#went into the local music store and bought THREE cds - first ones I’ve owned in over a decade - today

[ephemeral-winter]

listening to my new CD of Bernstein conducting Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition and reading a long essay about Hamlet in the LRB. being a member of the intelligentsia is so fun when you do it right

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #396

“every time i leave, you say you won’t be there, & you’re always there”

So, is it gif with a hard G or soft G? I used to say "jif," but now I pronounce it as "gif." If you use libraries, what is the largest overdue fine you’ve ever had? *shrug* Do you ever borrow things other than books from the library? I remember back in the day, they used to offer educational computer games, and I bought a dinosaur one as a kid that I was madly obsessed with. Are there still any movie rental places left where you live? Just Redbox things outside of some stores. Do you ever buy secondhand books (or DVDs, video games, CDs)? Yeah; Ebay is my friend. Or do you prefer them to be brand new? I mean yeah, but it's not a massive deal to me so long the thing is operational or not falling apart. Do you ever write fanfic? Of what? Nah. Do you ever READ fanfic? Of what? Also nah. Do you have a favorite classical composer? No. Have you ever had multicolored/rainbow hair? No, but I would LOVE to. What kind of hats, if any, do you like to wear? I don't wear hats. What is your #1 deal-breaker with friendships? If you're manipulative, byyyyyeeeee~ Who is your favorite character on Bob’s Burgers and why? (If you watch it) I've seen some episodes, but I don't actually watch it. Have you ever had a retro celebrity crush? Like a crush on an “old” celebrity who was most famous a long time ago or is long dead? Audrey Hepburn, for one, is drop-dead GORGEOUS. When you buy/receive new clothes, do you instantly wear them or wash first? It depends on what I bought and where it's from. What’s the weirdest item you’ve seen for sale on Ebay? Idk. Are parents to blame for what their kids do on the Internet? No; kids make their own choices. I do, however, believe the parents should monitor what they do until they reach a certain degree of maturity, as well as the child's history with what they've done on the Internet. Do you use acronyms to remember things? Sometimes. Do you take pills like Tylenol for the littlest aches and pains? No. Only if I'm really in pain will I take Ibuprofen/Advil. Don’t you think Crocs are ugly? Big time. I don't know why they're in vogue now when they used to be so widely hated. When was the last time you went roller skating? Oh, it's been years. Who was your favorite Ninja Turtle? I was never into the franchise. Horror flicks make you: laugh, scream, or squirm? I prefer the ones that make you uneasy. I'm not a big fan of the nasty ones, and I want to feel on edge when I'm watching a horror film, but it's EXTREMELY rare I become legitimately scared. If you could become a doctor, what would you specialize in? Uhhhh. Maybe genetic disorders. What’s the cutest thing a little kid has ever said to/in front of you? I'm sure it was something my niece or nephew said, but I'm unsure of what. They've said many adorable things. Did any characters from TV shows scare you as a kid? Which one(s)? FUCKING KING RAMSES FROM COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG. FUCK he gave me nightmares. What’s the saddest thing you’ve heard on the news recently? I was very saddened to hear about the giraffe that died giving birth. Do you believe that acupuncture works? I'm not educated enough on this subject. Have you ever been hypnotized? No, and I don't believe it's possible to be. What’s the first food you can smell when you enter the mall? The soft pretzels, omg. That little stand is my favorite part of our local mall. They make DELICIOUS pretzels. What is the worst hurt you’ve ever experienced? Jason leaving. Are huge muscles gross or sexy? Like serious body builders, it's gross to me. I prefer a natural musculature. Have you ever fished and caught something weird? I know I have, but what isn't coming to mind. Do you use an umbrella when it rains? Unless it is absolutely pouring, no. Do you like getting caught in the rain? No. What is the hardest part of cleaning for you? It requires physical exertion and I am INCREDIBLY weak with non-existent stamina. Do you have any fake flowers in your room? No. Do you own any succulents? No. What is your favorite thing about spring? The only thing I like about spring are all the flowers. What is something you find hard to draw? HANDS. UGH. Was it sunny for your senior prom pictures? Sigh. It was a beautiful sunset. I REALLY wish I didn't delete all those pictures from existence. Have you ever seen a double rainbow? I've seen like, a triple rainbow. What’s one thing you want to learn how to make? Your ordinary meals. I really want to be able to cook my own food from scratch. Do you have stomach issues? Maybe TMI, but it's been questioned but not fully examined that I may have IBS. My stomach is very sensitive. When was the last time you apologized and didn’t mean it? I'm not sure. Do you prefer to be the “talker” or the “listener” in a conversation? The listener. What’s a movie that you think everyone should see? Johnny Got His Gun. If you could have any hair color, what color would you want? Either pastel pink or light creamsicle orange. When was the last time you saw your “first love”? February of 2017. Who’s the smartest person you know personally? My best guy friend Girt. What makes them so smart? He's just very intelligent. Book-smart. Are there any bands/artists that get you all emotional? Ozzy. He and his music are so important to me. What’s your favourite aunt or uncle’s first name? Robert. Have you ever done a first aid course? No. What time do you generally wake up in the morning? It varies from like, 6:00-8:30ish. If you could have one superpower, what would it be? Definitely shapeshifting. I'd love to be a druid, man. Do you ever make surveys? If so, are they long or short? No, but I combine them because I don't like surveys that are too short by my standards. When is the next time you’ll change your hairstyle? Will you color it? Honestly, probably never. I love my current hairstyle, but I most certainly plan on dyeing it maaaany more times. As a child, what was your favorite game to play? I was hooked on the first three Spyro games. I would play 'em over and over. Do any of your siblings have significant others? Do you like them? My older sister is married, and I am NOT a fan of her husband. He's WAY too conservative and bigoted and racist and misogynistic, etc. etc. He's wonderful as a dad, like holy shit he loves his kids, but his beliefs are abhorrent. Dad's daughter is also married, and her husband is awesome. Mom's eldest daughter is also married, and her husband seems cool. My brother has a fiancee that I've never met. Do you believe in the concept of global warming? No fucking shit I do. It's impossible to logically deny, especially as the years go on. When was the last time you took a picture of something? Was it yourself? I took some pictures of this beautiful hydrangea bush outside the TMS office a few days ago. When drinking soda, do you prefer bottles or cans or poured in a glass? Cans, because it stays colder. Do you wear deodorant? Um, yes? If you had a pet pig, what would you name it? Probably something very unoriginal, like Wilbur. Do you like Led Zeppelin? I LOVE "Kashmir." "Stairway to Heaven" was madly important to me, but yeah... I can't listen to it anymore. Like seriously, I haven't in years. Do you like hugs? I do. Have you read the Constitution of the United States of America? Only the Bill of Rights for school. Do you have your own computer or use a family one? I have my own laptop. Do you take out the trash? Sometimes. Is there a calendar in the room you’re in? Outdated meerkat ones. What is your best friend’s name? Sara Jane. :') Have you ever seen a real-life cop chase? Maybe? What is your favorite shape? Circles. Are pigs adorable or dirty? They're precious! And pigs are actually a lot cleaner than people think, if they're not muddy. Anything moldy in your house? Not to my knowledge. Our old house had a serious mold problem, though, which is the primary reason we had to move. Especially with Mom having cancer at the time, she needed to be in the most sterile environment possible. Have you ever been in an earthquake? No. Do you enjoy history? No. Are you watching TV right now? No, but rather GameGrumps on YT. Could you ever be a mortician? True shit, it actually doesn't seem THAT bad. Can you solve a Rubik’s cube? Never seriously tried. How many pets do you have? Just two right now. Are you more close with your mom or dad? My mom. Who is the person that has impacted your life the most? Jason. Or Mom. Have you ever had a pet fish? Yeah. Poor things, they had terrible husbandry. I've learned a hell of a lot from a YouTuber/streamer that is like obsessed with fish about just how misinformed people are on how to take care of various fish. Your goldfish in that little bowl died for a reason, you know. Do you believe in ghosts? Yes. Do you prefer tea or coffee? Both suck. Have you ever vaped? No. How did your parents meet? They were co-workers. What was your first word? "Dada." Have you ever had a kinky dream about a celebrity? ... I mighta lmao. When was the last time you had Nutella? A long time ago. It reeeeaaaally needs to stay out of my house, because I will eat it straight out of the jar. Name someone with a sexy sounding voice. So I don't know where this was, but Mark was once credited in something as "if chocolate had a voice" and I was like YOU FUCKIN BET YOUR SWEET ASS.

[dreamjukebox]

One of my favorite experiences as a record store owner was when a new regular, Jordon, told me he wanted to get into David Bowie and asked me which album I suggested he start with. FYI: Jordon is 23 yrs old, so it’s not that surprising that he wasn’t well versed in Bowie’s music. I mean, I didn’t get deeply entrenched in it until the last decade or so, so as much as I want to judge younger people who don’t know the classics, I try not to.

I had a few Bowie reissues in stock at the time; Hunky Dory, The Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders From Mars, and Station to Station. I recommended my first Bowie album, the one who made me first fall in love with his music: Ziggy Stardust. I bought it on CD with the spending cash my mom had given me when I flew to Chicago to visit extended family one summer in middle school. I have a lot of really positive memories from freshman and sophomore year listening to it, reading the liner notes, memorizing the lyrics...

Jordon wasn’t sure. So I described each of the three albums as succinctly as I could. Hunky Dory was a little more folky, like his earlier albums, but it’s where his artistic voice really coalesced into what we would know as David Bowie from that point forward. Ziggy Stardust is simply a perfect rock n roll album. It has laid back tracks to be sure, but it’s a full departure from Bowie’s earlier folk roots. It’s also very accessible. Station to Station was a bit harder to describe. My immediate feelings about it are that it’s a little higher concept, but that doesn’t really ring true. The songs on their own are fabulous and easy to listen to, but I guess the overall feeling of the album really speaks to where he was while making it. He was coming close to the end of a period where he was doing a massive amount of drugs and deeply entrenched in occult study. In a lot of ways it’s a transitional album from the end of glam rock into the Berlin Trilogy and into the more pop/dance music he would make in the 80′s. (I often forget that Young Americans falls between Diamond Dogs & Station To Station because I see such a straight line from Diamond Dogs to Station to Station to the Berlin Trilogy. My brain always wants to slide Young Americans a few notches later in his discography.)

Jordon ended up going with Hunky Dory. He came back about two weeks later and reported LOVING the album. I did a tiny herkie jump in excitement! He asked me what he should get next. I only had the two reissues in stock now. I suggested Ziggy Stardust again naturally. I didn’t think he was ready for Station to Station after only listening to Hunky Dory. No way.

The rebellious little shit went with Station to Station. About two weeks later he was back (he came in nearly every two weeks for a while, bless him), and admitted I was probably right and although he liked it, it was probably a bit dark for him at that point. Jordon finally bought Ziggy Stardust that week.

This is when Jordon became like a brother to me. He first came into the store on the recommendation of my actual younger brother Matthew, whom he had worked with. Jordon and I became fast friends and since I saw him much more frequently than my actual brother, and TBH, a little bit to guilt Matthew for never hanging out with me, I started calling him my “new brother”.

When I bought a selection of vintage Bowie albums, which didn’t happen a lot (people are just holding on to them more since he passed away), I thought I should suggest Jordon pick up something vintage for his collection. Of the albums I had got in, I was going to suggest Space Oddity or Man Who Sold The World, but both sold super fast. What was left was an 80′s reissue of his self-titled first album (not that great imo), David Live and Images, a compilation. I didn’t think any of them were up Jordon’s alley.

The same seller came in and sold me some more from his collection over the next several months and I finally got something to suggest to Jordon. I was going to recommend Aladdin Sane just because the cover is iconic and I thought he’d like to have it in his collection, especially an original 70′s copy. But again, it sold super fast. Of what was left, Diamond Dogs was the natural next choice. Plus, in my opinion, it’s a superior album to Aladdin Sane. I DM’d Jordon to let him know and he had me hold Diamond Dogs for him until the next morning. When he came in, I told him if he liked Ziggy Stardust, he would like Diamond Dogs. It’s a great glam rock album like Ziggy, but it’s a little darker, a little sleazier. He bought it immediately and later text me that it was now in the running for his favorite Bowie album. That may have made me the happiest. Diamond Dogs is currently my favorite Bowie album (along with Station to Station). And I was really excited to have helped him get some vintage Bowie as such a new collector (I sold him his very first record & turntable on his first visit nearly a year prior). I was lucky to have picked up almost all my David Bowie records at a local used bookstore around 2009/2010 for less than $10 each. Vinyl was coming back but it was still a buyer’s market back then. Really good records could still be found all over the place for good prices. And of course since 2016, it’s been nearly impossible to find any of his stuff second hand in the wild, especially his 70′s albums, in my experience at least. You could maybe find a shabby copy of Let’s Dance if you were lucky.

Coincidentally, Let’s Dance is the last album I ever sold Jordon. My store closed last month, and a few days prior, an older man dropped off a box of vintage records - a donation - including a whole bunch of Davie Bowie LPs. When I asked if he was sure for the hundredth time (there was also a lot of Rolling Stones and Prince in there too, people just don’t give that stuff away), he told me “They were my ex-wife’s. I don’t give a shit what’s in there. They’re yours.” There were probably at least 30 records in that box, and only maybe 3 of them were stinkers (easy listening/classical stuff that no one wants). Every album we pulled out was accompanied by a gasp. They were a little dirty, but cleaned up really well. All of them were in VG to VG+ condition. With the shop closure eminent, I decided to hold on to a few of the ones missing from my collection. I deserved to walk away with something I figured. I ended up keeping Low, Scary Monsters, and Lodger, along with Around The World In a Day by Prince. I was happy to keep Let’s Dance if it didn’t sell by the last day.

Jordon, the rebellious little shit that he is, came in the afternoon of our last day and bought Let’s Dance. I was happy to see it go into his collection rather than mine.

Around Christmas, Jordon text me a picture of his Secret Santa gift at work:

Music is one of the best things we do as humans, and it is certainly something that is incredibly important to me and always has been. When you have such a deep attachment to music, a passion for sharing it comes naturally I believe. I’m passionate about a whole lot of things, and I can get a little over eager when I share those things with other people. I’ve become quite accustomed to people ignoring my suggestions. So when someone actually listens to something I’ve told them about, almost nothing makes me happier.

Meeting this kid and introducing him to David Bowie’s music and his coming to love it so much that it’s known around his office was definitely one of my favorite experiences from the last 15 months.

[vinylexams]

INTERVIEW with Brian Cook of SUMAC, Russian Circles, Botch, These Arms are Snakes, and Roy 

Brian Cook of the MANY gnarly bands listed above took time to answer a bunch of questions that had been burning a hole in my mind for years earlier today. Did you know that aside from playing bass in some of the heaviest bands currently in existence, Brian is also an avid record collector and he also runs a very similar page where he posts all of his records and writes up a bit of history and personal context with each one? A man after my own heart! I’ve dropped a link to his Tumblr below and you’d be a fool not to go check it out and follow his work there.

https://bubblesandgutz.tumblr.com⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

I really appreciated having a chance to talk to a very talented musician who also places a LOT of importance on physical medium and the recording process. All too often I get submissions from bands who either don’t know the in’s and out’s of the vinyl format or they took a lot of shortcuts and deprive their art a chance to really shine in the ways that vinyl allows. I picked Brian’s brain about his approach to creation of physical musical media as well as his history as a collector (and even tried to convince him to get These Arms are Snakes play my big gay wedding reception!). Thanks for taking the time to tell your story to us, Brian!

You've been a member of several incredible bands over the past few decades (Botch, Sumac, Russian Circles, These Arms Are Snakes), all of which have released pretty much everything they've recorded on vinyl. How important is the vinyl medium for you as a musician and creator?

Thanks for the kind words. It's really important to me for my music to have some sort of physical format. I realize that mode of thinking might seem sort of old school or outdated, but i've always been enamored by music as a kind of historical artifact. When I was younger, that meant it was important for me to have an actual Dead Kennedys cassette as opposed to a dubbed version from my friend. It was like the difference between owning a painting versus owning a xerox of a painting. When I became a musician, it was a sign of validation. By having a record with my name on it, I had created something that would potentially outlive me. And now in the digital age we've convinced ourselves that everything lives forever on the internet, but it's not true. Myspace just lost all their music. I've written for a lot of online music outlets that have closed shop or simply deleted old posts. Meanwhile, I have a trunk full of old zines that outlived the supposed permanence of blogs. So while the digital age is great for convenience and scope, creating a physical recording is really the more reliable way to make sure something exists for more than five to ten years, or however long it takes for the newest technological fad to become obsolete. Vinyl seems to be the longest lasting format, so it's my preferred medium. But if my music exists on tape or CD, that's fine too. 

Do you approach your recording and production processes with specific formats like vinyl in mind? If so, what do you do differently? Absolutely. The main concern is that we're dealing with the time constraints of vinyl. For bands like Russian Circles and SUMAC who have really long songs, it means we have to be careful how we sequence our records because we can easily exceed the 22-minutes-per-side rule. We've also been told by pressing plants that it's better to have long drones in the middle of an album side than at the beginning or end because there tends to be more surface noise at the beginning of a side and more warble at the end, and drones don't do much to mask these imperfections. But while one can complain about the limitations of vinyl, there are also issues with digital formats that can alter the way an album is put together. For example, the digital version of Empros has a longer drone at the end of "Batu" than the LP version, partially because of vinyl's limitations, but also because digital outlets like iTunes don't recognize records with long songs as full albums unless at least one track is longer than ten minutes. So we stretched it out on the digital version so that we'd be compensated appropriately for our work, but condensed it on vinyl so that we didn't compromise the sound quality.

Of all of the albums you've contributed to, which one stands out to you as the one you feel most connected to?

Probably Geneva by Russian Circles, if I had to pick one. We wrote that record over the span of several months at a house in rural Wisconsin. It was one of those ideal scenarios I'd always dreamed of---hunkering down in some isolated retreat and just immersing ourselves in the writing process. I've never walked away from an album feeling as accomplished as I did with that one. It just felt like we'd achieved something that had previously been out of my level of expertise. I think we've made better records since then, but I don't think I've ever felt as successful in making the sounds in my head translate to the recording. With regards to my other bands, I feel that way about Botch's We Are The Romans, These Arms Are Snakes' Easter, Roy's Killed John Train, and SUMAC's What One Becomes. But Geneva will always hold a special place.

How did you get into vinyl collecting and how does it play a part in your life?

I started buying vinyl around '92 because it was cheap. My first LP was Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet's Savvy Show Stoppers. I bought it for $2. Then I discovered 7"s, which was the dominant format for hardcore and punk bands at the time. Throughout high school, I mainly bought 7"s because i could buy 3 or 4 a week on my allowance. And let's be honest... most hardcore bands in the '90s had better 7"s than full albums. But vinyl was so dead at the time that you could also go to thrift stores and scoop up the entire Creedence Clearwater Revival discography for the cost of one CD. Even new vinyl was cheaper than their CD counterpart back then. So it's a bit of a drag now considering that vinyl is currently the most expensive format, but I still get a thrill from going to record stores, digging through crates, and coming home with a new LP. I can't say I buy that many 7"s anymore though.

What do you think about the relatively recent resurgence of large-scale vinyl production and collection?

It certainly has its advantages and disadvantages. I buy a lot of reissues just so I can have a clean, good-sounding copy, so I appreciate the resurgence in that regard. At the same time, the vinyl boom has made used record shopping a bit more of a drag. I don't know how many copies of Neil Young's Harvest I saw in used bins throughout the '90s and '00s, and then when I finally decided to buy a copy five years ago, it seemed like they'd all been snagged and the reissue was going for $50. When the Zeppelin discography got reissued a few years back, I mentioned wanting a new copy of Physical Graffiti to my husband. He went to our local indie record store in Brooklyn and asked the owner if they carried it and he totally balked at the question. "Why would we carry a reissue when you can buy a used copy of that in any record store for $5?" he said. My husband was like "every used Zeppelin record you carry is beat to shit and goes for at least $20... what the fuck are you even talking about?"

If you had to pare down your entire collection to no more than three albums, which would you keep?

What's the broader context? Like, are those the only three records I can listen to for the rest of my life? Or is it just a matter of only being allowed to own three records? If it's the former, I'd probably choose Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, Miles Davis' In a Silent Way, and a Can album... either Ege Bamyasi or Soon Over Babaluma. Ask me tomorrow and I'd probably list off a different three. If it's the latter... like, if i'm merely holding onto records because the actual artifact means a lot to me but I can still listen to music in some other capacity, then I'd probably go with the His Hero Is Gone / Union of Uranus split LP, Undertow's At Both Ends, and Sticks & Stones Theme Songs For Nothing, just because those seem like a pain in the ass to replace and they're important records to me. I have records that are worth way more money, but I'm not someone who buys records because they're valuable. 

Do you have a "white whale" record you still haven't found?

Not really. For ages I resisted the urge to buy used records online, but I've since relented. The record that finally broke my ordering embargo was Hack's The Rotten World Around Us. They were a band from Adelaide, South Australia in the late '80/ early '90s who sounded like a grungier version of the first couple Swans records. Super heavy and scary. I got turned onto them through a 7" on Alternative Tentacles, but the LP was never available stateside. The first few times I toured Australia i went to every record store I could find in hopes of finding a copy. No one had ever heard of Hack. The singer was in another band called Grong Grong, and members of that band had gone on to be in King Snake Roost, Lubricated Goat, and Tumor Circus (with Jello Biafra on vocals), but no one had heard of them either. In my mind there was this rich underground of Australian noise rock from that time period that was still vital and valid, but the reality is that it was largely ignored and forgotten. I eventually found a copy online and bought it for $20. A year later i found a used copy in Boise. Oh well. I'd love to find Acme's To Reduce The Choir..., or an original copy of Popol Vuh's second album, or the Neu! 7", or the Greenlandic prog band Sume's Sumut album.

Hypothetically how much money would I need to raise to get These Arms Are Snakes to reunite to play my wedding reception? My family will hate it but my partner and I will be very happy, etc.

We still talk about doing some proper "farewell shows" since we bailed on doing them back in 2009/2010. Granted, now they'd be reunion shows, but in our hearts they'd be our proper goodbye. We're putting together a vinyl release of various odds and ends for next year, so maybe that'll give us an excuse to finally book something.

[pendragonfics]

Down Under

Paring: Mycroft Holmes/Reader

Tags: female reader, long-distance relationships, romance, cutesy, tooth-rotting fluff, Australian politics, Australian slang, swearing,  

Summary: Reader, a London-native, is working away from home for the first time, in a whole new country. It's all very new, especially since today, there's a surprise in her room, according to her roommate.

Word Count: 2,614

Current Date: 2018-09-26

Sydney is nothing like London. Well, there’s still cabs, but they’re white, not black. There’re crosswalks linking pedestrians from one sidewalk to the other. But here the drivers more often than not don’t slow for those on them. There’re people here, but there isn’t Myc. You thought the move from home to the land Down Under would be easy - it was another continent. Australians spoke English. Most of the nuances were understood between the cultural differences. 

But for once, you were on your own.

No Mum and her odd assortment of cats crammed into her country house on the outskirts of the city limits. No Sherlock and his antics every other afternoon. It was only you and your thoughts, and FaceTime every afternoon at five o’clock, and lots of paperwork. 

The move to Sydney was to advance your career. A bold move, for a girl who came from nothing. A girl who had nothing before graduating with scholarships and better marks than ever seen before. That’s where you met him; the last year of studies at university, at a small party. You were in a dress salvaged from a friend of a friend, a nice afternoon tea dress from three seasons ago, he in a two-piece suit, holding the jacket over his arm, a plastic cup of warm beer in his hand. 

Your mutual friend introduced you to one another. He was bored of everything already, and you, well, tried your best to not make a fool of yourself around the other people who smelt of old money and perfume from Côte d'Azur. You cracked a joke, and his façade broke, or, was it the beer that broke it? It didn’t matter. By graduation, you were inseparable, and while he climbed the ladder of government, you worked on your connections in the ecopolitical sphere.

Working in the British embassy was nice. But it wasn’t exactly what you wanted. It was…like a resume builder. Except, instead of working at Burger King for three years to get customer service as a tag on it, it was a whole new country. But it was fine. Good. Great, even. You wore a nice uniform, worked through people’s problems, and found solutions for your own. When you ran out of milk in your shared flat, you spent half an hour wandering on foot around Ultimo looking for a Tesco, but it wasn’t until you heard someone’s unmissable Aussie accent when it clicked that you needed a Coles. Or a 7-11 corner store. It felt strange to hear Australian voices on the radio stations in the break room, and the bus ride from the flat to work. The money was weird, too. Everything was cheaper than British pounds, but it would be hard to scrape enough of it by to buy necessities.

Five o’clock in the evening never came fast enough, especially today. You checked out of work, and on the walk to the train station – sometimes catching the train from the Quay was nicer than the buses that were engraved with everyone’s five-minute romance initials – you’d boot up your phone and hit call on Myc’s profile, and thread your earbuds into your ears in muted excitement. Just like now. 

But when he’d usually pick up after three dials, it rang out. You frown, but you think nothing of it. 

The robot recording of a woman reading the train times overhead haled the next train as if from thin air, and boarding, you sat amidst the rest of the sweaty bodies. Springtime here was nothing like home, and your stay in Sydney was for six months on probation, and up to two years if you worked well. But that meant two summertime’s, and if spring was anything to go by, you dreaded the oncoming heat. The one summer you spent with Mycroft in Barcelona – he was at a conference with the local Catalonian and Spanish officials – oh, that made you feel so warm, your skin felt heated as if from the bones out, your hair and clothes too heavy and hot. 

When the doors opened at Central station, the people around you left the carriage like blood from an open wound. You followed suit, pocketing your phone. It was a little walk from the station, but, you took this time to clear your head. A whole day of talking to people, sorting problems out often left you with a head that felt like a fruit blender. 

When you pass by the McDonalds, you take five minutes to order a coffee.  When you walk by the university, you crane your neck up to see the ugly tower that looms over the city skyline. When your phone finishes its shuffled playlist, you realise you’d been using your roaming data the whole time and turn the phone to airplane mode in panic. Even though your apartment had a shoddy version of the National Broadband Network (“Not to be confused with the TV channel”, your roommate Blue would laugh, or, when she was in a bad mood, it was known as “the fuckin’ NBN”), mobile data was like a prized possession. You practically lived off public Wi-Fi. 

Someone on the street corner of Broadway and Mountain is hustling flyers at unsuspecting pedestrians, shouting about the end of the world. You chuckle to yourself, evading the paper held to you that reads The End Is Near!; at least there were still fundamentalists over the globe. By the time you make it into your street, your feet are aching more than ever, and your shoulder weighed down by your handbag and all its contents. 

Blue is in the main room when you unlock the front door; the kettle is boiling along to the sound of her meditation CD that’s playing from the machine beside the tiny TV. She’s in her yoga pants and a giant t-shirt that says RIDE FOR PRIDE with a motorcycle underneath surrounded by rainbow fire. Blue looks up from her Downward Dog when you place your keys in the bowl, a grin on her freckled face. 

“You look too happy to be a pretzel.” You comment, kicking off your heels into the shoe rack by the door. You blink, noticing a pair of shoes that you hadn’t seen in the rack before; brown brogue-laced leather. “Blue…”

“There’s a surprise in your room, _________.” She winked, and, along with the sultry sounds of the meditation track, went up, and twisted into Monkey pose. 

You make it to the stairs, and with every step, you’re not sure what you’re to expect. Has Blue’s nephew come over again for homework help with his mathematics? He never came over on weekdays, and today was a Thursday! And that didn’t explain the brogues at all! The door to your room is ajar, and pushing it all the way, your mouth goes dry. Eyes blink, unsure if this is just another of your vivid fantasies. Mind racing. 

“_________! Love –,” Mycroft comes to you, steadying you on your feet. It’s then you know it’s real, because his hands are cool, and they stick to your warm skin. You’re speechless, but perhaps that is for the better, because at once, you drop your handbag to the floor, and push Mycroft further into your room, hands up, cradling his face. 

“Oh my God, you’re real,” you whisper, words finally found. “I’ve missed you so, so, so much.” You sniffle, laying your head against his chest. 

“_________, don’t cry,” he says, holding you close. His lips brush over your forehead, slow kisses, soft, like the wings of a butterfly on your skin. He’s wearing a suit, like always – it’s a blue which brings out his eyes, and the jacket is stitched with a tiny pattern of diamonds. And now its covered with splattering of your tears. “I didn’t come all the way over here to make my girlfriend cry.” 

You chuckle at that. “But you did, Mr. Holmes.” You take a breath, and a seat on the side of your bed. “How did you get here – and I mean in my room.” Mycroft licks his lips, holding back a smile. He unbuttons his jacket, and sits beside you, leaving some space between you both. 

“Your roommate Harleen found me loitering around near your verandah, and let me in. I assume it’s because she recognised me from your photos.” He frowned. “Does she always let in men she doesn’t know?” 

You shake your head. “Harley – I mean, Blue – she’s more interested in Terry.” You blink, and remember Mycroft doesn’t know her as well as you do, “Uh, they’re a couple.” You feel a blush cover your face and place it in your hands. When you look up, you turn to your boyfriend, and address him. “So, why are you here, Myc?”

He blinks, perhaps disarmed by the wording of your question. But Mycroft is not the sort of man to be disarmed, and if so, not for long. “I heard your desperation in our last video chat,” he says, looking at his hands. They sit in his lap, empty.

“So, you took time out from your position in England, caught a plane –,” you stop yourself, and sigh. “I really should be grateful you’re here…it’s just that there’s never such a thing as a free lunch. Especially with you, Myc.”

“I –,” he stops himself, perhaps hearing the words he was to say in his head.

“Is it Sherlock? Or your position, do you need any help?” your voice rises with every question, “Your mother –,”

“It was me,” he replies, voice so very small. You’re suddenly aware that the both of you are not alone in the house, because it’s then when Blue’s meditation music plays a loud gong noise. “_________, I missed you.” He wipes a hand over his face, and you notice the slight hint of stubble threatening to appear. His eyes have bags that look heavier than your handbag. And they look sad. “I can’t believe that now, of all times, I realise how you feel all the times when I’m away for work, wherever it be. I took time from work, bought a ticket here – _________, you have no idea how much I missed you.”

“I think I can guess,” you whisper. 

You lean over the bed to the fan that’s plugged into the wall. As soon as it is whirring to life, your skin begins to prickle with the welcomed sensation of goosebumps. Mycroft sheds his jacket, and moving toward him, you take hold of his tie. Under your fingers, it loosens. 

It’s just like all the times in London when Myc would come to your place above the green grocer in Russel Square. You’d kick off your shoes, and he his, you’d ruffle his hair – to his dismay, but, you knew he liked it when you did it – and before you shut the curtains in your room, you’d loosen his tie. It was a ritual. A spell. And always, like always, the Mycroft who walked from the street would transform into the Mycroft who walked into your heart.  

But this time, it’s too warm to do what you’d usually do after the tie comes off, and like two lovesick children, you lay beside him in the bed, wearing nothing but your underclothes. Mycroft looks so at home in your quaint bedroom, and it makes your heart swell. 

It isn’t until your phone chimes – a message from your co-worker – that the fantasy of the situation breaks, and you’re back to everyday life. And you’re once again a bidding political advisor, and a lucrative socialite. 

“When do you go back?” you whisper. Your breath is warm, and opening his eyes, Mycroft sighs. 

“I have to fly back this Sunday.” He replies. “It’s a twenty-hour flight. I managed to pull some strings with the airplane, so I can try to stay longer than I would if I went commercially…”

You feel that melancholy return to you. It’d be only four – no, three days that you see him. 

And then how long? 

You’re not a needy person; Blue knew that. When she’d be watching Netflix as she wrote her column, you’d quietly drink your tea, when she’d have Terry and her friends from Darlinghurst over, you’d chat politely within their circle, complain about the ongoing strawberry scandal, try to understand the current situation of national politics (“I’m the Prime Minister, all I had to do to get the job was stab two other people in the back to get here!” one would say, and watching silently, you’d hear another two friends shout, just like Monty Python, “I am your Prime Minster!” – “Well I didn’t vote for him!”)

“I suppose that’s how it’s going to be, now,” you reply. “We’re like two kangaroos passing in the night on the highway.” 

Mycroft frowns. “Is that a local expression…?” 

You shake your head. “I don’t know. I just made it up. But if anything, what I know of Australian culture is that in making things up and going with them, it’s commonplace.” You laugh at that. “As much as I want to be happy you’re here, Myc, I can’t help but wonder if a shoe’s about to drop.” 

He gathers you closer. If it weren’t for your fan, it would be too hot to be this near to one another. Mycroft plants a kiss on your forehead, and you kiss him back, but he moves at the last minute, and it lands upon his nose.

“I’m not here to break up with you, if that’s what you’re thinking, _________.” He murmurs. 

It’s then when you’re startled away from Mycroft’s embrace, because Blue’s shouting up the stairs, “I’m making chili con carne for tea, _________!” You chuckle to yourself, as she goes on, “Is your hot businessman friend staying for dinner?”

You feel your cheeks heat up at that. But Mycroft’s the one who remedies it and grasping the railing that looks over the hallway – it felt so strange to have a loft bedroom – he calls out below, his British accent so different to Blue’s native Aussie twang, “Yes, the hot businessman is staying for dinner,” he says, a cheeky look on his face. He’s never been this relaxed in so long, and you let out a laugh at his wording. “But you can call me _________’s boyfriend.”

When he returns to the bed, you’re sitting up, pulling on your around-the-house shorts and Myc’s old sleepshirt he let you keep, shaking your head to yourself.

“What is it, love?” he asks, pulling his trousers back on. 

You chuckle. “I’m always your girlfriend. You know, everywhere we go in London, to whomever we’re introduced to. Sherlock knows my name, but simply calls me ‘The Girlfriend’. But here…” you smile. “Oh-ho, the tables have turned, Myc! My boyfriend!”

He kisses your temple, and gathers your hand in his, and walks with you downstairs to where the smell of chili is wafting from. “Yes,” he admits, “I guess I am.” 

Sydney is somewhat like London. There’re tourists everywhere, and the people who walk the streets who are locals don’t think twice about the knowledge they know. There are people here, like Blue and her friends and when you’re not working at the British Consulate, Blue and her friends take you to the most fantastic shows and places you wouldn’t find on your own. The beach is around the corner, and the ice-creams on Manley Island drip down your hands before they’re even scooped in their cones. Mycroft leaves every time he comes, but comes every four weeks or so, bringing his laptop, and plenty of free time to be with you. 

Perhaps Sydney wasn’t so bad after all. 

[vroenis]

2020 Music In Review

When this was a draft, it opened with a bit about me not writing, but then I started playing board games again and wrote two bits on board games. In the trashfire that 2020 was (add “trashfire” to dictionary, no I did not mean “trash fire”), and 2021 continues to be, somehow I ended up getting back into board games. Actually there are good and logical reasons I returned to them and if you’re interested in that, I go into some of it in those journals, but more interesting is just playing the games so you should totally HMU if you’re local, sorry I don’t do virtual/digital, I like handling physical pieces and sharing food.

The most natural way for me to wrap a year for me is in music and since Melbourne locked down in March, I spent a lot of time working from home and listening on my own gear which I can’t express enough the joy at being able to do - firstly at having good reference transducers and secondly not having to listen to trash radio.

Writing about art is always a bit weird but it’s good fun so we do it anyway so let’s write some words about art. There are three main ways I engage with music in no particular order - more or less however I happen to notice them;

Music and musicianship - tonal and rhythmic composition

Technical production - recording, editing/manipulionation, processing/production, mixing and balance, and mastering

Song-writing/lyrics - should there be any - excludes vocal performance as this is covered under the first one.

To get weirder about it, I tend to have both emotional and also pragmatic responses to those three things separately so that means there’s a wackadoo matrix of 6 criteria I seem to be assessing every piece of music I encounter against and yep, that’s a thing I do, all the time, every time. The better a piece of music is, tho, the more the line between the emotional and pragmatic blurs as the overall quality of the work is established. I might begin with an initial pragmatic appreciation of an excellent mix and balance, and technical execution of a recording and production, then come to get a feel for how emotional a work is - and vice-versa. Sometimes on rare occasions, it all happens at the same time - an album is just a smashing work of excellence in every way and I just love every aspect of it more over time.

It’s worth mentioning I don’t really have any great axe to grind with pop music - there has always been and continues to be great pop, and good pop isn’t by any means easy music to create. For me at least, and likely many people, what destroys pop as a listening experience is repetition which usually isn’t under the listener’s control, but an unfortunate side-effect of the underlying culture that sustains pop as an industry. I still appreciate and admire so much about pop-music and always keep a little in my collection from each decade. No matter what, always remind yourself that the kids are OK and that there’s always great pop-music around - stay in touch with it. Some of it is truly awesome, and I use the superlative with sincerity.

Albums Of The Year

A few things happened on the way to me actually getting to write this journal, including some surgery (I’m fine), but also I ended up nominating no less than 4 Albums Of The Year. I think they deserve their own lengthier write-ups, in a weirdly me thing to do, I feel like I want to talk less about them and you should just go and listen to them but they have been getting a lot of air-time on my channels - in any case, here’s a lazylink to the instagram post I did for them. They’re all great and they feature in the lists coming in this entry so give them a listen, they’re outstanding.

Personal Charts

When I set out to write a musical summary of the year, I went to my last.fm page to see what I’d listened to by number of plays polled. As mentioned, given the Covid lockdown and working from home so much, I’ve actually gotten to register a lot more of my listening on the site whereas in general so much of my listening happens offline, so to speak, be it in the car or on my mp3 player. This year has also seen a serious shift in my buying habits shift entirely to Bandcamp for a few reasons; Google shut down their Play store in favour of streaming because naturally it favours them and not artists - it also just makes sense for them from infrastructure and administrative perspectives, but also I just did more and more research and naturally found more and more artists and Bandcamp just made sense. I want to write a digest as to why you should do the same but I feel like people need to find their own way there or approach me directly so the motivation comes from them. Streaming is bad for artists and while I and indeed artists don’t want you to close your premium accounts just yet because closing any revenue streams to artists in any way is bad, I encourage you to do some research into just how much revenue there is in streaming, and what your expectations are for how you think the artists you love so much are supposed to make a living. I guess if your engagement level is fairly low, or the culture you’re into is pop-music, then this is the end of the discussion and that’s OK, we don’t need to take it any further. If you’re in any way curious about what this issue is, this video by Benn Jordan is a great place to start.

There are two charts I’d like to share - one is my top 10 albums I’ve chosen, the other is the same albums by number of plays as per my last.fm polling. These aren’t the top 10 albums I polled, mind-you. Sometimes I listen to an album a whole bunch just because I’m into it or because it slaps, but it isn’t one I’d nominate as an album that encapsulates the year.

You’ll immediately notice not every album was released in 2020, however my conditions are that they either had to have been released close enough to 2020 that I’d have done heavy listening in the year, or I had to have purchased them in 2020 so they were new to me in the year.

Here are the 10 albums I chose;

And here they are by number of plays polled in 2020 - bear in mind I probably played one or two favourite tracks a few times more, so they don’t neatly divide by number of tracks listed on the album;

A few immediate things to note;

- Dreams Are Not Enough is significantly underrepresented because I don’t listen to it at my PC while I work. In general, I definitely listen to this far more in environments offline, but also it’s not exactly an all occasions album given its tone and atmosphere, if you know what I mean, and if you don’t - give it a listen and find out.

- La Favière on the other hand is more or less a bit of a party so I play it a lot… yet when it comes to my personal rankings, it’s not that I like it less per se, it’s just that I love the other albums more - tons of respect to Iversen. It still made 10th on a list of hundreds of albums and netted 161 plays out of thousands of files I have.

- Had I done this kind of list in 2019 and known about Reid Willis, I suspect The Longing Device would have been an Album Of The Year then. It was a dead ringer for an Album Of The Year for me this year except then he released Mother Of and that is an absolute killer, so he outdid himself and I selected that instead. Reid Willis is a genius.

- There’s a long story as to why I only bought Hanan Townshend’s soundtrack for To The Wonder in 2020 but at least I was delayed long enough to not produce any more plastic, given my original intention once upon a time was to get it on CD. In any case, I had to buy it on iTunes and was bedstricken from illness for days after. iTunes is cursed.

Telefon Tel Aviv - Dreams Are Not Enough (October 2019)

In 2009, Telefon Tel Aviv released their album Immolate Yourself and then Charles Cooper died. I didn’t actually find out about his death until after I’d heard the album a few times over, but the album stayed with me for the 10 years to the new album as a landmark like no other. In part for the mourning of Charles, but simultaneously and separately as something that stood apart as some sound for my life that no other music could touch. Maybe The Haxan Cloak’s Excavation, maybe Darkside’s Psychic, but each of those in different ways.

10 years later and Joshua Eustis continues his long journey and releases Dreams Are Not Enough in the Telefon Tel Aviv name. After my first listen, I tweeted to him that I felt like deleting the rest of my music collection which we had a laugh about (he’s a very sociable person, by the way, if you’re not an asshole - he’s also someone you can learn a lot about the industry from). The thing is - I want to have these kinds of exaggerated reactions to the art I engage with - I want them to be world-destroying. Sure, not every piece of art has to be immense and euphoric and devastating, but it can’t all be run-of-the-mill either.

It’s difficult for me to describe Dreams Are Not Enough in practical terms, it is still a Telefon album, it is also Telefon without Charles, it’s also mourning him, is it moving on in his absence? It is definitely its own art for you to engage with as a unique work, to you the individual. It’s uniquely Telefon Tel Aviv in a way that no other electronic artist does the same way - it feels a specific way and there are times when no other music will do. One of my running jokes is that Porpentine’s Howling Dogs and Cardboard Computer’s Kentucky Route Zero will be my Game(s) Of The Year every year forever and Dreams Are Not Enough now with Immolate Yourself are going to last 10, 20 years - longer - as Albums Of The Year forever too because there’s just never anything else like them.

Reid Willis - The Longing Device (January 2019)

The good thing about having made my choices earlier in 2020 is that Reid WIllis’ Mother Of wasn’t out when I wrote-up the list, so I get to talk about The Longing Device.

Reid Willis was an absolutely random find on Bandcamp. Occasionally I like to dive into subgenres and just go hunting. You can imagine that 9 times out of 10 this is a fruitless endeavour and might think this is frustrating but I really enjoy doing it as an exercise in critical listening. By whatever turn of divine Bandcamp listing, I came across the first chronological album he has up, Crude Healing (2016) and from memory listened to four tracks before instant-buying his entire discography available. I did go hunting on the Google Play store before it was shuttered and buy the most recent album from 2013, The Sunken Half listed from his older works before he jumped over to Bandcamp for all his newer albums and it’s definitely a transitional work to what he does now and well worth having. While Crude Healing initially blew me away, The Longing Device is a more mature album that has been more carefully shaped, skills having been honed and focussed into a less raw and yet more powerful sound. Very rarely am I ever an “I liked your old stuff better than your new stuff” kind of person, in general I tend to go with an artist when they evolve and grow unless on occasion they go in a completely different direction in which case hey - I respect it but sometimes it’s just not something I feel.

Here Willis’ orchestrations are careful, beautiful and languished in the right moments - cut with beats and edits, and the beats and edits likewise deftly cut with orchestrations. This is such a stunning exhibition of creativity, it’s one of the more esoteric examples of my music collection and also in some ways perhaps one of the more approachable works. Then in November Willis released Mother Of where he just takes everything to the next level.

Mat Zo - Illusion Of Depth (October 2020)

In July of 2020, Above & Beyond released their ongoing regular compilation Anjunabeats volume 15 and finished the first disc with a bangin’ Mat Zo track called Problems, an instant favourite of mine as soon as I heard it. It’s a tough year for DJs and musos all round not being able to tour, Josh Eustice and many others have been doing year-round commentary about irresponsible alleged “underground” gigs have nothing to do with the old-school spirit of underground at all and have turned into superspreader events, and how publishers and labels haven’t supported artists through Covid. Leading up to October, Anjuna and Mat Zo promote his forthcoming album and I have to admit, I’m pretty hyped and then it drops.

Holy shit.

In a year of such terrible events, this felt like such a timely dose of positivity that arrived at just the right time. I wrote a whole damn entry for this on instragram, and it’s one of my Albums Of The Year, but far out the digest of this album. On one hand, it’s a hugely technically accomplished work - it’s a diverse exhibition of styles, musicianship, stellar production, and absolutely pristine mix and balance - on the other hand, it’s just an absolute fucken banger-riot-party of an album. The album stands up to a clinical listening on reference transducers, it’s such a delight to audition and examine in every way, but you can set all of that aside and just enjoy the experience, front to back through the tracks in order and as an album, that’s becoming quite rare. There are levels of production discipline on display in this album, especially for electronic music in difficult mixing environments with potentially cluttered frequency ranges that a lot of artists need to learn from, yet Maz Zo executes with ease. This has a lot to give no matter who you are, whether you want to sit down and listen, dance all night or go for a drive - a word of warning, it might make you want to drive fast!

It’s also worth noting that Mat toured this album virtually in Minecraft in order to be Covid-safe and that is absolutely freaken amazing.

Hanan Townshend - To The Wonder (April 2013)

Not the best choice of cover-art, but to be fair, no-one likes Terrence Malick films so it doesn’t really matter. Like most things, getting into music tends to be multifaceted. To The Wonder is my favourite Malick film and yes, I love many of them (you can check the Film Notes page), probably because it’s the most intimate and grounded of his narratives. I still like the more grand and abstract stories he tells, they’re very much my bag, too, but To The Wonder really is a simple story about people told from a closeness that is for some perhaps uncomfortable, but I love that closeness. There’s a dream-like quality to Malick’s filmmaking and indeed cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s photography that is both surreal and organic that makes the film feel very real and then like recollection once it’s done. Hanan Townshend’s music perfectly matches it, and then like all good soundtracks transcends the purpose for which it was written and can be applied to life outside of its matching media. There is a certain framing I have in my mind and at times, with the way I quite literally see, that makes me cue this soundtrack. Very few other soundtracks have this kind of power - Kenji Kawaii’s work for Ghost In The Shell (inclusive of Innocence), Hajime Mizogughi’s Jin-Roh and Cliff Martinez’ Solaris would be some of the others.

Daniel McCagh - Altered States (April 2020)

Another semi-random Bandcamp find, I was chuffed to learn that Daniel McCagh is from Albury, NSW, Australia. It’s always amazing to find local artists who are this astonishingly talented. I tend to associate Australian musicians at the not-quite-there-yet level of art and still do. That’s not a criticism of the artists themselves, it’s a criticism of our government and their backwards attitude towards arts funding and economics in this country. We are a developed country in the age of the internet where information and culture is shared instantly but we deny our people opportunities in so many ways - in education, facilities, commerce and economic infrastructure - the state of internet services in this country for a start is appalling and has been behind global standards forever. It will take us so much time, funds, resources and coordination to catch-up and of-course the longer we wait, the greater the cost and each successive government makes their excuses as to why we can never quite afford to do things right.

Props to individuals who can make it stick, tho, and Daniel McCagh is one of them. It’s probably shockingly unfair to hold someone up on a pedestal every time they do well but I can’t help it - Altered States is on par with Reid Willis’ and other dark ambient/electronic works or whatever genre you want to put them into. On Bandcamp these darker synth and drone-centric artists are a dime a dozen and to be fair, a lot of them are quite good but finding works that truly stand out in excellence can be difficult. The low play-count is due to having only found and bought the album quite late, but it goes into rotation fairly often and it’s a growing genre in my collection.

The 1975 - Notes On A Conditional Form (May 2020)

The closest thing to pop music to hit this list, NOACF was going to appear at some point - just getting pipped at the finish-line by Reid Willis, all told. I listened to this in the car quite a bit when I was still in rotation in the office before full lockdown.

Writing about The 1975 will be a Thing - either you’ll know something about them or nothing at all. For me, I guess I engage with them entirely differently from superfans - I’m in my late 30s so it won’t surprise you that I don’t have a TikTok account nor do I op a Spotify account and I’m not active at all on Facebook altho neither are gen Z. That said, I’m not entirely sure who their core fanbase will be - they don’t strike me as chart-topping, TikTok everpresent pop-culture icons. Their lead singer certainly has the awareness of pop-culture to communicate with their fan-base to keep up, but they don’t seem to engage at the same level of the lists you see on say, Todd in the Shadows - but I’ve not watched enough of him to know if he’s ever mentioned them.

Anyway I’m enough of a musician (read: snob) to dig their lofty musical stuff - it’s the perfect follow-up and follow-on from ABIIOR and I Like It When You Sleep... before that. Their sound stays uniquely theirs while slowly evolving with contemporary sounds, all the while the production stays top-notch and I’m always pleased with what I hear from a mixing and balance perspective. It also sort of launched with one of the most exciting singles I’ve heard in a while If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know) which has to be one of the absolute best recreations of the quintessential 90’s sound yet with contemporary production discipline I’ve ever heard. Many have tried yet most have failed. I always have so much respect when an artist can nail this kind of thing because it’s immensely difficult to do and I’m so proud of The 1975 for pulling this off. All of their genre homages and tilts on this album - actually on all of their albums since I Like It When You Sleep… have been stellar and I continue to be impressed.

I’m also completely onboard with their performative behaviour - they remind me of the angsty political U2 et al of old, but with the necessary contemporary tilt we need. Matty as a front-person is grounded, sensible, vulnerable, flawed - been thru some shit and talks openly about it. I don’t care how much of it is genuine, it reads and plays genuinely. I’m not a superfan so I don’t have posters of him on my wall nor hang on every word he says, but if I was 16 or 23 and did, I think he’s saying the right things. Setting that aside because it doesn’t matter, as a late 30’s adult, this album is fucking great and the band is aging, whether the fanbase likes it or not. There is so much creativity in it and I feel like while they play like they don’t care whether anyone comes along with them or not, they actually really sincerely hope we all do - and I also hope we all really do come along with them because I am coming along with them. None of this “play Antichrist” bullshit - leave the past in the past. Play Nothing Revealed / Everything Denied. They just cancelled their 2021 tour plans due to Covid which was a really good move, and confirmed a new album in the works, and I can’t wait to hear what they have coming.

The Midnight - Monsters (July 2020)

One of the most exciting releases last year, I was amped for the drop and was anticipating another solid, top-notch contemporary synthwave album from who I regard to be one of the very best in the genre. They’d released America Online some months prior which I really loved but it didn’t really indicate what the album was going to be like. Monsters ended up being waaaaay better than I expected - and I expected it to be really great. I don’t know whether it was a conscious decision by the band that perhaps the synthwave space was perhaps wearing out the 80’s a little bit - even pop-music was starting to take nibbles at the genre albeit pretty poorly by comparison, not that radio-punters would know it. With the new album tho, we’re taken into this wonderful in-between of not fully 90’s but not wholly 80’s either and even some contemporary r’n’b thrown in there but always stellar production and it’s just a massive album. It’s like a film you watch that ends up being an instant favourite you wish you could watch again for the first time because that first experience was so great. EVERYTHING lands perfectly in this album… with perhaps the exception of the lyric 

“friends become lovers under covers” 

in the song Prom Night because celebrating teens being sexually active is probably not something I cherish too much but hey, whaddayagonnado some things are just facts LET’S TURN THIS INTO A TEACHING OPPORTUNITY ABOUT CONSENT let’s not at least not right now.

Jeremy Blake - Object Permanence (December 2019)

Jeremy Blake is also known as Red Means Recording and he is a Synthlord. He has a YouTube channel and I am a superfan of his, so much so that I wrote a feature about him right here in this journal. I have a lot of his albums and Object Permanence is one of my favourites.

Jeremy is the definition of good faith. Everything he does is done with the intention of creating goodness in this world, in whatever way it can, somehow. Whether it’s just by listening to something that you might find pleasing, or whether it’s watching a video intended to help you create music on a piece of hardware or learn about software or licensing or platforms, distribution or business in some way. I happen to really dig the kinds of music styles he’s into as we seem to have had similar roots when it comes to some of the rock and electronic music we grew up on and have been into in our music lives, so the music he makes now really gels well with me. It was super difficult to choose between the album he released before this called Soft Music To Do Nothing To and Object Permanence but ultimately I think this is the right choice as far as an exhibition of his talent goes. Soft Music is still great, it’s more of a long jam he performed with only three pieces of gear which is pretty amazing and I listen to it all the time, but Object Permanence has some distinct tracks in varying styles I really get into.

I highly recommend Jeremy’s YouTube channel as an entry-point into his style, but if you’re a synth-head and like beats, breaks and groovy bleeps and bloops, you definitely won’t go astray by dropping into any one of his albums on Bandcamp.

The Paper Kites - On The Corner Where You Live (September 2018)

File The Paper Kites under “holy shit another Australian artist that isn’t rubbish” and from Melbourne, my hometown at that. In 2018, they split their new tracks effectively into two albums which works really well. The first is called On The Train Ride Home which is wholly downtempo and almost entirely acoustic with no drums, the second is this album and is a more energetic. I don’t actually prefer one over the other and have just made myself a playlist with contributions from other artists that only includes songs from On The Train Ride Home, but for this list I chose the second album for its exhibition of the band’s overall breadth of song-writing, performance and production. I guess I associate this sound with bands like Rogue Valley and other north and Pacific Northwest bands in the US but to be fair, I don’t really go hunting for this kind of sound - Nashville?? I don’t associate this very cooled-down acoustic-electric sound with Nashville, it’s not very Country (I have some Country in my collection which probably doesn’t surprise you), it’s almost like ultra-chilled mid-90’s ballad in a sense. Someone will have to tell me what it really is and where to find more but only of this calibre because I’m picky about quality. Google says they’re “folk music, folk rock, indie rock, alternative/indie” and that’s useless so throw that in the bin where it belongs.

This sound is definitely a mood. I hunted thru my entire collection including the aforementioned Rogue Valley and started a first playlist of just this kind of thing. I have the acoustic list done and will do an electric counterpart that will include more material from this album, as well as the one song I bought from Night Traveler called Don’t Forget Me as long as it’s not too energetic, it all depends on what makes it to the final list. This music speaks of drives thru rural landscapes, late nights in the city, time alone or with just one other person, closeness, loneliness, introspection, of long journeys and separation.

Iversen - La Favière (August 2018)

The story of how I got this album is hilarious - one of my gaming friends who buys stuff on Humble Bundle and itch.io and god knows what else tweets me this link and says “hey there’s this synthwave bundle for like $2 you should get it it’s $2 it has all this music in” and as someone who won’t buy bad music for even $2, I go investigating and you can listen to some samples and lo-and-behold, most of it is pretty great. I paid a lot more than $2 as that only got you 4 albums and for another $5 or something, you got another 4 albums plus I always pay more because I want more revenue to go to the contributing artists. I ended up not liking about half of the music on offer but in the bundle I discovered Lost Outrider, Morgan Willis and Iversen, all of which I’ve gone on to buy more music from on Bandcamp. As for La Favière, I bought it again on Bandcamp because I love the album so much and wanted to support the artist - it’s really excellent. Oddly tho, two of the best tracks from it were bonuses that only came with the bundle version and not the Bandcamp version, called Sunset Rider and Visions of Blue, so if you want those, I’m not entirely sure how you can get a hold of them - I’m sure if you contact Josh Iverson and tell him you want to pay for them, he’ll try to sort you out unless there are labels involved in which case, not his fault. Regardless, you still get one of the best chilled synth tracks of all time In Dreams which is worth the price of admission all on its own, it is absolutely epic and you should give it a listen.

Goodbye 2020

Time of writing is Sunday 16th January and what a ride it’s been already, hey. I might still write up my actual Albums Of The Year given two of them didn’t get mentioned - Reid Willis -  Mother Of and Gidge - New Light, so I cheated a bit, but they’re my nominations, awards and lists so I can do whatever I like. I’m always excited about music, both listening with a critical ear and also emotionally engaging with it. There’s never a shortage of good new music or discovering material I hadn’t from years past. Sometimes it feels like wading thru endless fields of dross to find the gold but it’s always there and getting to it is a true delight.

There were honourable mentions and I couldn’t quite get the list to 10 - there are 8. I might write them up but for the moment, here they are in vague order of vagueness. Importance? Order of purchase? I got into Lapalux and Enter Shikari very late in the year. Apparat’s - LP5 is a very special album to me, almost Dreams Are Not Enough special. I do want to talk about how Jacob Collier’s album is both very very good and also not good enough. 

The majority of the music listed here can be purchased on Bandcamp. There are links to most of it on my Bandcamp profile if you want to go hunting - I might add lazylinks later-on if I get the time.

Here is my last.fm full listing for 2020 if you’re curious about that kind of thing. Stats are great.

[daggerzine]

Celebrity Mixtape Party #2 With Bob Fay!  (presented by Matthew Kenneth)

The second installment of Celebrity Mixtape Party brings you none other than rock and roll gentleman from Sebadoh, Bob Fay! Bob waxes intellectual about a variety of pop tunes I recorded onto magnetic tape for him. I envision Bob working long into the evening writing this. Stroking a beard, smoking a meerschaum, brandy glass in hand. Peruse these words, dear reader, and delve into one of the great minds of 90s indie music. 

Track 1. Comsat Angels (Missing in Action), a band I should have dug more at the time considering when their records started to show up at my local record shop and when I was at peak Anglo-worship mode. But they never left me wanting to hear more and then I went back to my Echo and The Bunnymen and Ruts LPs.. This track is hitting kind of nice right now, truth be told.

Track 2. The title isn't showing up but this sounds like TFLU 282. Now the singing has started and so my first guess seems wrong. Very clanged out guitar sound that hides the tunefulness. Miserable singer vibes too. Wonder if I already own this record? Oh it's Gordons! I have this on CD! Good for me! (Gordons-Spic n' Span)

Track 3. Hard to put across in mere words just how great the Soft Boys were at their zenith. And four part harmonies too? And while I think most rock lyrics are unfettered dreck, Robyn Hitchcock really had a gift of the lyrical gab (Soft Boys-Wey Wey Hep Uh Hole)

Track 4. I had some Bauhaus records when they first made their way to Boston but there was so much fashion baggage that went along with membership to the goth club. As their star kept ascending I was taking a hard left away from UK dance music. I came to realize later just how great some of those Bauhaus records were/are. (Terror Couple Kill Colonel)

Track 5. (Kleenex-Ain't You). Want to buy a Bridge might be the most influential record I've ever bought. This track remains a highlight amongst the flawless track listing. And talk about dope lyrics. And you just reminded me about the perfect gang vox!

Track 6. Flipper was another complete game changer for me. It doesn't sound nearly as slow as I probably thought it did in 1982 but the songs still reign supreme. One band all three members of Sebadoh could agree on. (Talk is Cheap)

Track 7. Basement 5 Who won me over at the time do a Christmas song? And it is fantastic? Did not see that coming...(The Last White Christmas)

Track 8. Kevin Ayers made one of my top five debut LPs of all time! Like easily. I scooped up the Odds and Ends LP back in the day and lo and behold; (Soon Soon Soon). Incredible guitar solo.

Track 9. The first band I flat out don't know. Late '70s early '80s new wavy angularity. Farfisa dance rock for the slump shoulder set circa 1981 (Happy Refugees-Hamburger Boy)

Track 10. Boston was a real TFLU282 stronghold for a while back then. I was lucky enough to co-interview them for Leslie Godfrey's pop watch fanzine. Such sweet folks. (Thinking Fellers Union Local 242-Hornet's Heart)

Track 11. Richard Davies what a character! This is one of his greatest songs right here. Assuming you've seen the incredible version with flaming lips from 1995? Do it, f****** pronto. No way I can start jotting down thoughts on the man that is RD. (Moles-What's the New Mary Jane?)

Track 12. Early MBV? Weird 50s style song structure with some fuzz for good measure. The vocals and lyrics are very trad for an MBV number. (My Bloody Valentine-Moonlight)

Track 13. another unknown to me band. A little like a less oblique Giant Sand when they were verging on grunge. That was a good period for that band. Sorry... I would probably dig this in some sweaty club. Well anywhere, really. Would seek out other music by (Hornet Leg-Gold Fire)

Track 14. I love Mirrors. That whole Cleveland 70s thing is the most unheralded thing In rock and roll history. Got to see Mirrors when that homestead CD came out in 1990(?) and they still had the goods. (Mirrors-Shirley)

Track 15. Never really followed Marc Riley's career after his Fall days were through. This is great so I might have to do some digging. Real jittery track...(Marc Riley-Judas Sheep)

Track 16. Another band that I just never got around to in my youth. I like how rickety it sounds but still keeps the song chugging forward. I found their music on Spotify (gasp) after reading an article on them in Ugly Things magazine. Applied knowledge! (Radiators from Space-Prison Bars)

Track 17. Alex Chilton (Hook or Crook) was such a big deal for me in the 1980s along with dozens of others like them. The man could do anything and out of morbid curiosity I had to hear it saw a few sets in the 80s that sure did piss off the Big Star heads!

Track 18. (Rock*a*Teens Down with People)! My sentiments exactly! Great muddy sound and a real desperation to the vox that is just swell. The band lives up to their rocking moniker.

Track 19. Wow this name rings no bell whatsoever. Mid-80s Scottish pop? Post-Pavement Belgium band circa 1993? Flying Nun band that's only on a comp that was never reissued? The world will never know...(Rote Kapelle-Jellystone Park)

Track 20. Really dug the Pink Section reissue on Superior Viaduct a few years back. Solid new wave that sends me right back to 1980 in a heartbeat. A total Gang of Four rip on the guitar solo. (Pink Section-Wine World)

Track 21. My wife turned me on to this era of Bowie. This tune in particular hitting that sweet spot like the Move have a tendency to do. And how in the hell did I not hear the complete hunky dory until 1997? Totally missed out...(David Bowie-Black Country Rock)

Track 22. Lucky to have seen La Peste a number of times opening for whatever UK band I was seeing. Real kings of the scene for a spell and they knew that if you only wrote great songs before breaking up early on yr legacy is sealed. (La Peste-Black)

Track 23. Just got this 45 again recently when a local DJ dumped his 45 collection at a store I frequent. This s*** sounds better to me now than it did back then. It kind of reminds me of a Boston version of the Boomtown Rats. (Pastiche-Boston Lullaby)

Track 24. Talk about a band that screwed the pooch on that first full-length. all of the demo rehearsal tapes have way more than the pro garbage. Never saw DMZ but by that time the Lyres started gigging around town I was all in! (DMZ-Go to School)

Track 25. Never heard the Del Byzanteens but ho! This has some real quality happening on the track. Good lyrics working off the twangy guitar and drums and percussion. Learn something everyday! (Del-Byzanteens-Welcome Machines)

Track 26. Maybe the most willfully cheery Monks number. When I start my stoned ramblings on first punk band The Monks are always in the mix. it's one of the great American stories in rock and roll history and f*** the singing on the end of this song is stellar! (The Monks-He Went Down to the Sea)

Track 27. Opal (and Clay Allison before that) made it plain to see that I was more of a Kendra Smith fan than a Steve Wynn head. Her voice is one of those that are only equaled by a choice view of a heavyweight vocalists like Sandy Denny and oh, you know, Bridget St. John etc. (Opal-Sailing Boats)

Track 28. Stephen, the Clean off-shoot band? Wish I hadn't sold that EP on Flying Nun back in the pre-911 days of eBay. In 20 years I sold about 16,000 things online and still have too much s***. But I digress. Will certainly relisten to Stephen. That David Kilgour just has the Midas Touch is all. (Stephen-Crystal)

Track 29. (The Chills-Dream by Dream) Don't know this one but I have not really heard anything post Soft Bomb so that's my bad. At first The Chills were my favorite Flying Nun band. The mix of morose and pop joy proved to be too much for me to resist in 1985. Wherever this track is from it's got that chills x factor.

Track 30. (3Ds-Sunken Head) More New Zealand shenanigans. I was getting their 45s and such as they made the track to the states back then. I have nothing but fond memories hanging with these folks on my one and only trip to New Zealand with Sebadoh. Be aware bands that own their own pub!

https://www.mixcloud.com/matthewkenneth9/bob-fay-mix/?fbclid=IwAR1ggSwYavA15ln1JHsUmqqR1z4IAeRxi4dh--AAMNw0YdlkcCfDojy3Qxk

[providence-lost]

On Avoiding Materialism as a Collector

Lately I’ve been jumping on the vinyl bandwagon, along with many other metalheads that I know. I’m aware that vinyl never really went away in the underground community, but my entrance onto the scene was relatively recent, and the start of my collection even more recent than that. I was a little skeptical at first. I started off collecting CDs because they were cheaper, easier to play, and had a comparable sound quality in my opinion (all of which I still find to be true). At first, it was a rejection of streaming. I have a deep mistrust of streaming - of any digital content service, really. I work in the tech industry, and I know just how easy it is for the things you like to be disappeared off the internet forever. I also wasn’t satisfied with storing downloads on my home computer. Sure, MP3s are probably good enough for most uses, but there’s still something magical about having a physical object that you can load into a physical player, and that takes up space on a shelf. And there’s the added benefit that streaming or NYP downloads send mere pennies to the artists, whereas a CD or vinyl record pays orders of magnitude more. Those factors, combined with my general collector/hoarder nature, led me to start a physical media collection of my very own.

Like I said, I started off with just CDs. I wasn’t quite sold on vinyl yet, and I felt CDs could scratch that itch for me. They did, and they still do. I signed up for a heavy metal loot box and started getting CDs in the mail every month. Cheesy, I know, but you don’t get to tell me what to do with my money, and I think it’s fun, so there. I bought CDs at shows all throughout this past year. I mostly stuck to those two sources, only buying music from bands I really like, with the added spice of a few random finds in my monthly loot box. I’d take a trip to the local record store once a month or so and buy maybe two things. I got some comments from loved ones that I was going a little crazy, but I didn’t think so. So far, my entire collection fit inside a single cardboard box. I’ve seen people with thousands of CDs, on shelves covering multiple walls. I was far from having a problem.

I got my first vinyl record at the Hell/Mizmor show in Philadelphia this last October. That show was special. I had debated not even going - it was a twelve-hour drive from home. I would have to take multiple days off work and find lodging for the whole stay. It wasn’t a quick jaunt to the neighboring city like every other show I’d been to up to that point. This was a major undertaking. But hey, this is fucking Mizmor we’re talking about here. The single band that I had connected with the most over the time since I really dove into heavy music. They never go on tour, and they’ve maybe played two dozen shows in their entire decade-long existence. I could not miss this. So, I bit the bullet and made the trip. It was an amazing experience, and it had its many ups and downs (which I won’t get into here), and all things considered I’m glad I went. At the show itself (at a tiny dive bar, squashed between two other ancient buildings), I got to see ALN himself in person. I wish I’d had the balls to talk to him more than I did. I know I can be awkward around strangers, and I’ve made some serious personal progress in that regard. But I rarely meet strangers that I admire, so I was back to my same old mute self. In any case, he had a special tour edition of his album Cairn up for sale, in limited edition white vinyl, and I thought to myself “What the hell. I’m not going to get this opportunity again. Just get it.” So I did.

I didn’t have a way to play it, mind. And I wouldn’t for almost a month after. I bought a shitty Crosley suitcase player at first (sue me), because that’s all I could find on short notice. That lasted about three days before I pawned it off to my girlfriend and got a real turntable. I will admit I got a little crazy after that. I started shelling out for records instead of CDs. At first it was like the situation with the CDs - I would only buy things that I really cared about. I went to a local record fair and came home with a copy of Sleep - The Sciences on transparent green. I got my hands on a copy of Eyehategod - New Orleans is the New Vietnam, which only exists as a single. I got reprints of my old favorites, albums that meant something to me, that I wanted to be able to keep on my shelf and show off to my friends. Then it got a little less controlled. I would go to record stores and come back with records that I only had a passing familiarity with, or that I only guessed I would like. I was gobbling up reprints and clearance items from Gilead Media like it was my job. The week of Thanksgiving, I probably bought 25 records. I will be the first to admit it was a little much.

I had started a second Instagram. It was originally supposed to be a place where I could put my edgier artwork, stuff that I wasn’t comfortable putting on the account where my grandma follows me. But I became one of those assholes who posts their vinyl collections, one-by-one. I thankfully haven’t gotten as popular as those guys, but I did put in a non-zero amount of effort. And it was exposure to the online record collecting community that made me slow down and take stock. There’s a fella on that website (won’t name names) who has only been collecting for a single year, maybe two, and has already scooped up thousands of records. Thousands. And posted every single one of them. I don’t mean to hate on the guy, but I found that to be a little bit excessive. How can you truly care about all those different records? Are you really telling me that you are in love with each one of those releases, enough to pay $12-35 for it? Pardon my disbelief. That’s not passion for music. That’s your lizard brain saying “get, have, keep, collect, mine mine mine.” It’s an addiction, in the worst kind of way.

It reminds me of the surprise-box style toys that have taken over the market these past few years. A box or bag or life-sized dinosaur egg, with who-knows-what inside. You don’t know until you open it! Collect all 75! Those kinds of toys thrive on this same kind of feeling. Those kids don’t really care about the little unicorn figurines or the stuffed animals or whatever. Deep back in the primordial, unevolved parts of the brain, the thrill of acquiring a new possession triggers the happy juice, and they will fight to experience that same feeling as often as possible. This is what consumerism is. You don’t want it to have it. You want it to get it. The joy of acquisition is the only joy you find in it.

I refuse to be this way. I’ve had to make a serious adjustment. I’ve gone back to only buying albums that I really want, or already know I will like. I don’t take $25 guesses, just for the sake of buying something. It’s a hard choice to make sometimes. It seems obvious and simple to say out loud, but the squirt of happy chemicals that comes with acquiring something shiny and new is not a simple thing to overcome. Ask any addict. I’ve decided to stop it before it gets out of hand. I know that it’s something that will take constant effort and vigilance, and that’s not something I look forward to. But I know that I have a genuine passion for heavy music, and I really do want to support the people that make it. Collecting isn’t the problem. But there is a line between collecting and consumerism, and it’s a line I will not cross.

[vegavoiddestroy]

Zelda’s Broken

This is gonna be a long story so sit down i guess and I'll start from the begining.

My name is Angie Rose and I think my gamecube is haunted.Scratch that I'm 100% sure its haunted theres no way its not.This whole shit show started a few weeks ago and now I'm terrified.I'd like to point out that the cube wasn't bought haunted I've had it for about 7 years but I'm pretty sure that stupid game corrupted it somehow.I had gone down to my local thrift store to see if I could find some second hand games or even some CDs but thats not the point.Browsing through the different games for different stations i had found three for the gamecube.The first was super Mario party 5 the second was a sonic game and the last one was just a black case with one of those stick on labels with the words "Zelda twilight princess E.M.O"scribbled on it.I was a huge fan of the Zelda games so of course I was giddy and had proceeded to buy it along with the other two games which in retrospect was a really stupid idea.Every thing about that stupid Zelda game seemed sketchy but I still bought it even though I knew it seemed odd but that didn't stop me from booting up my gamecube and putting the game in ready to play when i got home.It took longer than it should have for the game to boot up my gamecube had started to make this loud whirling sound that lasted around ten-ish minutes then it just stopped everything went silent as i sat there with my controller staring at the black screen before the it faded out to where the wolf version link howled at the glowing yellow city but this wasn't right the start where link rides his horse was nowhere to be seen and everything was still so quiet.I figured beggars can't be choosers so i pressed start deciding that i could handle a few glitches here and there in hindsight i should have thrown the game out at that point it would have saved me so much pain.The game from there was pretty normal a few hiccups every now and then like NPCs not responding to me and the audio distorting but other than that everything was fine until it wasn't.It took me about two days to get through to the part where you meet Midna but something was wrong with her model she had no color to her at all and her body seemed to twitch and jerk rapidly she was glitching so badly it made me feel uneasy. At that point i figured i had gotten a very hacked game i felt a little pissed but i chose to brush it off.Thats when the music started to play it was slow and from what i could tell it was the Legend of Zelda theme song but it sounded off it sounded sad from what i could remember from it it sounded like it was in C minor.It made me feel awful i had that tight feeling in my throat it was the feeling you get when you need to cry i felt like i had to get out of there i felt sick and i had to leave but before i could turn off the console Midna stopped her twitching her eyes they were pure white and she was staring at the screen but it felt like she was staring at me.A text box had appeared along with a distorted version of the talk sound Midna made played as dialog slowly appeared"Why so sad....?' i didn't even realize i had been crying till i read those words.I let out a shaky breath i hadn't even know i had been holding in blinking only made new tears roll down my cheeks.Only then had i noticed how dark my room was i tore my eyes away from the screen too look outside it was night and i new that was fucking impossible i had started the game up around noon and the fact that it was pitch black outside freaked me out.I had found Midna around three forty how long had i been sitting there? six hours  it was nine forty seven i had been siting there staring at the screen for six hours.I quickly turned off the game cube along with the tv i used my hoodie sleeves to wipe my eyes and tried to collect my self before i stood up and left the living to get a snack thinking maybe if i ate something i'd feel better i guess i was only half right.After i downed a green powerade and some left over pizza i moved to the bathroom to relive my self and get ready for bed hoping that sleep would make the intense sadness fade away i was wrong i was so wrong when i had drifted off i was dropped in to one of the worse nightmares i have ever had.I was waist deep in black water at least i thought it was water it felt a little thicker than water but thats all i could figure out before the sky lit up with lightning followed by deafening thunder i tried to find a way out of the water but before i could even move my legs i was pulled down in to the dark water what had only been waist deep was now a endless dark freezing abyss.Thats when i heard it it was faint at first but sure as shit i could hear crying it sounded pained like who every was sobbing was in pure agony that tight feeing in my throat came back now more painful than it had been before.I tried squinting my eyes straining to try and find the source of the cries but the water was to dark i went to try and swim up  but thats when i felt arms wrap around my torso i was confused but that confusion shifted to horror as i was dragged down deeper i felt like i was being crushed to death thats when i woke up in my bed soaked to the bone in my own sweat my heart was thrashing hard in my chest and fucking hell my body hurt so bad it felt like i had been hit by a car.The glowing green numbers of my clock let me know it was almost seven in the morning i felt a little better after knowing the sun would rise soon and so i got out of bed trying to forget that horrible nightmare.I flicked on my lamp lighting up my room my ribs had hurt so bad and when i looked at self in my full body mirror i understood why.I had large dark bruises on my torso that looked like hands thats when i threw up in my mouth quickly i ran to the bathroom spitting it out in to the toilet i'm ashamed to admit it but i cried in there for a few minuets my lungs were burning.At the time I thought I was just sick like I had a cold but now as I type this I know better.After that I took a shower to calm down it helped a little but I could still hear that crying in the back of my mind i didn't want to think about it so I blocked it out and tried to focus on cleaning my self.The next few days were fine i guess the bruises had cleared up pretty fast and i was kinda happy but when i had gotten back from helping my friend Beth with her ex i walked threw the living room i almost tripped over my gamecube.Staggering a little i looked down at it for a second i considered just ignoring it but the gamer in me wanted to see the other glitches in the game so i flicked on the tv clicked the power button on the game cube and sat down controller in hand ready to take another crack at it.That was the worst mistake i've ever made.The games intro was the same except that the music was different what played was the begining of the first part of the Blizzeta theme it unnerved me.I pressed my save file which i hadn't remembered making but i brushed it off as i waited for the game to start it took long than it should have almost ten minuets.The screen finally faded in to the point where i left off Midna still lacking any color along with the"Why so sad" text i sat there still wondering why that of all things made me cry maybe i was just having a mental thing.I exited out of the text and moved link out of the area i was in while Midna followed her body distorting again but i ignored it as i played it was very quiet in the game there was no background music at all not only was the music gone but all the enemies were missing too it made the dungeon that more creepy.After a while of wondering around i finally made my way out of that part of the game i didn't end up where i was supposed to be i was transported to a field it was windy and it seemed it be raining in the game the sky was a dark gray and would flash with lightning every now and then Midna was gone i don't know where she went but i figured it was another glitch. i moved link around just so i could try and guess when i was thats when text appeared at the top of the screen"Find lost object' that was the first time i said "what the fuck"out loud i felt annoyed but i sighed deciding to look for said lost object i roamed around for about twenty minuets before i ended up finding a pond but before i could get close to it i heard something something familer it was the crying from my nightmare and i know what you all must be thinking  but it was the exact same heart aching sobbing from my dream when i heard it i felt that tight feeling in my throat again along with my chest burning slightly the waves of dread felt like i was being crushed.As i made link walk closer to the pond the crying got louder it went from pained sobs to anguished screaming i had to turn the volume on my tv down just so i could focus heck at this point i didn't even know why i was still playing maybe it was my curiosity or maybe my stupidity but despite my better judgment i made link equip his iron boots and moved in to the pond guessing the object was there and i was right at the very center of the pond was a boat or what was left of it moving closer i found the object along with what it was attached to.It was a skull no body just a skull with what looked like a crown sitting on top of it the skull still seemed to have some hair attached to it which made me feel uneasy as soon as i picked it up to get the object i felt something something that made me wanna puke it was that feeling you get when being watched i quickly put my controller down to look around my living room i saw no one and the blinds were closed so it was impossible so any one to be watching me so i shook it of as the game just freaking me out.Turning my gaze back to the screen thats when i noticed it there in the water just barely visible was a figure i stared at it for a moment before moving link forward to get closer i had only gotten close enough to see it was a model of Zelda in her puppet form or at least i thought it was because before i could get closer the screen went to black i was so confused i almost didn't see the the shape of someone behind me i quickly turned around finding nothing and then the power went out and i was left sitting there sitting in the dark.Just as i was going to stand up to light some candle the TV turned on i knew this was impossible but what snapped me out of my panic was what appeared on the screen link was no longer in the pond he was in the thrown room when Ganondorf was supposed to be but no one was there the only sounds that came from the tv was the music of Zant's theme with the faint sounds of crying.I felt like I was gonna throw up my heart was hammering in my chest the crying was getting louder it almost felt like it was in the house with me.I slowly sat down infront of the tv watching the screen before I stupidity picked up the controller to move link around believing that maybe if I finished the game all this nonsense would stop i was wrong though it just made everything worse.Moving Link around the thrown room i tried to find anyone but there was no one around it was just link then the sound had cut out again along with the screen freezing.I button mashed a couple of times but nothing worked thats when a cut scene played it started with a pan from link to behind him and standing or more like a messy mixture of floating and glitches was a model of Zelda at first I thought it was her puppet for but looking closer I realized it wasn't her skin was the same color of puppet Zelda's but her hair was now a dark black that seemed to cover most of her face her clothes were different too the normal dress she wore would glitch in and out with what looked like a black and purple Ripped up ball gown.The screen showed link's surprised reaction to this broken version of Zelda.The screen slowly zoomed in on Zelda's face the crying had returned but not as loud it sounded like soft sobbing it hurt to hear the sound my eyes were watering but I willed myself to not cry.I let out a shriek when the lights turned back on well sorta turned back on they were flickering in and out I could hear the power surging through the walls the air was so cold that i could see my breath Zelda's eyes were bloodshot red from crying she still had tears running down her face she wasn't locking at link or me she had her eyes looking down she dropped to her knees hiding her face in her hands Link started moving closer to her I wanted to stop him but nothing I did worked.He slowly knelt down reaching out to the distorted Zelda the crying began to get louder it echoed all around me I began to hyperventilate slowly moving backwards trying to distance my self from the game.Then the light bulbs in the living room began exploding one by one it was so loud but before I could react properly a loud screaming cry sounded from the tv it was almost deafening i had to cover my ears I was crying i felt terrified.Moving my gaze back to the tv screen what I saw horrified me to my soul Zelda had link pinned to the ground her hands wrapped around his throat squeezing the life out of him her crying never stopped but her body was different she looked like she was covered in electricity like her body had been struck by lightning multiple times.I had choked out a sob breathing hurt and my eyes were burning from my own tears everything hurt so bad i wanted to run to just get up but before I could move two hands gripped my shoulders I tried to scream but nothing came out.More tears flowed from my eyes everything was blurry Zelda wasn't on the screen anymore all that was there was link's lifeless body.The hands on my shoulders moved to wrap themselves around my body exactly where the bruises were a head was resting on my shoulder icy breath hitting my ear what ever this this was it was touching me holding me as if trying to comfort me but I knew that wasn't true.Finally managing to move my body from that paralysis I stood up not even bothering to turn around I just moved my body as fast I could to my room where I kept my aluminum bat trying my hardest to block out the pained sobbing that came from behind.I got to my room I slammed my door closed locking it before climbing over my bed to grab my weapon once I had it the bat in hand I quickly rubbed my eyes of tears letting out a choked cough.The knocking came hard and fast the crying had turned to blood curdling wailing like a banshee's screaming I held the bat up over my shoulder determined to stand my ground but after a few more seconds of screaming it all went silent complete silence.I should have been relieved that the screaming was done but I had this growing sensation of dread i slowly moved to the door but stopped when my computer turned on then my radio then my tv all played distorted crying that morphed in to screaming it was so loud I ended up dropped my bat to cover my ears closing my eyes I tried so hard to block it out.Before I could move a hand wrapped it's self around my throat lifting me off the ground I opened my eyes only to be met with the distorted version of Zelda know looking back I know that wasn't Zelda it just took her shape this sad angry thing squeezed my throat stopping me from breathing i clawed at her wrist trying desperately to make her put me down.Just before I blacked out she threw me full force at my mirror I cried out feel the glass stabbing in to my body I couldn't move it hurt so bad and she just floated there watching me her face was one of death and her tears never stopped I was lifted off the ground my body hurt to much for me to resist she pulled me to her tucking a lock of my hair behind my ear while she moved a hand to my chest ìn a split second my body was on fire it was the most mind numbing pain I had ever felt I was like being hit with a tazer but so much worse I tried to scream but all that came out was a choked cry thats when everything went black.I woke up in a hospital when I opened my eyes I was wrapped in gaws my head was pounding everything had a dull ache to it.The nurse that was in my room upon seeing me awake gave me a gentle smile"Good to see you awake dear seems you had quite the tussle"her voice was calming i tried to respond but nothing came out all I could do was cough.police came in a while later they thought what had happened to me was a break in gone wrong I told them thats what happened or in my case wrote down what happened my voice was shot from what happened.If i had told the truth no one would have believed me and they would have called me crazy.But now that I sit here staring at my phone I now what the EMO stood for on the Game case written in my own blood on my bedroom wall was three words that make me feel sick. Electricity Murdered Ophilia.Who ever that girl was she had been through so much pain that she forces others to feel it.Now I'm laying in bed I'm currently living with my sister Alice it's around midnight but sometimes wrong it's Raining outside and I think I can hear crying.

[jemodemo]

So this is kinda important I guess

Some of you may or may not know, my parents kicked me out last November. I, being a minor and unable to legally live on my own without emancipation, which I have no real basis to request, moved in with this family I’ve known for about 4 years. I used to go to their home for respite (please just google it I’ve been going to respite places since I was 7 and I honeslty have no idea what it is) so they know me pretty well. I’ve noticed a lot of various different things, though.

First of all, how they treat my mental health. I have a lot of issues with my mental health and behavioral control due to some unsavory things happening in my childhood, and sometimes those things come up and me, having been on meds for so freaking long and finally getting a say in whether or not I wanna take meds, I don’t take meds (although I started one about a month and a half ago and so far it’s mostly positive results but that’s not the point). My mom, if I couldn’t see the point of getting out of bed to go to school, would try to call the police for truancy. Also, if I needed to come home because I just couldn’t be at school, she’d have me do extra chores around the house as a sort of punishment for my “bad behavior”. My mom, for those of you who don’t know, is going to college to be a therapist and work with kids with mental health issues, by the way. My people (that’s what I prefer to call them. It’s simple enough so that I don’t really have to explain it), when I can’t see the point of getting out of bed to go to school, just let me be and check in every once in a while. I just have to text them that I’m taking a mental health day so they can call in to school and say I’m ill, which is frankly the truth. If I seem to be stressed or cranky, they don’t say, “why are you so cranky” or “jeez you woke up on the wrong side of the bed” and then push me to talk about it and proceed to tell me my issues are invalid. They say, “hey, I see that you seem to be upset. Would you like to talk about it?” And if I say no, they say “are you sure” and if I continue to say that I don’t want to talk about they tell me that they’re here if I need anything. They don’t push me to join the family and then say something like “nice of you to finally be a part of the family”. They make it known that they would like for me to be downstairs with them more often and when I’m downstairs, if I’m in a cheery mood they say “wow i haven’t seen your shining face in ages” or something along those lines.

Another thing I’ve noticed is the things they notice. Whenever we get fast food, I prefer Burger King (the bacon king and onion rings and a root beer with no ice) and they order for me and remember that that’s what I prefer. They noticed that after the third time we went to Burger King. And if I don’t come along and they get fast food, they always know what I like from various restaurants (most importantly no ice in my drink). They know I like Swiss rolls but not the little Debbie brand, the off brand stuff from the local grocery store. They know I love spam and try to keep it in the pantry (although it’s expensive and it’s understandable when I eat it all). They know I like the music I like, and when they go to a thrift store and they see a CD I might like, they’ll buy it. I have an avenged sevenfold cd (even though I don’t really listen to them that often), a good charlotte cd (actually my favorite cd from them), and an all American Rejects cd (again, favorite cd from them) that they bought me without my knowledge. They also know that I prefer medium t shirts and I love the color green (I literally have green hair). If they see a shirt at the thrift store (I love thrust stores btw) that they think I might like, they’ll get it. When I needed a new pair of shoes, they saw a pair of converse at a thrift store that was my size and they just got them. They were in good condition too. They know the things I like and notice the details. My parents know my favorite color but still somehow refuse to accept that I like the rest of the stuff I like and need better bras than Walmart bras and that I fit into medium shirts and not XXL shirts (although those are nice for sleeping). They don’t realize that I’ve lost a lot of weight and when I need new pants it’s sweatpants that are absolutely massive on me and are still too big when I have them tied. Sometimes my people will play a fall out boy song (they’re my favorite “emo” band but not my all time favorite band) kinda loud downstairs and see how long it takes me to shout the next lyrics after I realize that it’s fall out boy (I actually have freakishly good hearing when it comes to music but like everything else is like what no im like deaf).

Another thing that I’ve noticed that’s different between the two households is conversations. My parents are super conservative Christian parents. I’ll show my mom a meme and she’s like “well how do you think that makes that person feel that they’re like that” or ill tell a story about something or I’ll be really excited about something and they just look blankly at me or give halfhearted responses. Here, if I’m excited about something, people here get excited about stuff too. We all like different things but also like a lot of similar things. Like, if I wanna talk about my favorite beauty bloggers, I can talk to the person in the room next to mine. If I wanna talk about books I can talk to my roommate. If I wanna talk about video games I can talk to the guy down the hall. If I wanna talk about music I can talk to the youngest bio daughter (there’s ten people in my house btw as opposed to the four and occasionally five if my sister was home from college at my parents house). There’s always people to talk to about stuff. One of them was talking to the three year old the other day and I walked downstairs to get some water or something and I just heard her say “can you say DEEZ NUTZ” (keep in mind the person closest to my age is like 23). The baby was chewing on a toy potato and one of my people was like “hey look it’s you” and another one called me a breadstick so now they call me “carbohydrate” and the conversations are always nice and lively.

I also have a lot more freedom here. If I want to hang out with friends last minute, sure, just let me know where you’re going. If I wanna hang out with my closest (and longest) friend even though he’s a guy, sure, that doesn’t matter. When I decided that I wanted to stop taking birth control (I was only on it because I was on a shit ton of meds when I first got my shark week so it turned into shark month due to all the hormonal imbalances and whatnot and then I stopped taking meds and it’s all regular now) they said “okay just if you ever decide you want to get back on it because you want to do the stuff just let us know”. They let me have friends and do stuff last minute and go out in public to places and like be like a teenager in a book. My parents would freak out if I wanted to hang out with a boy, even with parental supervision and/ or in a group environment (excluding my dnd group but that’s cuz my DM is my best friends cousin and my parents love my best friend). If I wanted to visit a friend, it had to be planned a week in advance and they had to have met that friend beforehand. They had parental restrictions on my computer that banned any websites that were inappropriate for anyone under the age of ten (I’m 16 with a maturity level of a 30 year old for the most part) which made it nearly impossible to do my homework. They encouraged my wanting to do the arts (music, acting, and like drawing art) but if I needed new guitar strings (they’re like $5) they said no or if I wanted to paint they said no because “last time you got paint everywhere” which wasn’t true. If I need guitar strings here, yeah sure, just do a bit extra chores to like “earn the money” or whatever (basic stuff like cleaning the bathroom) and if I want to paint just make sure I clean it up after. Earlier this summer (technically it was still during school) a popular amusement park about two hours from here had its openening weekend and one of my friends asked if I could go and my people were fine with it, I just did a lot of extra chores. We had a two hour car drive, me and this girl who’s my age, and we picked up a couple of her friends and all four of us went to the amusement park without adults. It was kinda weird.

Anyway that got kind of unorganized but my point is:

When I lived with my parents, I was anxious, depressed, and almost always angry.

Now that I live with my people in a more “caring” environment, I’m happier and less stressed and angry, although my anxiety and whatnot still flares up occasionally.

If the people you’re always with are good to you, you’re probably going to be in a better mood and have better physical/ mental health.

If the people you’re always with aren’t all that good to be around, you’re likely to have worse mental/ physical health and be in worse moods.

That was a lot and I apologize but that was really important for me to say that. Also I’m not trying to come off as ungrateful, my parents tried at first but this past year hasn’t been that great for any of us and everything slipped. And whatnot.

[daggerzine]

Deardarkhead’s founding member and drummer, Rob Weiss, give up all the secrets.

Kevin, Rob and John- the current lineup 

South Jersey’s Deardarkhead started as a band shortly after I had started doing this very zine, DAGGER (my first issue was March of 1987 and they began in ‘88). I had met drummer and founding member (and the only original member left) as kids as he grew up down the street from me on the mean streets of Linwood, NJ. Fast forward several years later and Rob is into underground music and forming a band (and working at Sound Odyssey, our local record store in the Shore Mall).

The band was really a breath of fresh air in the South Jersey scene back then as most bands in the scene were either metal or by-the-numbers punk. DDH went across the pond for their influence and gathered it in bands like the Jesus & Mary Chain, Echo & the Bunnymen, Joy Division and many more (many years ago our friendship was further solidified when he told me he was a huge Naked Raygun fan). The band were able to take these influences and create something truly unique. 

Through a myriad of ups and downs and band members, Rob (drums) and guitarist Kevin Harrington (longtime vocalist Michael Amper left nearly a decade ago) hooked up with a bassist last summer, John Bennett and began playing out again and the band is excited about recording new music.

All of the band’s releases had been on their own Fertile Crescent Records, but nearly a decade ago the band got a serious boost when NYC indie label, Captured Track released a compilation of the band’s early days (Oceanside- 1991-1993). It’s a superb compilation and a great place to start for newcomers (of course DDH completists need it as well). In 2016 Texas shoegaze label Saint Marie Records released an EP, Strange Weather. I was a bit hesitant as the EP was their first record as all instrumental, but the songs were so good that I needn’t worry.

As you’ll read below, Rob’s anxious to record more music and hit the stage as well. That makes me excited as I really hope DDH have lots of gas left in the tank.  

When did you first start playing drums? Did you pick up any other instruments?

I started playing drums in 2nd grade, but I had always wanted to play drums since I was in kindergarten. We had a piano in my house and all of my family played, so I grudgingly agreed to take lessons. A friend of my mother's, who was a piano teacher, would come to our house for the lessons. After about three weeks in, during a lesson, I was asked to repeat a song. I asked my teacher if I could use the bathroom first. Minutes and minutes go by, and my mother comes to the bathroom door asking "Rob are you coming out?" My reply was "I want to play drums!" Lesson over, and the rest is history as they say. I started learning to play other instruments when DDH formed in 1988. I got a 4 track and experimented, until I got good enough to write songs on guitar and bass. If you give me an instrument, I'll make music with it. 

Kurt, Mike, Blakely and Rob- the early daze

 What do you remember as the first indie/alternative bands that you began listening to?

I was really getting into New Wave during the last few years of junior high school. Stuff like Blondie, Devo, The Police, The Cars, and The B-52's. I mostly rejected classic rock at the time, as I wasn't too interested in bands that were no longer around. By high school (1982-1986), I was getting into bands like U2, The Cure, Echo and The Bunnymen, Duran Duran, Public Image Limited and INXS. 

 When did you get hired at (South Jersey record store) Sound Odyssey? How long did your tenure there last and what was it like?

I started at Sound Odyssey in 1987. I was going to Stockton State College at the time and had started hanging around WLFR, the college radio station. While I wasn't a DJ myself, I met a lot of like minded people there, including our mutual friend DJ Bob Portella, who was working at Sound Odyssey then. He put in a good word for me and I got the job. Sound Odyssey was a great record store and I'd probably still work there now if it existed! It was a small chain of about seven stores, owned by the Richman Brothers, and for a mall record store it was amazing. We had a bit of everything: vinyl, tapes, cds, imports, 12"s, 45's, videos, t-shirts, posters, guitars, effect pedals, small amps etc. I bought so many records at that store and it was an important, formative period in my musical education. I made a lot of great friends there (both employees and customers). It was definitely a social hub of the time, as there weren't too many record stores in our area. I came in right at the end of the era, and sometime in 1989 it was sold to the British company, W.H. Smith, which turned it into a Wee Three Records and then The Wall. Although it had changed into an average mainstream record store, I continued working there until they shut it down in 1998, but it had moved to the other end of the mall a few years before. After that, I worked at another local record store, CD Warehouse/Exchange, for a few years. 

 Kevin, Rob, Mike and Blakely- aka: the next lineup (Kevin replaced Kurt)

Had you been in any bands before Deardarkhead?

Prior to DDH around 1987-1988, I had started a short-lived band called Aslan's Pride. We were very U2-esque and only played a handful of shows. Blakely Parent, who had recently moved from Baton Rouge to Ocean City, was our bass player and he would go on to be in the initial line up of DDH.

 Tell me about some of your influences. I know you loved a lot of UK stuff like Echo & the Bunnymen and Jesus & Mary Chain but you also loved Naked Raygun.

I'm definitely an Anglophile, as most of my favorite bands are British or from the UK. In terms of my major influences when I started DDH, I'd list: The Cure, U2, Echo and The Bunnymen, The Beatles, Bauhaus, The Police, Joy Division/New Order, The Church, The Psychedelic Furs, The House of Love, The Cocteau Twins, The Jesus and Mary Chain and 4AD/Factory Records/Creation Records in general. While DDH was definitely on the post-punk side of things, we also liked a lot of punk bands: The Dead Kennedys, The Sex Pistols, The Dead Milkmen, The Ramones, The Buzzcocks, Agent Orange etc. I never really got into the hardcore scene, and preferred bands that were more melodic, which is something I've always loved about Naked Raygun. They are totally kick ass, but the songs are very anthemic and super melodic. 

 Tell me about the beginnings of DDH? Was it 1987 (same year I started Dagger)?  Was it you, Mike and Kurt early on?

DDH actually started in 1988, after Aslan's Pride broke up. The original lineup that recorded our first demo "Greetings From The Infernal Village", was Blakely Parent (vocals, rhythm guitar), Kurt Douglass (guitar), Josh Minor (bass), and me (drums and ebow). So Dagger started a year earlier. Frances Avenue, the street you and I both lived on, was pretty happening for South Jersey!

The first recordings- on gold-plated cassette

 Tell me about the revolving lineups? I know Blakely Parent came aboard pretty early on. Who else?

We've had fairly stable lineups over long periods of time, although at this point I'm the only original member. After the initial lineup, Josh Minor left and Michael Amper came onboard in 1990, as our vocalist and rhythm guitarist, with Blakely Parent moving to bass. Kurt Douglass left in 1992, and was replaced by Kevin Harrington, who is our guitarist to date and is a defining element of our sound. Blakely left in 1994 and we continued on as a three piece. The next major change was Amper's departure in 2009. Unable to find a suitable vocalist, Kevin McCauley joined us in 2010 on bass and we became an all instrumental three piece. McCauley departed in early 2019 due to family obligations. We had been on a hiatus for a few years before that, as my mother was sick with Alzheimer's and I was completely overwhelmed dealing with that. She passed in June 2018. Around the end of summer 2019, John Bennett joined us as our bassist, and we've done three shows together since the beginning of 2020. 

 Were the early recordings collaborative or was one person doing a bulk of the writing?

Every DDH record and lineup has been about collaboration. I've always encouraged everyone to contribute ideas. We don't really have one standard way of writing our songs. Sometimes one person will bring in a mostly finished idea or maybe just a few sections and other times we've written tunes after jamming on a riff out of the blue. We tend to spend a lot of time arranging the song structures, so it's definitely a group effort for us.

An early EP- 1992

 Was there a specific studio where you did most of the recording?

Every recording was done in a different studio: 

Greetings from the Infernal Village - my house Linwood, New Jersey Spiral Down and Vibrate - Dekar Studio, Northfield New Jersey Melt Away Too Soon - Audio Plus, Northfield, New Jersey Ultraviolet - The Catbox, Lancaster, Pennsylvania Unlock the Valves of Feeling - The Churchbox, Lancaster, Columbia, Pennsylvania Strange Weather - Miner Street Recordings, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

 The Catbox and The Churchbox were both run by Ken Heitmueller and Jay Sorrentino of Suddenly, Tammy!

 Did the band tour back them (or now)? What’s the furthest away you’ve played?

We've pretty much stuck to the East Coast, as we've never had any label support. We mainly concentrated on putting out our own records.

 Who are some of the bigger names you’ve opened up for?

The Psychedelic Furs, Supergrass, The Lilys, Everclear. 

 How do you feel about the early recordings? I still think the Melt Away Too Soon EP is really great.

We've always tried to make the best recordings we could, with what we had at the moment. Since we never really had any record label money behind us, we had to pay for all the studio time out of pocket. Most songs were done in a few takes with minimal overdubs. Constraints are a good thing, as you can get lost in infinite possibilities. I think we always sound like DDH, no matter what the lineup is, but I do feel there has been a continuous evolution of our sound over time. I'm proud of every record we have released, and feel lucky to have worked with so many talented people. 

The Captured Tracks compilation

 Tell me about the Captured Tracks collection, Oceanside: 1991-1993. What year was that and how did it come about?

That came out in 2011. I was at home one summer day, when I got a call from Mike Sniper from Captured Tracks. He wanted to know if we would be interested in having our early recordings released as a compilation, which would be part of a series called The Shoegaze Archives. The idea was to shine a light on American bands, from the late 80's to early 90's, that were working in a similar vein as their British contemporaries, (eg. Lush, Ride etc.), but never got the same attention. We were the second release in the series and all of the tracks were remastered with sleeve artwork featuring photography I took, that we used to project on stage when playing.  Overall, it was a great experience in terms of exposing an entirely new crowd of people to what DDH has been doing all along. Mike Sniper and the entire Captured Tracks staff were wonderful to work with and we are big fans of many of the bands on the label. Thanks again for contributing liner notes, we were honored!

 Your most recent EP is the vocal-less Strange Weather EP Saint Marie Records, the Texas shoegaze label. How did that come about? Will you do more stuff with that label?

After we finished the recording, I shopped it around for the better part of a year with some labels I thought might be a good fit. Wyatt Parkins, from Saint Marie Records, responded favorably and we worked together to get the release out in March 2016. We'd love to do another record with Saint Marie, but that's up to the label.  Strange Weather, certainly got some of the best reviews we've ever had, however being a instrumental, shoegazer/dreampop/post-punk/indie rock three piece is a hard sell for a lot of folks. That said, DDH always finds a way to keep doing our thing. 

Strange Weather EP- 2016/ Saint Marie Records

 Bring us up to what the band is doing currently. Is there a new vocalist yet? Any new recordings? Shows?

As I mentioned in the lineup question, we played three shows in Atlantic City during January and February 2020, with our new bassist. We played out one new tune and had started working on more material when the Coronavirus pandemic hit. Everything is up in the air until that blows over, but ideally we'd like to write new songs, play more shows, and hopefully make another record sooner than later.

 Who are some of your current favorite bands?

There is always a ton of stuff I'm checking out every day, but some of my heavy rotation lately includes: Ringo Deathstarr, Cigarettes After Sex, Khruangbin, Wild Nothing, Tycho, DIIV, Washed Out, The Horrors, Destroyer, Arctic Monkeys, Pinkshinyultrablast, The Wants, Tara, Seablite, Sulk, Feet, Hatchie, Southpacific, Beabadoobee, Slowdive, Ride.

 What are your top 10 desert island discs?

Let me just say, as a hard core music junkie, narrowing it down to only 10 choices is next to impossible! This is the hardest question ever, and on any given day you might get a slightly different list. Here are ten records I adore, and still listen to regularly, in no specific order:

 The Police, Zenyatta Mondatta

The La's, The La's

My Bloody Valentine, Loveless

The Cure, Disintegration

Miles Davis, Kind of Blue

Echo and the Bunnymen, Songs to Learn and Sing

The Dukes of Stratosphear, Chips from the Chocolate Fireball

U2, War

Slowdive, Souvlaki

The Cocteau Twins, Treasure

Still destroying stages  (and women’s hearts)

Final thoughts? Closing comments? Anything you wanted to mention that I didn’t ask?

Thanks for asking me to do the interview. I feel like it could easily go on as long as Jack Rabid's Big Takeover interviews with The Chameleons! For those of you who have never heard of us, please check us out at: www.deardarkhead.com

 Bonus questions; What’s the weirdest fan letter or strangest thing you have ever received in the mail regarding the band?

We never got any super weird fan letters, however since we put out the majority of our recordings on our own label, Fertile Crescent Records, we'd get a demo submission now and then. I recall getting a tape from a rap artist in our area early on. I of course politely replied saying that we were in no position to sign any artists and even if we were, rap certainly wasn't our area of expertise. For all I know it was one of my smart ass friends winding me up, as it was pretty bad. If that was the case, they never let me in on the joke!

A few recent flyers.

If you missed it, all things DDH can be found at www.deardarkhead.com