How on Earth did I miss out on this one? Ian Astbury must have been on haitus from The Cult while making this track for the electronic music group U.N.K.L.E. His voice is in very good form here, and U.N.K.L.E. provide a perfect backdrop for it.
Alternative
[Video] Dream Syndicate – Loving the Sinner, Hating the Sin
It seems that The Dream Syndicate, who are local boys in my current neck of the woods, are getting back together again for a series of performances. It’s hard to believe this is about two-and-a-half decades old now. Good for Steve Wynn and company reuniting!
[Video] Cremadelic – Cherry
Julio Gutiérrez (Cremadelic in this guise) has few side projects which will eventually be featured on these pages. This one is something akin to shoegaze music touching base with IDM.
Mexican Mods Helped Reshape the Cartel-Ravaged City of Tijuana
Music and subculture as escapism. My friends Ted and Orlando posted this same link a few days ago, and I wanted to share it, but not before digesting it a bit.
I actually went to Tijuana about six months ago for dental work (which was stellar, by the way). The place, though a bit grubby, was bustling with life. Hipsters were walking around, not unlike Los Angeles. You didn’t see the narco scum walking the streets as though they owned it, though surely the seedy element came out at night, long after I had finished what I needed to finish.
It’s good to see that places like Tijuana are doing what they can to actually enjoy life, rather than be at the mercy of criminals who are little different from the thugs one finds in almost any inner city (minus the decapitations and mutilations, which make Mexican gangsters sit on par with ISIS or Al Qaeda).
Vice Magazine does a fine job documenting the mod scene in TJ. For all their faults in other areas, like politics, Vice’s travelogues are simply top-notch.
[Video] Hüsker Dü – New Day Rising
THIS is how you start a new year! Hüsker Dü at their finest. May we all enjoy a wonderful 2015!
Fixing Some Bugs
For the past couple of weeks, I’ve been doing what I can to correct some errors, and it looks like the site is finally taking better shape. A wiki has been added where I will add links and other data to musicians, artists and others who interest me.
If you have interest in being listed there, or know anyone who does, just let me know via the contact page.
Lou Reed, R.I.P.
It came as a shock to find out that Lou Reed, a fixture throughout the whole of my musical life, had passed away due to complications from liver failure today. Ben Ratliff of the New York Times wrote a fine obituary today, so in terms of a retrospective, it’s best to leave it to the professionals. However, there’s also a personal component.
I’m not quite sure who made the quote (it’s always attributed to Brian Eno when I try to source it), and it is surely apocryphal, but here it is:
I’m one of those guys. Now, my ‘band’ did nothing but practice, and it was a real pleasure at the time, but for all those bands who heard that first Velvet Underground album, it compelled the listener to go do something. You became an active participant rather than a mere listener.
Though I spent my formative years in Los Angeles, I loathed The Doors and most of the bands from San Francisco (Love was the only one I cared for deeply who were from the West Coast). My heart and mind, musically, at least when it came to Americn music, was firmly planted in New York, with all the debauchery that city was famous for. The Velvets were gritty and hard, unlike their bloated, pretentious, and frankly mediocre fellow musicians out west. We got bands like Blind Melon thanks to The Doors. We ended up with Cabaret Voltaire, Joy Division, The Cure, and scores of other substantial bands thanks to Lou, John Cale, and the troupe.
May Lou rest well, and our condolences go to his wife, the composer Laurie Anderson, herself one of the great sages of radical American music.
Sunday mornings won’t quite be the same, will they?
A Miscellany Of Tasteful Music 