SOME TABS I'VE GOT OPEN IN THE BROWSER

Lots to chew on in this BOMB Magazine interview with 75 DOLLAR BILL.

I wanna buy this book. Speaking of which, there was also a BOMB Magazine interview with its author, John Corbett. Lots to chew on there too, especially if you like records. (I'm pretty sure you like records.) LOTS of great interviews in BOMB Magazine besides these.

Buncha truly great mixes by Mixcloud user Tristes Tropiques, aka Jon Dale, the music writer who brought you the absolutely utterly crucial "Story of UK DIY: 131 experimental underground classics from 1977-1985" piece for Fact Magazine, and many more over the years. On his Mixcloud account, you might as well start with the Have You Checked The Children series, a very extensive historical survey of the New Zealand post-punk underground. (But hey: be careful on that site and pay attention to the track listing because you can't rewind! Once you start a mix, it has to play until the end before you can hear a song again.)

The Dusted Magazine Listed feature with Ben Chasny of Six Organs of Admittance which hipped me to said Mixcloud, as well as Joe McPhee's crazy "Cosmic Love."

The song "Snerl," by Wallsockets, which was released in New Zealand in 1981, I discovered on Have You Checked The Children #1 in 2016, and is my new favorite song. "I'm not a human at all / I'm really not a human at all / I'm a snerl / I'm a snerl."

The Wikipedia page for the album Songs of Leonard Cohen, which confirms that the haunting female vocals on "Suzanne" (and two other songs, you probably know which) were sung by the mother of Christina Applegate, which I only found out because sometimes I fall into deep late-night-talk-show celebrity-interview YouTube rabbit holes and I watched a clip of Ms. Applegate on the Jimmy Kimmel show tell stories of her childhood in which she kept name-checking Stephen Stills' Manassas.

Before Mondrian, Native American Women Painted Abstract Art On Saddlebags

Neoliberalism - the ideology at the root of all our problems

OK, that's all, I can lose these and restart this damn computer now...

 

One bright side of the sad news about Prince is all of the videos currently on YouTube, which wasn't always the case. As far as I can tell the actual LP tracks are still hard to find, which I support (buy used LPs, unless they spike in price like Bowie's, and I think all of his music is available on Tidal), especially if random live clips like this one (Live at the Brits in 2006) are allowed to sprout up overnight like glowing purple Spanish moss. Watching all of these has been a great way to rediscover and pay tribute to the man, seeing him rip so many scorching guitar solos, all of his dance moves, how he controls the song and the stage. It doesn't matter if he was making good albums or not, or whatever kind of embattled and/or fallen-off era it was in his career, his live performances were always a force of nature, all notes essential (Neil Young was also like this onstage, throughout the 80s and 90s and always, see the A Perfect Echo fan compilation for proof). I still don't plan to really listen to any of the seemingly 30 albums Prince released since the last one I paid attention too (The Love Symbol Album from 1992), but here's a performance from 2006, right in the thick of what I honestly then perceived as his grand old superstar irrelevance, and it's just goddamn great. He starts out with some MOR Santana knockoff that he had released that year, just the kind of song I was avoiding at the time, and he's playing and singing and dancing every single note like it's the most important one ever. It's not a great song, but it's still stunning just how great this dude is/was, and his bands were always superb too. I don't know who the drummer and bassist are here, but he's got Sheila E. on percussion and is reunited with Wendy & Lisa. Ms. Melvoin really is a tight-as-hell rhythm guitarist, and Ms. Coleman picks up right where she left off, suffusing the music with ethereal elegant background beauty. And who else would also have three Barbarellas in diaphanous blue dancing next to him, with one of them turning out to be a heavy background singer on "Purple Rain"? No one else.

Many other videos are recommended, such as a completely bombastic 2011 version of "The Beautiful Ones" on George Lopez, in which he gives equal billing to Misty Copeland, the future Principal Ballerina of the American Ballet Theater, and holds his own. Or the way he jives with the crowd in this solo acoustic set, or goes full Joni in this one. Or this scorching version of "Bambi" from 1990. There's lots more (all the interviews too), but one video I don't enjoy is the SNL after party. Just a little too #fratty, although it does rule when Prince says "Dearly inebriated..." (BTW, I suspect that Mark and Brix may have been intentionally channeling the Revolution in this 1988 performance, just wanted to get that off my chest.)

WBLSTD 66.6 FM - IMAGINARY RADIO - 4/10/2016 PLAYLIST

Tom Recchion "The Real Strungaphone" (Cortical Foundation/RRR)
Townes Van Zandt "Kathleen" (Poppy)
Royal Trux "Shockwave Rider" (Drag City)
Jackie Mittoo "Choice of Music" (Studio One)
D'Angelo "One Mo'Gin" (Virgin/Cheeba Sound)
Scorpions "Yellow Raven" (RCA)
Lightning Bolt "Dream Genie" (Thrill Jockey)
Folk Implosion "Raise the Bells" (London)
Husker Du "The Tooth Fairy and the Princess" (SST)
Pink Floyd "Another Brick In The Wall Part 1" (edit) (Columbia)
Pink Floyd "On The Run" (Harvest)
Bridget St. John "To B Without A Hitch" (Elektra)
Wire "Midnight Bahnhof Cafe" (Rough Trade)
Aphex Twin "21 Forgotten T" (Soundcloud user48736353001)
Stars of the Lid "Piano Aquieu" (Kranky) 
Alice Coltrane "A Love Supreme" (Impulse!) 
Ash Ra Tempel "Le Bruit Des Origines" (Manikin)
75 Dollar Bill "Hollis Brown" (Other Music)
Christina Carter "Live at Upset the Rhythm" (Youtube)
Whitney "No Matter Where We Go" (Lead Riders)
De La Soul "In The Woods" (Tommy Boy)