Reissues (Again) and An Apology

So, um, sorry to be constantly talking about reissues and what have you lately, but I just saw that Drag City is reissuing the first two Royal Trux albums on vinyl. While this might not mean that much to many people out there, Twin Infinitives is one of my top ten favorite albums of all time ever (a list I've thought about making recently for once), and I've been dreaming of owning it on vinyl a lot (when I'm not dreaming of somehow transforming it into a woman who would love me forever and always amen). Alas, I am poor, sadly. However, after January 20, I will definitely be about $36 (+S&H) poorer. Unless someone buys it for me? Please? Maybe I could set up a webcam and people could watch me for ca$h. Oh, who am I kidding; the world's servers would crash from the increased internet traffic that webcam would cause and I would never make any money.

Here's a video of Royal Trux doing what they do best (being strung-out and awesome):



Also, I am finally watching The Wire like the sad white person I am. It does make me sorta want to move to Baltimore though? Although, to be fair, every time I watch a movie/tv show about a certain city I think "Hm, that place looks pretty all right; I wonder what it's like to live there? I bet it would actually be pretty sweet!" After that, I generally read the Wikipedia article on the city and then try to memorize all the neighborhoods and the crime rates and the demographic figures (Baltimore's population has increased 2% since 2000! I was surprised...) and what have you and then cry because this is what I am doing with my college education. Actually there are a few places I never have this feeling for:
1.Detroit
Thinking of this city reminds me of how I felt when I was a kid watching Sesame Street and Big Bird would do something really dumb and fail and everyone would be really mean to him and I would cry because I too was oversized and misunderstood and wont to make mistakes. Just like Detroit.
2. Africa
Probably due to the racist media, I am afraid of all the murder and tropical heat. Also, under the same criteria, I would place Houston, although not too many movies are set there. I mean, I know Africa isn't a city (it's a country obviously, har har) but every African city I've seen portrayed, from Johannesburg, to Cairo, from Casablanca (fuckin' Nazis everywhere...) to Nairobi, etc. seems pretty terrible.
3. Sydney, Australia
Ever notice that Australians are like the world's version of rednecks but with more hilarious accents and funnier hats? Essentially, they are hillbillies that drink more beer and do less meth. Ergo, it should seem like Sydney should at least be an amusing place. But once the laughter stops, what's left beyond that Opera House thing and a bunch of animals that can kill you in less than 10 minutes? Also, what's the deal with those gigantic eagles they got down there?
4. That city in River's Edge
I guess this applies to most representations of small towns in movies. They remind me of where I grew up, and I don't often need a reminder of that.
5. Every city in China
Except for Hong Kong, doye.
6. Every square inch of the state of Florida
Nothing could ever make me want to move there.


Also, sorry the pictures have gotten lazy lately.

Crosses (Sorta) and Punk

Sorry to be on a long-term tangent about this sorta stuff (i.e. 80's hardcore-ish musesicks), but to follow up on the Flipper post earlier, I found a Die Kreuzen interview with all these performances on YouTube so I figured I'd post some of the choice ones. Die Kreuzen, for some reason, hasn't really earned as much posthumous praise as bunch of their contemporaries (probably because they got pretty shitty after their first couple of releases...), but I'm glad to have found this evidence to point out the injustice of this willful collective ignorance. (Also, notice how the Kreuzen boys lie about not being violent! PUNK IS VIOLENCE! At least that's what I read somewhere. In a book. Or something).








Also, here's a video of Siege wherein THE LEAD SINGER IS TOO INTENSE FOR THE SOUND SYSTEM TO HANDLE! SO HIS VOCALS JUST SOUND LIKE GROWLY STATIC*! Oh... I understand now... (if only....)



*NB: I know Siege is not technically grindcore, but they're sorta proto-maybe-innovators maybe? Please?

New Years and Bloom

Well this was certainly unexpected, but greatly appreciated. I do wonder how exactly this interview came to happen? It certainly isn't a coupling I would ever have imagined, but it's a surprisingly interesting interview, although one wonders if Bloom actually knew the context (i.e. Vice) in which he would be presented.

There is something overly reverential in the mode of presentation and questioning here (especially for Vice), but that's probably the only way to get Harold Bloom to talk this candidly and openly (is it just me, or does he seem a little paranoid about his standing in academia?). I have a sort of ambivalent relationship with Bloom anyway: I greatly admire his scholarship, and during that brief era of time people thought of him as part of the Yale School or whatever, his writings were up there with some of the best theorists and critics of all time (along with his colleagues, though I suppose we aren't supposed to like that dirty Nazi Paul de Man anymore, eh?#). But, as his writings increasingly addressed a wider audience (especially The Western Canon etc.) he seems to have diluted a lot of his previous work to a position of the ornery contrarian. And yet, those books are still a good read and very informative in their own way, so there you go. I just never thought I'd see an interview with him in Vice? Rereading it though, it makes more sense, as there is an attempt to present him as some sort of "rebel" (which Vice loves) but Bloom's too loquacious and quick to let the interviewer to present him as such. Oh well, interesting read, even after one gets over the incongruity in its placement.
Also, Happy New Year. Please give me a job.
# I suppose this is the kind of thinking which Bloom opposes in the interview. Kudos me! Also, I think it's about time we started reading de Man again. For serious.