THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
“Strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty.”― Charles Baudelaire
It was a big week for the Specialty Boxset, the project I am working on looking at the early years of Specialty Records. I finished curating the 7 LPs that will be featured, which was a massive task considering having to pick from 250 singles (than you king curator Eric Isaacson for the goodness you provided), and Barb started honing in on what the box would look like along with the book cover (it is going to be dazzling). Album 7 was unexpected…showcasing recently unearthed & unreleased brilliance from Wynona Carr as well as rare recordings from both Percy Mayfield and Jimmy Liggins…I am so excited to get it all out there in the world (Mike Minky…you are going to be psyched).
Now to shift the focus onto finishing the book, gathering the essays that have been written, figuring out the holes that need to be written through and organizing over twelve years of notes, scans, photos and information. We are a month away from the due date and there is a big mountain of work to climb…and I have a day job. So raising a glass to late nights and great music…I have spent hundreds of hours on this beast of a box over the years. Incredible that the end is in sight.
Bard of the Boulevards – Frank McNally on poet Charles Baudelaire, born 200 years ago on this day
Damn, did I go through a Baudelaire phase in college, his acerbic tongue-drenched lines of poetry was the perfect thing for my just forming enthusiasm for the dark arts. Reciting Be Drunk with friends around a bottle of…whatever we could find…the Spleen rants that fit the bill of a rebellious spirit: his writing seemed…still seems…so very fresh. 200 years old today? His is art that is ageless.
13th Floor Elevators Frontman Roky Erickson to Receive Tribute Album
My dear friend Bill Bently, whom I was lucky enough to participate in the Skip Spence Moar Oar tribute with, has produced another gem: a follow-up to his brilliant 13th Floor Elevators tribute...an homage to their frontman and madman Roky Erickson. Bently took me to meet Roky years ago when SXSW was an enjoyable thing. He lived in a small house behind a sex shop filled with books, CDs, records….music coming out of all corners of the place producing a din of noise that only someone like Roky could find calm in. He was such a kind soul and the entire time I was with him I couldnt help but think over and over: damn, did he write some great music….like no one else could. I am looking forward to digging into these new interpretations.
In Worn Stories, Emily Spivack Tells Tales of Well-Loved Clothes
My friend Emily’s new series looks incredible. Digging in this weekend…
A first look at the major Yayoi Kusama exhibition opening in NYC
Thank you Mike McGonigal for turning me on to this article…and very glad to hear you are on the mend. The exhibition looks insane.
The Keeper of Country Music’s Tall Tales and Secret Histories
After three years….it looks like we might just get a second season of Cocaine and Rhinestones. I might have to go back and listen to season one again (so good). For those who don’t know, Tyler Mahan Coe, bad boy country legend David Allen Coe’s son, tells the dark, crazy….super interesting…stories of country music (and artistry in general)…and this season he is focusing on the life story of George Jones.
WEEKEND LISTEN: Easter Everywhere by The 13th Floor Elevators
Between the announcement of the Roky Erickson tribute record and the fact that…hell…it was just Easter…it seems like the right time to throw on one of my favorite records, Easter Everywhere. Filled with dark beautiful psychedelic grooves and metaphysical lysergic lamentations, this record frames the time it came from and all of life in general (ok…that is big talk…take it for what it means: this is a killer iconic listening experience). This is a candle mandatory, incense optional but suggested experience.
Meditation
By Charles Baudelaire
Wise up, Sorrow. Calm down.
You always lay claim to twilight. Well, here it is, brother,
It descends. Obscurity settles over the town,
bringing peace to one, worry to another.
The restless crowd, whipped on by pleasure—
our dogged torturer—carry their hearts’ raw
remorse with them as they serve their vapid leisure,
while you, my Sorrow, drop by here, take my hand, and draw
me apart from them. We watch the dying years
in faded gowns lean out from heaven’s balconies, as Regret rears,
smiling, out of the deep dark where the dead ones march.
Dragging its long train—now a shroud—from its early light
in the East, the sun goes to sleep under an arch.
Listen, Sorrow, beloved, to the soft approach of Night.
