosts; Again in this place, which is desolate without man and without beast, and in all the cities thereof, shall be an habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down. (13) In the cities of the mountains, in the cities of the vale, and in the cities of the south, and in the land of Benjamin, and in the places about Jerusalem, and in the cities of Judah, shall the flocks pass again under the hands of him that telleth them, saith the LORD. (14) Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. (15) In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land.

Rev 19:11-16 “The Lord comes to smite the nations” (11) And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. (12) His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. (13) And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. (14) And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. (15) And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. (16) And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.

Rev 22:11-17 “I come quickly and my reward is with me” (11) He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. (12) And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. (13) I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. (14) Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. (15) For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. (16) I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. (17) And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.

The Tale of two cities and the survival of Israel -Prophecy Focus 2017-2018 World Moving towards Global War -Prophecy Focus 2017-2018. This is just one of many articles we are focusing in on for prophecy and importance of things to come.

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Hate And also Various other Lousy Things (Living.my.life For life).

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[kermitslz9974562-blog]

5 Keys About Having sex.

Huge Bro 2016: Shock DUAL expulsion prepared for Sunday and also ex-housemates to return. He went on to frame Trump as a prospect who just has the rate of interests of the rich at heart. At the same time, Victoria Beckham is presently on a tour of Singapore, where she has been maintaining her fans up to day with a variety of amusing Twitter images. Much now depends upon the results of next February's election, as well as on how quickly Khamenei leaves the leading placement. In tales, expressions such as to my surprise and to her shock are often made use of to show that someone is shocked by something. Probably the most mind-boggling component of the 2016 election is the opportunity of a so-called objected to convention in the Republican party, which would avoid Trump from securing the election, even though he has, thus far, amassed one of the most delegates of any prospect. Barack Obama in shock swipe at Clinton at last reporters' supper. I'll give you 3 concepts to surprise your guy and make your sex life more interesting - not just for one evening, but also for as lengthy as you are with each other (which might be for a long, long time, if you use my recommendations ). In one sentence, Sanders used Clinton a hand as well as offered himself an increase, and he really did not have to attack Clinton the means the GOP candidates have to do it. I have actually directly backed over 100 projects on KS. So although this is my First solo task I have a mutual understanding of the process and have learned what I like and do not like to experience as well as see in a campaign. An unique invitation to our backers-only celebration at Gen Con with Blowing up Kittens, Lone Shark Games, as well as Cards Versus Mankind where you could play Secret Hitler with Mike, Max, and also Tommy. In the 1970s it was the really alert James Mollison, after that interim director of the organization that was to become the National Gallery of Australia, who first saw discrepancies that resulted in revealing Marlborough Fine Art's fraudulence against the Rothko estate Probably Marlborough assumed a nation 10,000 miles away was not mosting likely to discover the fine details of provenance as well as exhibition background - in those days distances seemed wonderful. Instead, we have actually been told that Mojang is a great place to function, that we secure free journeys to the Game Developers Conference and that we all get a Xmas bonus offer," one Mojang employee told us during summer season 2014. Believe it not, males have a lot of sexual resemblances to women. Sanders was the only presidential candidate welcomed to a conference at the Vatican today, which was hosted by the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. You can also further assist making this take place by getting the word out regarding this job and also make this a viral project! There's no much better way to express his words than to show you his words," Allan Piper, who makes Clinton's fast reaction videos lately told WIRED. If you loved this article so you would like to acquire more info relating to click the up coming website i implore you to visit the web site. Apart from learning new things when analysis, it can additionally aid boost our communication abilities When reading, we are a lot more subjected to deal with use words and also proper frameworks of sentences that's why our communication abilities are boosted. Not that Obama avoided seeming the kind of democratic note that has actually identified the 2016 campaign period. This may not be wonderful politics," Bernie Sanders claimed on phase at the Autonomous argument tonight, yet I think the assistant is right. Both Autonomous prospects Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have openly opposed the deal also. However you feel about the candidates as well as this most ridiculous period of political theater, more people than ever before are political involved online, and this new suite of voter-friendly tools may assist them take that fervor bent on where it truly counts: the ballot booth. The following verse says 'midnight.' It's dark, and therefore a requirement of oil in the lamps to find the method to the wedding event.

[epacer]

Class Notes

Jeff Lee, Class of 1966

“If we think back on what we were doing 20 years ago and reflect on how recent it feels in the present moment, it gives us an idea of how quickly the next 20 years will progress,” true words spoken by a longtime friend, fellow musician and occasional guitar student. His name was Jeff Lee, a connoisseur of life, a crafty singer-songwriter, entertainer, black belt, veteran, husband, father, grandfather, and overall good guy, who was loved by many. In our most recent guitar lesson last year, we spent a couple of hours playing, a couple of hours reminiscing about the heyday of the San Diego music scene when his group Oh! Ridge and mine, Stone’s Throw, ruled the nightclubs throughout San Diego County in the 1980s, back in the day when a musician would usually work six nights a week in the same room for months as the house band, and finally we spent an hour or so talking about our mortality, the aging process and how quickly our time on earth proceeds. Little did I know I’d have to craft an article about his life so quickly after our last discussion. Lee died on July 3rd from a mountain biking accident. So, on that note, I now defer to life reflections by the many who loved him and knew him well, paying homage to his life and musical times, beginning with longtime friend, musical sidekick and Oh! Ridge partner in crime, Jerry Gontang.

Reflections from Jerry Gontang and Jeff’s wife, Carol: “If you ever attended an Oh! Ridge show, you have fond memories of the evening. Usually those memories were spawned by founder and leader Jeff Lee. The band prided itself with a collective effort of comedic timing and accurate harmonies that came about by constant practice and a grueling work schedule. 40-plus years of music and humor were kept alive through Jeff’s energy and his ability to read an audience. Parodies and funny songs, along with props and gimmickry, kept audiences entertained and laughing for decades.

Jeff had rewritten a travesty of Peter Paul and Mary’s hit “Puff the Magic Dragon” and it became the group’s most requested song. Other satirical hits included “Dick and Jane,” “Loving You,” “The Fish Song,” “Dead Dog Rover,” and the show closer “Rodeo Song,” plus many others too profanely titled to name here. Is that a smile on your face? His ability to focus and engage one table at a time allowed him and his sidekicks to make everyone in the room feel like they were a part of the show. Jeff’s degree of ribaldry became more intense as the evening progressed and this was made possible by the statement “we’re an equal opportunity offender, we f#@k with everyone,” or “this show is like a door knob, everybody gets a turn.”

The famous kamikaze airplane and drink wheel specials made a lot of bars, restaurants, owners, managers, and patrons happy people. One of his favorite quips,”The drunker you get, the better we sound,” became a motto that audiences revered. The “Toast! Toast back!” routine, borrowed from a fellow entertainer in Sun Valley, Idaho, and followed by a limerick, insured nobody was left ignored. The show usually started out with a docile dinner set and ended with the last set being triple X blue humor. Inappropriate? Maybe, if you didn’t have a sense of humor. Entertaining? Always, from beginning to end. That’s just how Jeff Lee planned it.

His part-time career as a music teacher in the elementary school system caused many double takes from parents who had seen the Oh! Ridge show. A three-battery Mag flashlight kept in his back pocket was used to single out people in the audience. There was no mistaking who he was talking to. Jokes were a good portion of the show and he was always coming up with new material. Not one to be outdone by hecklers, his Don Rickles style of banter left them outwitted and wishing they had never started. At a recent Oh! Ridge reunion that lasted four and a half hours, Jeff was the only member who remained on stage. When asked how he was able to play for so long, he immediately replied, ‘Depends?!’

Although he was the driving force behind the band, he was much more than Oh! Ridge. Jeff and his wife, Carol, were married on October 26, 1980. They have two daughters, Jessica Taylor and Allison Lee; son-in-law Michael Taylor; and grandsons Jackson and Lincoln Taylor. A proud papa and grandpa, he could be seen swiping pictures into his iPhone while giving brief excerpts of the children’s progress to friends and fans intent on hearing updates. A native San Diegan, he attended Crawford High School, Mesa College, San Diego State University, and served in the United States Navy. Attending open mics opened doors to a solo career playing private parties, corporate functions, restaurants, festivals, and coffee houses. Outside of music, Jeff also had an interest in musical theater, playing roles in his daughters school plays and local theatrical troupes. He was an active member of the Ancient and Honorable Order of E Clampus Vitus (ECV), a fraternal organization dedicated to the study and preservation of the heritage of the American West, especially the history of the Mother Lode and gold mining regions of the area. An avid mountain biker and second-degree black belt in karate, he was well versed at getting from point A to point B via dirt trails and more than competent at fighting his way out of a paper bag.”

From former Oh! Ridge band member Ricky Araiza: “Jeff was the instigator of Oh! Ridge; he was the prime mover, the big bang for this period of music for so many friends and family. We had lots of happy moments and good times thanks to our brother Jeffrey and we are all supremely in debt and equally sad for his loss. Bye brother. miss you already!”

From singer-songwriter Joe Rathburn: “I arrived in San Diego in 1979. I had been performing back in my home state of Michigan, making great money in a chain of steak houses. They were part of the Foodmaker chain which owned, among other things, Jack in the Box. The regional manager told me that I could go out to San Diego and get a gig playing at one of their affiliated restaurants, in particular, the Monterey Whaling Co. When I got here I was in for a rude awakening, as those restaurants already had acts that were playing every night, and packing them in to boot. One of those acts was Oh! Ridge. Jeff Lee and Jerry Gontang along with Steve Yarberry owned every room they played with their mixture of comedy and music, with the emphasis on comedy, of which I had very little, and still don’t to this day. But it was always the chemistry and timing between Jeff and Jer that made that act click. Jeff always had a lightning wit and a pocket full of jokes; he was the edgier, racier and more sarcastic of the two, but they both were dedicated to making their audience have a good time, no matter what.

We never really hung out as close friends but they’d always treat me like a star whenever I’d get off of my gig early and rush over to see their last set. They’d always have me get up on stage and sit in. They both were respectful of me and my act, and though I was always kinda chasin’ them, trying to get booked in the same rooms they were in, they were both always supportive and friendly.

One of the last conversations I had with Jeff, I recall poignantly how he and Carol were getting ready to start livin’ the golden years, and enjoy life more.”

From Walt Richards, multi-instumentalist teacher and performer: “Jeff Lee entertained thousands. He gave us laughter and joy through his music. He respected his fellow musicians and encouraged them to share their talents along with him. He was an inspiration and mentor to many in San Diego and an early pioneer in the professional acoustic music scene helping pave the way for many of the musicians who followed. Jeff gave his life to his music and his family. I am so lucky to have known him; I will miss him.” From Ed Douglas: Currently a contented ceramic tile pop artist, Douglas was in the original Scottsville Squirrel Barkers lineup, a legendary 1960s local bluegrass band that featured the likes of Chris Hillman (the Byrds), Bernie Leadon (the Eagles) and Kenny Wertz (Flying Burrito Brothers). He shared his thoughts about Lee, who often sat in with the reunited Barkers from the late 1990s forward. “Jeff and I became good friends. Many of the folk and bluegrass community would gather socially and musically at Jeff’s house on Sundays, he was a great guy who loved music and life.”:

From Al Hollar: “I met Jeff in Tucson in 1978 playing with Oh! Ridge at the Putney St. Pub. He was funny, bright, unpretentious, and welcoming to a wandering harmonica player from North Carolina: he was a large part of the reason I moved on from Tucson to San Diego later that year. He gave me chances to sit in and play with Oh! Ridge, introduced me to dozens of interesting players, and showed me some of the life of an actual performing musician. While I have long since returned to North Carolina and mercifully allowed some of my poorer decisions in California to blur, I will never forget Jeff’s kindness and humor. He had no reason to like and welcome me, and yet he did.”

From singer-songwriter Charlie Imes: “Some people are just genetically designed to make people laugh and smile, and Jeff Lee was royalty among these people. From the first time I saw him and Jerry Gontang play to a packed house as Oh! Ridge, it was clear that Jeff was not only a natural performer, but he also possessed an infectious sense of happiness. That became clearer to me the longer I’d known Jeff. On too few occasions I got to share that energy on stage with him, as our paths kept us busy and crossed too rarely. But he was more than just an ever-present smile and quick wit. He was a great musician, player, singer, entertainer, and friend. There are too few of those in this world and we weren’t ready to let this one go. Even in Jeff’s tragic untimely passing, he reminds us that life is too short and to cherish the time we get to spend with our friends and loved ones. Thanks, Jeff and toast back buddy.”

From fellow troubadour Jeffrey Joe Morin: Jeffrey Joe, who posted this on his Facebook page in his daily top 10 gratuities from July 5. Sadly, Morin passed away 12 days later on July 17th. (Look for a tribute to him in the September issue.)

“Top Ten Things Today I am Grateful for:” • Jeff Lee Singing in my Kitchen • Jeff Lee’s Wise Counsel • His Expert Stagecraft • His Larry Robinson Song • Singing Harmonies with Jeff and Cici • Singing Harmonies with Jeff and Liz • Loving Jeff Lee • Hugging Jeff Hours Before His Death • His Kindness and Joy

*Reposted article from The San Diego Troubadour by Wayne Riker of August 2017 titled “Jeff Lee: A Man of Music, Joy, and Laughter” in the Front Page Section.

[johnchiarello]

Thursday

THURSDAY 4-20-17

John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life

[commentary below]

Fake News- https://youtu.be/LWkDi9xnB6k

http://wp.me/a4V5qQ-zI

.Aaron Hernandez

.French election ‘coverage?

.Bannon

.Media

.Far right

.McComb

.Sharia law

.Women's rights

.Bear in the car- news?

.Brietbart

 China- Alex Jones n Glenn Beck- https://youtu.be/bPcDV212Cn8

http://wp.me/a4V5qQ-zJ

Acts 10:1 There was a certain man in Caesarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band,

Acts 10:2 A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway.

.Both Korea’s

.Currency manipulator

.The 7/5 precinct NYC

.Cornelius the God fearer

.Talk radio

.Oreillly out

.Death penalty

.Damien Echols

Acts 10:3 He saw in a vision evidently about the ninth hour of the day an angel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius.

Acts 10:4 And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.

 Joshua n Royal- https://youtu.be/fejsy94XGUE

http://wp.me/a4V5qQ-zK

Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

 . 2 brothers talk at the end [good story]

.China and steel

.Union workers

.Department of commerce

.DNC

.Trickle down?

.Free trade

.Syria

[news links- verses below]

Today I just hit on some news issues.

The Arkansas executions were put on hold- for now.

Trump kept one of his campaign promises- and might penalize China for dumping their steel in the U.S.

And I talked about the media coverage of the French election.

Why talk about any of these things?

Media bias is not simply some Political issue that Christians should have no concern about.

Media bias- and the narrative the media give you- and me- effects the way we think about the actions our country takes.

And when we talk about the big issues- war and peace-

Then yes- if we are persuaded by the media to ‘back up’ or reject action simply because they are for or against a particular side-

Then we need to be aware of how bias works.

I talk about these issues- not as a Democrat or Republican [I’m neither] but as someone who keeps up with the news.

I’ll give just one example from today’s talks.

During the presidential campaign you had sincere liberals who would have loved it if Bernie Sanders got elected.

But the 2 main choices were between Trump and Clinton.

During the campaign Trump took some very unconventional views- views that the classic liberal would love.

One was he said he would do something to save the U.S. steel industry.

Those are union workers- who normally support the Democratic Candidate by more than 90%.

But Hillary Clinton was against stopping China from flooding the U.S. market with steel.

Both she and her husband took a much more conservative [Republican] view on trade.

They felt that if the global economy does well- then the effects would be better for the steelworker.

But don’t tell that to the U.S. steelworker who sees his job go by the wayside because he can’t compete with Chinese steel.

So- Hillary sincerely held to the view of ‘trickle down economics’ saying if we simply let the global market do well- eventually the U.S. employer will benefit.

That's not a liberal view at all.

Trumps’ view- to penalize china- was considered liberal- protectionist- and anti Republican.

Yet- he took this view- and has now actually taken steps to act on it.

The U.S. steel worker would have never gotten this with Hillary- maybe with Bernie- but the reality is- they are getting this benefit from Trump.

If your are a Democrat- Union worker- you should be excited about this.

But instead- the media have found something to criticize and the majority of sincere liberals who hold to this view- will also criticize Trump.

Simply because we in this nation choose sides- and if the other side wins- then we fight them until the end.

Ok- I don’t really care that much about the steel issue to be honest.

But when we do the same thing- when it comes to war- and the loss of life on both sides of these conflicts.

Then we have to overcome our bias- because it would be unjust for any killing to take place- simply because ‘ Our side is in’ - and we were unable to actually look at the human cost.

I’m not against all war- but it should be a last resort.

I’m not against our military but responsible leaders should realize war is a last resort.

And we- as Christians should form our opinion not based on an irresponsible media and the narrative they give [They hailed Obama's backing of the rebels in Libya and just last week Black slaves were being being sold in Libya on an open market- for the first time since the abolishing of slavery].

Yet- the media hardly mentioned it.

But this is the end result of a bad decision by president Obama.

We often forget about the consequences of our actions- and move on to the next story.

I also mentioned some local news and the death of Arron Hernandez.

Who hung himself in his jail cell- with the words ‘John 3:16’written on his head.

Sad story- indeed.

On the last video I ran into 2 Christian brothers right at the end.

They were walking in Wal Mart parking lot- and I asked them if they wanted to share their story-

They sure did.

Ok- that’s it for today-

God bless all

 NEWS-

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/04/20/hernandezs-lawyer-says-family-looking-for-answers-after-death.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/business/media/bill-oreilly-payout.html?_r=0

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/04/20/524846031/court-rulings-block-2-scheduled-executions-today-in-arkansas

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/15/us/damien-echols-says-he-is-proof-arkansas-sends-innocent-people-to-death.html

http://www.caller.com/story/news/local/texas/state-bureau/2017/04/18/legislation-would-limit-release-911-recordings/100622610/

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-steel-idUSKBN17M237

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2017/04/20/paris-attack-1-police-officer-killed-2-seriously-injured-in-shooting-on-champs-lys-es-isis-claims-responsibility.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/20/us/aaron-hernandez-death/index.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/20/politics/us-north-korea-china/

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3370099/north-korea-threatens-us-preemptive-strike/

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/3370028/russia-putin-north-korea-war-troops-border/

 VERSES-

This is the Psalm I quoted from on the video ‘Joshua n Royal’ I wasn’t sure it was in Psalm 51- but it is-

Psalm 51:1 Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy lovingkindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions.

Psalm 51:2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

Psalm 51:3 For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me.

Psalm 51:4 Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be clear when thou judgest.

Psalm 51:5 Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Psalm 51:6 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.

Psalm 51:7 Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

Psalm 51:8 Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

Psalm 51:9 Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities.

Psalm 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.

Psalm 51:11 Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me.

Psalm 51:12 Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

Psalm 51:13 Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

Psalm 51:14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

Psalm 51:15 O Lord, open thou my lips; and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise.

Psalm 51:16 For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.

Psalm 51:17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Psalm 51:18 Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

Psalm 51:19 Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

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Note- Please do me a favor, those who read/like the posts- re-post them on other sites as well as the site you read them on- Thanks- John.#

[raggywaltz1954]

Continuing with my month-long celebration of the first full month of spring, I decided to spotlight one of the most influential jazz pianists of all time, the late and very great Bill Evans.  His version of “I’ll Remember April” comes from an old yet new album, recorded in 1968 but released on Record Store Day 2016.  It was a ‘lost session’, recorded in the legendary MPS Records studios by Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer (HGBS) in June of 1968 and then never released in any format, all but forgotten by all save the family of HGBS.  Thankfully, the good folks at Resonance Records tracked down the tapes of the album and released it on both CD and on limited edition vinyl.

The Music

Tune:  “I’ll Remember April”

Recorded 20 June, 1968 in MPS Studios, Villingen, Germany

Bill Evans:  Piano

Eddie Gomez:  Bass

Jack DeJohnette:  Drums

Fresh from their phenomenal performance at the 1968 Montreux Jazz Festival (they would win a Grammy the next year for the album recorded at the event), the group entered the MPS Studios five days later to record the music that makes up this album.  All the music recorded that day in the studio was and is consistently stimulating and delicious.  This is a beautiful two-record album, as the producers decided to include all the recorded material produced during the recording session, including an incomplete take of a song.  The first disc consists of the tracks originally slated for release back in 1968.

On the track above, DeJohnette sits out, providing an intimate setting for Evans and Gomez to explore.  And explore they do.  The tune starts in an upbeat 3/4, then shifts to 4/4 for the bridge, only to revert back to a waltz for the verse.  The solos seem to shift between the two time signatures, providing some engaging interplay between the two instruments.  According to the liner notes, Bill Evans was entering a phase in his piano playing where he began to play with a more percussive edge, which seems to be accurate based on this and other tracks.  I’m not sure how it compares to his earlier work however, as I am just a casual Bill Evans fan and don’t listen to his music regularly enough to detect wholesale differences in his piano technique.  His playing here swinging, tasty, and distinctively Bill.  This is another unique rendition of this standard, and the only studio version of this tune Evans ever recorded, the one other version being a live bootleg recording from 1966 taken from the Village Vanguard in New York City.  This whole album is a good listen and a rare document of Evans’ band at this time.  It’s always exciting to get previously unreleased music from Bill Evans; a beautifully-recorded studio album?  Miracles truly do happen.

The Cover

College Jazz Collector Rating:  A-

Disclaimer:  The grade above is based not only on the cover, but gatefold inside as well.  The album is a gatefold, with beautiful pictures inside the flaps and a separate insert of liner notes, which altogether earns a letter grade of ‘A-‘.  The shot of Bill Evans on the cover is nice, as most shots of Evans were during this period.  He always seemed to have a hip (or melancholy) vibe about him in just about all his photographs throughout the 1960’s, and this cover shot is a continuation of this.  It almost looks like he’s wearing sunglasses indoors.  Hipster alert.  The lettering arrangement and coloring is visually interesting as well.  Interestingly, many vintage jazz album covers had parts of the title and even the musician’s names in lowercase lettering.  Modern album covers seem to capitalize everything or most of the lettering.  I chalk it up to the tastes of the moment.  It seemed hip and edgy in the middle of the 20th century.  Now, the title is capitalized because that’s just what you do.

When you open the album, you’re greeted with rare pictures of the Bill Evans Trio from the actual record date on the left and a pretty neat shot of what I assume is the Black Forest of Germany on the right side.

The four-page double-sided liner note insert is a nice bonus, filled with information and recent interviews by Eddie and Jack!  The liner note insert is the same size as the album jacket, so it’s easy to read.

  The Back

Apparently almost all of these pictures are rare, including this one of the trio, taken during the Montreux Jazz Festival.  This album was one of the many Record Store Day 2016 special releases, and there were only 4000 copies of the album pressed on vinyl.  They included a handwritten number of what number your record is in the 4000.  748 is a respectable number, and a relatively early pressing.  It’s cool to think that out of only 4000, mine was the 748th album that rolled off the press.  “Well yeah, of course it’s the 748th copy”, you may say.  True, but hey.  It’s still a cool thought. I imagine the person who has album no. 0001 is riding high.  Other than the picture, the back is rather plain.  At least it has all the pertinent information like track listing, dates, etc.  Again, to compare this modern album jacket to older jackets, nowhere on the record does it specifically and noticeably proclaim to be in stereo.  In 2016, I suppose it’s safe to assume everyone is using stereo equipment now and not mono.

The Vinyl

The album was pressed on heavy 180g vinyl in fantastic stereo.  MPS made some fantastic-sounding records in the 1960’s and 70’s (check out Oscar Peterson’s Exclusively For My Friends material), and this is a great example of their recording sound.  According to book on Oscar Peterson entitled ‘The Will To Swing’ by Gene Lees, HGBS not only used state of the art microphones, but put the mics so close to the piano strings that they were nearly touching.  The result is an intimate, rich-sounding recording.  The labels lack the character of many of the vintage records; they look more like CD labels than record labels, but that’s just me.  Naturally, these aren’t deep groove, although it looks like they tried.  I’ve only included pictures of the first record, since the other one looks exactly the same.  Among the etchings in the runout is a handwritten ‘BG’, which I assume are the initials of Bernie Grundman, the man who mastered the sound for the vinyl release.

The Place of Acquisition

Record Store Day is an annual celebration of indie record stores across the world that takes place every third Saturday of April (yet another reason to celebrate the month of April).  On this day, record labels and bands release special vinyl to different record stores, and this album was one of those special releases.  I found out about the album a few weeks after the event was over, but I emailed my favorite local record store to see if they had it.  They did, and they even said they’d hold it for me.  Amen.  A few days later, I picked it up for the high price of $45, which is so far the most I’ve paid for a single album.  Cue the laughing record collectors who drop hundreds for a single album.  Looking online, I discovered that $45 was a steal.  This album is going for over $200 on Discogs and eBay, and there’s only two listings for the vinyl edition on eBay as of 16 April, 2017.  More reasons to visit and build a relationship with the local record store.

      Some Other Time, The Lost Session From The Black Forest // Bill Evans (Resonance HLP- 9019) Continuing with my month-long celebration of the first full month of spring, I decided to spotlight one of the most influential jazz pianists of all time, the late and very great Bill Evans.