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great moments in home t-shirt stenciling

the stooges, circa 2003

i never imagined, say 10 years ago, that i'd find myself at 26 living in a regional centre and posting photos of my home grown vegetables on a blog that nobody reads...



...i guess time has a way of changing people

oh my gaud

one of these mustangs belongs to kevin shields, the other to shakira...



... but which is which???

get yr coffee cup offa my coffee table!

acquired something i’ve lusted after for a short while during the week: the velvet underground – new york art, a beautifully presented monograph on probably my favourite band of all time.

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edited by johan kugelberg and published by rizzoli, its a fantastic collection of vu ephemera. it's got all the famous photos of the group playing, rehearsing, posing, and relaxing, plus a whole heap i’d never seen before. ditto flyers. and i think this is my new favourite picture of nico...

then there’s all the extras, lou’s early singles and pickwick lps, piero heliczer and angus maclise’s poetry journals, slide projections from the epi shows, original sheet music for the early songs, newspaper and magazine reviews from the time, articles by lester bangs, richard meltzer, sterling morrison, new and old interviews, and a lengthy timeline starting with delmore schwartz’s birth in 1935, and ending with the 2007 exhibition that spawned the book. it’s well split too, the cale years take up a fair chunk of it, but the post-cale years get a good look-in. jonathan richman’s photos of the band live in 1968 or so are great. stripped of the psychedelic lighting, they look like the kind of fan-photos of shows you see all the time on the net.

i dunno, i just think they’re amazingly sweet. not to mention the photos of them playing on the basketball court at the university of maryland.

“ladies and gentleman, the greatest band in the world... EVER!”

anyway, i could gush for a long time about this book. and i’ve probably overlooked a shitload out of sheer excitement. suffice to say if you’re a velvets fan, don’t hesitate.

i did find it interesting that there’s minimal input from john cale. apart from a promo interview transcript from 1967, there’s no ‘new’ words form jc (the book opens with a conversation between lou and maureen, in which lou is full of nothing but praise for mo). AND in all the interviews, lou’s responses jump out in bold text, while everyone elses words are left untouched. who the hell really edited this book??? hehe, it's all pretty funny, especially if you saw the dec ’09 issue of uncut, which promoted the book with a cover story interviewing john cale and maureen tucker. cale gives hilarious a love-hate (mostly hate) spiel on lou, highlighting all his bad points and making special note of how Lou “threw himself into” the gay scene at the factory. it's top shelf bitchiness, and well worth tracking down.

so to throw some light on john cale, here he is doing amazing things to a vox continental organ in 1967, off another all time favourite album. enjoy!

1961

Joe Esposito sat on a red leather sofa in Graceland, peeling a banana.

“I can’t shake ‘em no more, Joe” said Elvis

“Whaddya mean King?” asked Joe.

“My legs Diamond... my legs. I just can’t do it no more” replied Elvis. “Ever since that plane flight. Something happened up there Joe.”

“Ah come on King, we talked about this. It was just a weather balloon or some shit. You’re tired, that’s all, forget about it. You can shake your legs all you want. Nothing happened on the plane.”

Elvis’ pet chimp Scatter rode in on a tricycle, and started eyeing Joe. Joe stared back, and mouthed the words ‘no way.’

“There’s something I never told you before Joe. Something I never told anyone.”

Joe was still staring down Scatter. He said “Oh yeah?” without knowing truly who he was addressing.

“Yeah man. I seen those lights before. It was 1954. We were on some radio show after ‘That’s All Right’ came out. People were phoning in all night. We got booked to do our first shows. It was crazy man. I went outside for a cigarette. Then I saw it...”

“You piece of fucking shit chimp!” yelled Joe. Scatter had grabbed his banana, taking ¾ of it and leaving one mashed piece in Joe’s hand.

“God dammit Joe are you even listening!?” demanded Elvis.

“Sure King, ‘That’s All Right’, I love that song” replied Joe. He swung his arm at Scatter but missed him.

“No man, the lights! They blinded me man, I damn near had a heart attack!”

“It was probably just a truck or something King. You were confused, that was a wild time for you, remember?”

“No man, it was something else. My legs, they just started shaking! The boys came out, they thought I was acting the fool or something. I couldn’t control it! I was so scared, I just pretended I was playing.”

Joe wiped the remainder of the banana into a tissue. He threw it on the coffee table. “Then what happened King?”

“Then every time we played, it happened. My legs, they just went crazy. It was like a power, but I couldn’t control it. It just happened, you understand? Until...”

“Until?”

“Until that plane flight Joe. Over Italy. Those were the same lights man. And now it’s gone. I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”

“Relax King,” said Joe. “Like I said, you’re tired, you been working too hard. We’ll take a trip to Vegas and it’ll all be alright, you’ll shake ‘em again, you’ll see. You’re just stressed, that’s all.”

“Maybe I am Joe, maybe I am...”

Elvis slumped on the opposite sofa, and stared blankly into the shag carpet. Scatter eyed the tissue on the coffee table.

Meanwhile, in Italy...

from the archives of hot rock axion.

found this via waxidermy. will make you :-) and maybe even lol.

two excellent pieces of news this week.
1. eddy current suppression ring will be releasing a new album soon! first song sounds good (get it here). can't wait.
2. jandek is bringing the funk to australia. and playing in adelaide! apparently its the trio w/ david keenan and heather leigh murray that toured northern ireland. volcanic tongue merch stall? yes please!

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labels for this post: big, turtles, humping, drooling

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