Before The Future...
“Trouble is one of the ways we discover the complexities Of the soul.”― Terrance Hayes
It was a big week here up in the mountains just outside of Fairfax with friends Lance and April Ledbetter of Dust To Digital visiting over the weekend, listening to great music and eating great food, and Barb and My 13th wedding anniversary a few days after. Work at Reboot is ramping up getting ready for an upcoming board meeting, while our dear friend and Noisepop and IODA founder Kevin Arnold made a surprise announcement that he is moving to Austin. And yesterday morning I zoomed into a music industry class at The Academy of Contemporary Music at the University of Central Oklahoma where my longtime friend, Flaming Lips manager and class professor engaged me in a convo about music and the evolution of the industry, and the power of friendship when engaged in meaningful work. And tonight we end the week with a family expedition to a Flaming Lips concert. Phew.
And with all that, it was also an unusually exciting music week as well as far as releases I have been working on. Birdman Records had its newest digital release in the form of a single; my dear late brother-n-law Craig Bersche, who produced a slew of great pop songs when just 17 in the mid-seventies had a debut single (taken from those recordings) launched on all the music platforms on Wednesday. The song, Water Under The Bridge, is the first single from his Words & Melodies record which will drop in December and it is such a classic, catchy tune from the day. You can listen on Spotify here, Qobuz here, and pretty much anywhere else. Spotify has already set up a Craig Bersche radio channel on his page that also features Steven Stills, The Kinks, Todd Rundgren (who we saw together when he visited San Francisco), and Brewer & Shipley. He would have loved to know he was in such good company…
This week also saw the arrival of the finished Golem rescored soundtrack on a beautiful heavy 2LP vinyl set. My wife (of 13 years, dija know) rocked the artwork and the release features lllloonnnggggg sides and incredible musicians, too many to name here1 (see footnote for the list, and goto this webpage to see the film with the new score attached)…but I will say that the composition from New Zealander Michael Morley was the perfect foil to a incredible sunrise over Mount Diablo. Deep thanks to Gary Hobish for the impeccable mastering job and Warren Defever who cut a record at 28 minutes and made it sound so damn clear. You can preorder the vinyl here on Reboot Records (limited edition).
And finally…more Birdman news to celebrate as the label continues to rev back up…I opened up a box last night that showed up at the doorstep to find a bunch of Infinite River flexi-discs inside. Y’all remember flexi discs, no? The original floppy-discs—ultra-thin—with music cut into the plastic grooves—that used to find their way into Dynamite magazines or later the incredible alt-music fanzine The Bob (still have all of my Bob flexies)? Infinite River is the newest Birdman Records artist featuring Gretchen Davidson Gonzales (Universal Eyes, Slumber Party), Steve Nistor (Sparks), Joey Mazzola (Detroit Cobras, Sponge) and Warren Defever (His Name Is Alive, cutter of records—see above).
Infinite River play a jam-centered, sometimes droned-out instrumental soundtrack to our lives with a little Krautrock mixed in. The flexi features incredible artwork by Livia Cocchi (who I know through her husband, Gorie Dan Kroha). The Infinite Rover debut record, Prequel, is coming out on Birdman Records in the beginning of next year and the song on the flexi, Before The Future, is the first peak into the record, and their sound. Want a copy? I have a few extras. Ping me and it will be on its way to you!
And all of this is happening as the house is filled with psychedelic jams taken from the lists that The Signal published last week. Thanks to Don Fleming, I am now a lover of Music In a Doll’s House by Family and Steve Krakow blew my mind with one of his picks, Lemmings by Bachdenkel…and there is still so many more records to listen to.
Always more records to listen to.
Happy Weekend (and HAPPY BIRTHDAY to dear friend and main Polyphonic Spree’r TIM DeLAUGHTER!!!)
Why DID Wyndham Lewis paint over the painting Atlantic City by friend (lover?) Helen Saunders? Incredible that modern science has allowed us to go behind the top layer of paint and explore what is below. For those intrigued by this article, I suggest you go to the webpage that features Lewis’ magazine BLAST from the 1920s, which includes his artwork, other artists, poets….you can download it on the spot.
The Archive of the Folklorist Who Unplugged Bob Dylan at Newport Is Headed to the Smithsonian
This is SUCH bigger news than the article relates. Mack McCormick’s archive holds answers to so many questions about the early days of recorded sound…and the guy, from his beginnings, was a legendary hoarder-not-sharer of them. One of my fav songs of all time is The Last Kind Words by Geeshie Wiley…one of the most beautiful, heartbreaking blues of all time. But NOTHING is known about Geeshie…and there are even dozens of articles trying to figure out the definite lyrics to the song. Mack had answers…but he wasn’t telling…which led to a New York Times journalist to interview him which led to an incredible article (go here) which Mack’s daughter later reported in The Observer contained info that was STOLEN by the journalist from her fathers archives (go here) while said journalist was in the house (this story is compounded because of Mack’s mental health issues he was dealing with later in life). This leads to a bigger conversation about the responsibility any historian/collector/archivist has to the greater public about sharing important discoveries. Add to it that SUPPOSEDLY the archives are in a mess and that it would take a treasure map to figure out what is going on…Damn! Hopefully the folks at the Smithsonian got everything there is to dig through and they are ready for a lifetimes worth of excavation.
Exploring Rammellzee's Gothic Futurism (click title to go to article)
“Rammellzee’s work is off-the-charts-crazed-amazing: “The immersive world of the polyhedric graffiti writer, visual artist, musician, lyricist, performer, fashion designer, innovator and philosopher Rammellzee lands in Los Angeles this November. The exhibition surveys his oeuvre from his graffiti beginnings on the A train in the mid-1970s to his fine arts and performance practice developed over the following three decades. A true iconoclast, Rammellzee committed to his thinking and art-making with an approach that was simultaneously programmatic and shamanic. His esoteric manifestos encompassed philology and astrophysics and drew inspiration from contemporary sensibility and medieval history alike.”
Cage in Search of a Bird: About The Aphorisms of Franz Kafka
Michael Wood takes a deep dive in the newest look at Kafka’s “aphorisms” that the famed author jotted down while battling tuberculosis in the small village of Zürau…
Hollywood Horror Blockbuster: Two Leading Producers Will Soon Join Forces
Jason Blum…James Wan…PLEASE make fantastic horror films. We need more of them. Nice backdrop to press release, by the way.
Lighthead's Guide to the Galaxy
By: Terrance Hayes
Ladies and gentlemen, ghosts and children of the state,
I am here because I could never get the hang of Time.
This hour, for example, would be like all the others
were it not for the rain falling through the roof.
I'd better not be too explicit. My night is careless
with itself, troublesome as a woman wearing no bra
in winter. I believe everything is a metaphor for sex.
Lovemaking mimics the act of departure, moonlight
drips from the leaves. You can spend your whole life
doing no more than preparing for life and thinking.
"Is this all there is?" Thus, I am here where poets come
to drink a dark strong poison with tiny shards of ice,
something to loosen my primate tongue and its syllables
of debris. I know all words come from preexisting words
and divide until our pronouncements develop selves.
The small dog barking at the darkness has something to say
about the way we live. I'd rather have what my daddy calls
"skrimp." He says "discrete" and means the street
just out of sight. Not what you see, but what you perceive:
that's poetry. Not the noise, but its rhythm; an arrangement
of derangements; I'll eat you to live: that's poetry.
I wish I glowed like a brown-skinned pregnant woman.
I wish I could weep the way my teacher did as he read us
Molly Bloom's soliloquy of yes. When I kiss my wife,
sometimes I taste her caution. But let's not talk about that.
Maybe Art's only purpose is to preserve the Self.
Sometimes I play a game in which my primitive craft fires
upon an alien ship whose intention is the destruction
of the earth. Other times I fall in love with a word
like somberness. Or moonlight juicing naked branches.
All species have a notion of emptiness, and yet
the flowers don't quit opening. I am carrying the whimper
you can hear when the mouth is collapsed, the wisdom
of monkeys. Ask a glass of water why it pities
the rain. Ask the lunatic yard dog why it tolerates the leash.
Brothers and sisters, when you spend your nights
out on a limb, there's a chance you'll fall in your sleep.
Scott Amendola, Steven Drozd (The Flaming Lips) and Steve Berlin (Los Lobos, The Flesh Eaters) / Threshing Floor (Alan Licht, Gretchen Gonzales Davidson, Rebecca Odes, John Olson, Nate Young) / Meg Baird, Charlie Saufley and Jeremiah Lockwood / Universal Eyes (members of Slumber Party and Wolf Eyes) / Michael Morley / Sharon Gal / Marika Hughes and Shahzad Ismaily / ∈Y∋.
I would love to get a copy of the flexi, if possible. Is this the correct way to ping you?