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Showing posts from May, 2011

GIG: Mountain Goats @ King Tut's, 29/5/11

(c) Atmz (2011) " ...the truest stories are the ones that aren't factual at all ." - JD, with a stage wink and a half-turn I suppose I'm ashamed to admit my shock at finding John Darnielle to be such a happy man. I suppose I'm surprised because much of his old stuff deals in abjection - and even the recent stuff is deceptively cheerful. They open in matching suits with a slightly lounge take on 'Jeff Davis County Blues' - but he knows it's lounge. (He seems always to know what he's up to, which makes criticism of this band a joy). Playlist of the set here He gapes and grins with silent mania on the fast numbers - like Jim Carrey in his darker moments , or Tommy Cooper's thoughtful ones . He's thus quite the actor, since each song is a day in a different character's head. (And usually a bad day, but spiritualized in its bleakness.) He keeps throwing his head back - half to keep his glasses on while thrashing his guitar,

INTERVIEW: Alistair McIntosh, land reform activist, professor in human ecology, urban clansman

(c) Médiathèque Lafarge " McIntosh can reference a Celtic faerie story, a Bible verse, a newspaper article and a psychology study all on the same page. I think that’s wonderful, but I’m reminded of a comment that I got back on one of my essays at university: that it was interesting, but I “ should avoid the metaphysical flights of fancy ”. That lecturer would miss the point of Soil and Soul entirely, because the message of the book is inseparable from the style in which it is written ..." - Jeremy Williams Alistair McIntosh has been campaigning for social and ecological justice in all kinds of places (Eigg, Govan, Quebec, Papua New Guinea, Menie), with all kinds of work (liberation theology, editorials, speaking tours, poetry, hand-crafted longboats for inner-city kids) for a long whilie now. Sparked by experiences teaching in newly independent Papua New Guinea in the 70s, McIntosh has pushed a number of distinctly Scottish projects: the Govan Folk University, the GalGael Tr

Listen Cloze: "Lonely Woman" by Ornette Coleman

on a job application for a position i never got i once put down "ornette coleman" as "kin to notify" because of that song he made: "lonely woman" tho i'm sure he stole those sound-tears from someone he had hurt, made cry-- cause no man has ever really felt like that - Kalamu ya Salaam FOR REAL JAZZ MUSIC LOVERS ONLY. ENJOY THE ART ." - injunction on the video for Zorn's cover, below God there's so much hippy chat cloaked around jazz. (Tales of the otherworldly and interworldly .) Too often it's a druggy, emptily radical space. This spooks a lot of people away. (Dizzy Gillespie called it "mess" music.) But the cosmic pseudo-philosophy is the least interesting thing about it. There's so much scary technicality around jazz. (Tales of the diatonic and aleatoric.) This spooks a lot of people away. (Dizzy Gillespie called it "mess" music.) The intellectualisation is probably overcompensation;