Things are looking great for fall! We have six new books lined up with subjects that include Peruvian and Flemish poetry translations (super cool, trust us!), perspectives of a NYC billboard painter, essays of an American father in Prague, a scathing novel on the link between suburban malaise and…
The Western Mass debut of Lance Bangs’ Slint documentary.
Event here: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152264407101145&set=gm.1401665990097308&type=1&theater
Since my book on the Minutemen’s album “Double Nickels on the Dime” was published in 2007, I’ve always known when it was pitch season for the 33 1/3 series because friends – and friends of friends, and complete strangers – have written to me asking for help and advice. This year’s deadline is fast…
My second novel ‘Swing State’ will be published this fall by Three Rooms Press.
Another Casualty of War
There are no men
standing by the fireplace, no rats
racing across the ceiling, no enemy
invading the house or the yard.
It is the illness, they tell me;
the illness, I tell my mother
until she can barely stand
the sound of the word, until
neither of us…
Book punx unite! Saturday 3/8/14 at Flywheel, Easthampton MA
Review: “Elastic Smile,” by Great Western Plain
Molly and Leopold Bloom, at the end of Ulysses, curled up in the bed all yin-yang style amidst a mess of kicked-off covers, after Joyce has put the reader through the wringer of shifting styles and narrative tones.
That book was a slog, often infuriating, yet it’s still considered one of the greats. This leads, of course, to the question: What do we want as an audience? I wonder about it sometimes, as I talk to my classes about music, or try to. By turn, they either have no idea what I’m talking about when I mention something I think is obvious or surprise me when the obscure gags I think I’m making for my own amusement somehow work. AC/DC flies over their heads, but Gainesville pop-punk sticks. I can’t figure it out.
I think it has something to with the way we listen to music. It’s fragmented into videos, ringtones, whatever, and then, in optimal cases, reassembled – either that or it’s just aped. Sometimes it’s with purpose and intention, others it’s just because “hey, I bet we can do ________.” You know this.
Both have pros and cons, certainly. And make no mistake: I love seeing few-and-far-between bands that sound like Boys Life or whoever. I ‘ve listened to all the bands playing in the emo revival looking for credible swipes of my late-90’s, pre-Dashboard rustbelt favorites. But I’m coming to understand that the same criteria still apply now as did in the past: it’s way more fun, and more rewarding, to follow trajectories rather than always looking for the New Thing.
This review comes in a week where Brick Mower’s stuff is getting some prerelease buzz, and Mark Kozelek is finding another peak in his twenty-five year cycle. It’s great: already six weeks into the year and awesome new records are popping up at a manageable-but-intense rate (or is it the other way around?). It’s nice, too, that bands I like are involved, because ultimately, despite the contentmongers and Upworthy hooks and screaming demands for clicks, this is all about conversation. The generalist in me tries to keep half an eye on everything so that I can talk to far-flung friends in bars about the latest flame, but what I really want to do is argue about the way things have evolved (rather than the way things have changed – there’s a difference).
So the fourth official release by Portland ME’s Great Western Plain fit right into this conversation: their career (though they would probably never call it that) scattered across boring miles of highway and and umpteen other bands, is easily recognizable as self-contained even as it shifts. Certainly there’s Tim’s guitar tone, which is both inviting and every bit as brittle as that Lloyd-y bit in “Kidsmoke,” and there’s Tony, who musta sank cash into both drumhead stock and supernumerary research for all the ferocity with which he pounds away back there, and there’s Mikey P with basslines conjured straight outta WMA, a fleece dream (see what I did there?) of Dinosaur and Sebadoh.
But there’s the progression, too, despite the familiarity. Their first one, “Moustache Eye Patch,” was shambly and seemingly held together by so much duct tape and the centripedal force of accelerating ideas, a less smug “Wowee Zowee.” From there it was the primal scream therapy of “Don’t Cook Off The Alcohol” to this past summer’s “Lure and Kitsch/Flutter And Slack,” which refined their pop process and shed some of the earlier tropes – Tim, for one, abandoned (or perhaps stepped out from behind) the nasal twang of the previous recs, now (really) singing in a breathy, direct drawl.
Turns out that the summer’s terse pop gems were just the hook, the lure into the suckerpunch foreshadowed by the “Youth of America”-ish sprawl of December’s (wait for it…) “Wipers” single. “Elastic Smile,” as is turns out, works to both negate and reinforce the previous records: the familiar tones and extra limbs and fuzz are all still there, but with different intent. This is announced right up front in “Thom,” perhaps a nod to the departed (to New York) guitarist of the late, lamented Whip Hands: twelve minutes influenced as much by the holy trio of Faust, Neu! and Can as by any of the previously namedropped acts. Sure, this is recognizably the same Great Western Plain, but hold it up against “Alcohol,” say, and the difference is staggeringly declared: we were there, and it was cool, but now we’re here – deal with it.
Not to say there’s no hooks here –the twentysomething riot of “Buhrlynn in a Rainy Day” is rife with ‘em, both vocally and musically, and the fourth-floor walk-up “Lights are Loud” is a yeastie swagger, to name two. And not to say it’s change for the sake of it. These records document purpose and intention. They’re part of the band’s evolution, incessant and honest, as they ingest and synthesize ideas. It’s no coincidence that a bassline which sounds not entirely unlike a break from the Minutemen’s “Glory of Man” ends the record – if you’re listening closely, you’ll recognize it as the same bassline that begins “Thom.” You know that trick, right? “Double Nickels” uses it. So does “Infinite Jest.” It’s commitment to progression, a Mobius strip: Molly and Leopold Bloom, at the end of Ulysses, curled up in the bed all yin-yang style amidst a mess of kicked-off covers, after Joyce has put the reader through the wringer of shifting styles and narrative tones.
Michael T. Fournier
Cabildoquarterly.blogspot.com
Not counting their first, non-canonical Orono opus: Cunnane, get that lathe and we’ll print our own currency on this one !
See ‘em on tour: 2/14/2014 @ The Candy Barrel, New Brunswick, NJ
https://www.facebook.com/events/255937681229535/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming
2/15/2014 The Holy Undergroundnderground, Baltimore, MD
https://www.facebook.com/events/1396886577232905/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming
2/16/2014 @ Nacho House, West Phily, PA
https://www.facebook.com/events/1455561628000743/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming
2/17/2014 @ The Dunes Washington, DC
https://www.facebook.com/events/481229321989649/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming
2/19/2014 @ The Silent Barn Brooklyn, NY
https://www.facebook.com/events/395910537213203/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming
2/20/2014 Kristina’s World, Providence, RI
https://www.facebook.com/events/225006227683262/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming
2/21/2014 @ Hotel Vernon Worcester, MA
https://www.facebook.com/events/649727355083405/?ref_dashboard_filter=upcoming
2/22/2014 @ The Monkey House Winooski, VT
2/23/2014 @ The Whitehaus Family Record JP, Boston, MA
Cabildo Quarterly seeks short fiction submissions.
We’re looking for previously unpublished literary stuff, up to 3000 words, for our broadsheet journal and/or webpage.
We’re not crazy about genre submissions, fantasy, or sci-fi. We are interested in flash fiction, literary fiction and weird, innovative stuff.
Send your submissions to cabildoquarterly [nospamnospam123] at the gmail.
Thanks!
GRAY WILLOW
It starts in bud, the false willow,
tender as the babies the tomcat got.He lined them up on my doorstep
like toy soldiers, throats slashed.Because they were so tiny,
I thought of paper cuts, insult’s welling sting.I put them in a paper sack for drowning
down the black well of…
Minutes: “Roland”
I tried everything in my formative music years. No, not like that – get your mind out of the gutter. What I’m talking about here is styles, genres. My fanzine reading, the real entrée into punk rock, was as broad as I could make it – it was cheaper, after all, to read zines than to buy records blind as we waited for bands to come to New Hampshire (or tried to bum rides to Boston). Sometimes it was consensus amongst the swath, or sometimes it was some trusted arbiter throwing out a recommendation. Get burned a few times and pull names from the list; hit a few out of the park and keep reading.
You know it goes: listening, after a time, becomes vetting. Screaming no, time changes yes, melody please. The sweet spot, the wheelhouse, is hard to pin down, but it’s there. Or was there, anyway – the very specific brand of band that makes me sit up and say “this is exactly it,” I thought, was exclusively a thing of the past. Or so I thought until this band Minutes blipped across my radar screen. Goddamn.
The specifics of what makes this band so good are many. This is cerebral music, certainly, but the band is unafraid to wear many hats: “In Your Own Fuel” is a straight-charging, four-on-the-floor pounder, all party rock and cymbals, widened in scope by dual vox and a subtle guitar line sneakily snaking behind it all. This duality is at work throughout the rec: Minutes knows, and loves, the vocal trick where the sung vocals are deadpanned while the backing vocals are shouted, behind, in a higher pitch for extra emphasis, as in “Boxes.” “I’ve Learned To Roll,” manages to play simultaneously languid and taut thanks to a guitar line which wouldn’t sound out of place on the Instrument soundtrack. “All Is For The Best” feels like Sonic Youth suddenly unconcerned with distortion or alternate tunings. And “Raise Our Fists Up!” Seriously one of the songs of the year all year: anthemic without being an anthem, tight dueling guitars forming notes where there are none, and that abrupt end, another trick the band knows and loves – get in, say it, and get out. (Minutes – get it?) If you hear some DC in your Kalamazoo, you’re right, as Ryan Nelson, he of Most Secret Method, one of my favorites, is here.
The only negative here is that the band has been around for a while, and I missed them. Don’t make the same mistake.
Michael T. Fournier/cabildoquarterly.tumblr.com
Minutes: “Roland”
I tried everything in my formative music years. No, not like that – get your mind out of the gutter. What I’m talking about here is styles, genres. My fanzine reading, the real entrée into punk rock, was as broad as I could make it – it was cheaper, after all, to read zines than to buy records blind as we waited for bands to come to New Hampshire (or tried to bum rides to Boston). Sometimes it was consensus amongst the swath, or sometimes it was some trusted arbiter throwing out a recommendation. Get burned a few times and pull names from the list; hit a few out of the park and keep reading.
You know it goes: listening, after a time, becomes vetting. Screaming no, time changes yes, melody please. The sweet spot, the wheelhouse, is hard to pin down, but it’s there. Or was there, anyway – the very specific brand of band that makes me sit up and say “this is exactly it,” I thought, was exclusively a thing of the past. Or so I thought until this band Minutes blipped across my radar screen. Goddamn.
The specifics of what makes this band so good are many. This is cerebral music, certainly, but the band is unafraid to wear many hats: “In Your Own Fuel” is a straight-charging, four-on-the-floor pounder, all party rock and cymbals, widened in scope by dual vox and a subtle guitar line sneakily snaking behind it all. This duality is at work throughout the rec: Minutes knows, and loves, the vocal trick where the sung vocals are deadpanned while the backing vocals are shouted, behind, in a higher pitch for extra emphasis, as in “Boxes.” “I’ve Learned To Roll,” manages to play simultaneously languid and taut thanks to a guitar line which wouldn’t sound out of place on the Instrument soundtrack. “All Is For The Best” feels like Sonic Youth suddenly unconcerned with distortion or alternate tunings. And “Raise Our Fists Up!” Seriously one of the songs of the year all year: anthemic without being an anthem, tight dueling guitars forming notes where there are none, and that abrupt end, another trick the band knows and loves – get in, say it, and get out. (Minutes – get it?) If you hear some DC in your Kalamazoo, you’re right, as Ryan Nelson, he of Most Secret Method, one of my favorites, is here.
The only negative here is that the band has been around for a while, and I missed them. Don’t make the same mistake.
Michael T. Fournier
Cabildoquarterly.tumblr.com
Scars
The crescent moon shaped scar
on my thumb shows a sliver
of lighter skin between the dark.My brother’s pocket knife slipped
beneath my skin just above
the knuckle and below the nail.Blood flowed over the rusted blade
warming the metal, welcoming
it into my body, making room.I pass…
Michael Fournier’s book on the Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime…
Hurricanes of Love: “Quintorian Blues” 2x LP (Feeding Tube Records)
You can’t blame me for being initially skeptical of the Hurricanes of Love.
I first encountered HoL when I went to a house show a few days after I painted the name of my 80’s throwback hardcore band — in Crass-y stencil…
I wrote the first post for Katy Otto’s new music blog, about growing up and discovering punk. Check it out!
Hypin’ Katie Lattari’s piece in the fifth print issue of Cabildo Quarterly.
The Unexpected
Cherries hold
their pits
in defianceTulips
are saddest
before they bloomLike butter
that softens in the sun
and spoilsthe heart not listening
for the unexpected
wiltsSong of Another
On the days when I am not myself, I am
my aching face, my injured foot, my swollen…
The fifth print issue of Cabildo Quarterly — featuring new poetry and fiction from Kathleen Ellis, Katie Lattari, Bruce Pratt, Mike DeCapite and Analise Jakimides — is available now for free in and around greater Belchertown MA and Pittsburgh PA.
It’s also available online through .pdfcast and issuu. Dig it!
The prospect of listening to the new Black Flag record – the first new studio LP from the band since 1986’s “In My Head” – is fraught with static from all sides. If you’re anything like me, you watched, with something between duty and determination, the videos which popped up this summer as…
Nighthawks
Slicing into thought itself,
stringing flight noiselesslythrough thick yellow light that hunkers
over the asphalt, the tall illuminations,the pallid sky––between Interstate and motel,
unnoticed mostly, the moth-eaters convene,ambitious, fast, exuberant––
releasing hunger into…
