You Have a Surprised Look on Your Face is How…

Birthmark

How You Look When You’re Falling Down

Polyvinyl Records, 2015

Review by Kent Manthie                                                      

Nate Kinsella has finally returned with a follow-up to 2012’s Antibodies. With both plenty of time and space between Nate and his previous works in between How You Look When You’re Falling Down and Antibodies, Kinsella has fleshed together a remarkable exercise in sound structure, songwriting and instrumentation. Coming out October 16, Birthmark fans as well as fans of all things Kinsella will be treated to, what I think, is a new birth of Birthmark.

As fans of the Kinsella name, no doubt, are aware of, Chicago is the hub around which the main spokes of this clan hover: Joan of Arc, American Football, Make Believe, Owls and Owen, for example, products of his two cousins, Tim and Mike, have, probably the most renown in the Windy City, that City of Big Shoulders. Nate recently made the move from the center of the country out to our biggest megalopolis, New York City, where he has been, over the past few years, working on building a unique sound that, fulfilled on How You Look…, different from his past works; not 180 degrees, mind you, but, there is a noticeable difference from his previous work, not to mention the musicality he’s picked up from, over the years, collaborating with cousin Tim in various ways on a variety of Joan of Arc albums as well as another Tim Kinsella project, Make Believe and with other cousin, Mike, in American Football’s brief, singular career as well as Mike’s solo guise, Owen.

How You Look… has a texturized, atmosphere that is sometimes exploratory and other times forward-looking with stunning originality and creativity. He achieved this, not only by creating many of the sounds by his multi-instrumentalist self, but also with the aid of a couple NYC outfits: on all eight of the tracks, Kinsella worked with NYC Afrobeat stalwarts, Antibalas and TV on the Radio’s touring band, when it came to the horn arrangements. For the strings, Kinsella turned to the acclaimed “contemporary classical” Mivos Quartet, all which gave the album a decidedly different vibe than you might have expected from a Midwestern boy, striking out on the East Coast.

One thing that does remain on How You Look…is Kinsella’s signature sound of close-up acoustic and electronic-psychedelic devices, by his playing and recording of all the drums, bass and guitar as well as more exotica such as marimba, vibraphones as well as all the keyboards (piano, organ, synthesizers).

On the song “Sounds Can Be So Alarming”, Nate brought back some of the Polynesian/Indonesian musicality he had picked up when he and his new bride honeymooned in the paradise island of Bali, where he took some time off from the honeymooning to listen to as well as interact with the island’s Gamelan music in a live setting. He took the influences he picked up from that trip and incorporated on the aforementioned song, in the interlocking vibraphone patterns. It also shows up with his use of traditional Gamelan staples as the Javanese gong, kenong, bonang and gender that can be heard on the finale, “Body Aches and Butterflies”.

Don’t let the exotic nature of the Indonesian sounds deter you, though, How You Look When You’re Falling Down is also quite accessible, to the kind of audience who will already appreciate high-toned, intelligent and originality in their music. For example, the opening track, “Find Yourself” is one place you can hear the high-urban culture rubbing off: with those horns, especially that baritone sax, yelping out at the complementary times, the vibes roiling underneath wax on a jazzy, downtown sheen and the singing itself shows confidence oozing from someone who sounds as if they’ve really found the right home, at last. Following this opener, the title track, the second tune on here, takes the album on a bending left turn and it mellows down a tad, while still retaining an urbane magic to it; with the decidedly “un-rock-and-roll” instruments that accompany the basics of the “rock kit”: bass, drums and a guitar that stays tucked far in the background, one is mesmerized by the vibes, flute and harp, for instance, that it emits a high-society, 30s era-nightclub aura fused with the mashing-up, throwing-everything together-and-see-what-sticks vibe of today’s constant searching for sounds that, for many indie bands, many non-manufactured-by-suits bands consisting of real people who have their own brains purveyors of music that don’t want to keep rehashing the same songs that have already been done many times over, just in a variety of permutations to keep from sounding all alike.

Another interesting bit on the album comes out of “Hurry, Hurry, Hurry”, starts out with that aforementioned native Indonesian-inspired music Nate and his newlywed experienced during what must have been an exquisite honeymoon to Bali. The whole thing begins with the basso-sounds of a native-style chant, as if from a part of some “holy” ritual; custom; tribal rite done to appease local gods or deified ancestors, one beat in, the beat of the percussion emanating from a large tom-tom made from objets de utiliser which, without a local music shop to which one can get to, get made from hides, woods, vines used to tie skins taut, in place of rope (or at least a well-done facsimile of one). This, which would not be out of place in a remote area of the world, those scattered places, isolated in spots ranging from the hearts of darkest, remotest South America, Africa and on numerous atolls, isles, some not even on a map, many charted but quite unknown, but for geographically, where, for all practical purposes, the temporal realm doesn’t apply in the same way it does for most inhabitants of earth. The song, although, with that isolated, tropical, ritual musical incorporation, should not scare you away, since it has been interpolated quite well with Nate’s newfound sense of home, his self-awareness of his surroundings; all the former fit very well together and produce a nice segue into “Sounds Can Be So Alarming”, another tune which uses and fuses together a panoply of rhythms, melody-makers and harmonics. But to get back to “Hurry, Hurry, Hurry”; there’s something about the lyrics in this that show how Kinsella has adapted to his new home, with the memorable words: “I was born in a small house/In the middle of the country/Now I’m living in an even smaller house in the middle of the biggest city” – that bit of lyricizing says it all, in regards to acclimatization to Nate’s adopted town. Of course, Chicago is not exactly a small country village, but, it wouldn’t necessarily be altogether wrong to put it the way Nate put it: “…in the middle of the country”- hamlet or metropolitan hub, that is precisely where Chicago is, making that lyric a bit of even more fun wordplay; mind you, he sings about being born in a “small house, in the middle of the country”, which could lead one to the interpretation that he’s referring to being brought up on a farm or in some country hamlet, presumably in downstate, IL (or Indiana, et cetera). But those who are quite etymology-minded, the meaning could -and does-have a more ambiguous quality about it: by using the words “in the middle of the country” could just as easily have a geographically apt, literality to it as could the interpretation of it as growing up on a farm on land so flat one can see the endless acreage with nothing but corn and/or wheat for miles and miles. Either way one chooses to interpret its meaning, both would be correct in the sense cousin Nate is using them: after all, until the mid 20^th century, Chicago had always been the “Second City” in the U.S.: the second largest city, after New York. But due to several factors, upstart Los Angeles eventually eclipsed Chicago in population. But, at number three, it’s still nothing to sneeze at. But, one who is familiar with the rest of Illinois knows that besides the capital of Springfield, there isn’t very much else that could be termed as urban or urbane. The exceptions to that would be places like Champaign and Urbana, two “twin cities” south of Chicago, in about the mid-state area, where a population has been built up due to its housing of the University of Illinois and its campus there.

Geography lesson aside, listening to How You Look When You’re Falling Down is a sign that he is enjoying his new city and the many wonders it has to offer. Of course, cynics would say that New York is nothing but a blighted, bursting-at-the-seams powderkeg that is overrun with crime, corruption and insufficient infrastructure maintenance. Well, I beg to differ and am of the same “I love New York” school to which Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese belong: a cinematic, visionary wonderland, bustling with fresh ideas and teeming with knowledge from the many fine institutions of learning there. Also, because of that or besides that, there has been so much great art that has been made in New York: whether it’s been “fine arts” such as painting or sculpture or literature, poetry or music: music of all types have flourished here: jazz, punk, hardcore, independent media, in general, they all have a home in New York, it’s one of the many things which make it so unique and which keep it from becoming, like so many other cities in America, gentrified and otherwise, artificially kept up.

Anyway, as for Birthmark: Nate has found a home and it’s here that I think we’ll be hearing some of his best work yet as Birthmark, in the near future. For now, take in How You Look…and enjoy the many-hued sounds of its grooves. -KM.

Your Wish is My Command

Danny Newcomb & The Sugarmakers

Masterwish

Hockeytalk/rock candy Records, 2015

Review by Kent Manthie

Danny Newcomb is a long standing veteran of the local music scene in and around Seattle, having been playing gigs in and around the area for some years now. With his band, The Sugarmakers, Newcomb has been honing the laid back, jangly college rock that is not unlike other stalwarts of the subgenre such as The Shins, the latter-day sound of Pearl Jam (and I don’t mean this as a cut), Candlebox, or Oasis.  I liked the music from the get-go, that’s a fact, but it was more of an “I dig ’em” feeling, not the realm of the “oh-so-sublime” as to be a perfect soundtrack for an hour or more of deep, musical transcendence.

As with most bands, the best way to see them live, for me, anyway, is in a medium -to-small sized club, where things are more intimate, the sound is louder and one can even stand in the back part of the club and still get a good view of who’s up on stage.

Masterwish is an album with life; the more one listens to it, the more one gets out of it. Some albums are just that way, though: they get better with repeated exposure; thus was the case with me. One thing is for sure: Danny & The Sugarmakers is not the kind puerile, test-marketed crap that is interchangeable with all the other Top 40 garbage that gets played, at least, 10-12 times from, say, 9 am- 5 pm.  If you’ve ever worked in one of those offices at some company, where some jerk in your department decides to have a radio playing all day long, locked on to the lowest common denominator:  saccharine, vacuous pop.  Worse, in every radio “market”, there’s always some station that plays this stuff.  I remember STAR- FM, which is like a McDonald’s of the airwaves:  there’s a STAR in every city, all over the country, so if there isn’t a local station dedicated to playing crap (hey, if they can make good money selling ads using this format, they’re going to milk it for all it’s worth and as soon as the money slows down, WHAM, they’ll drop that format like a bowl of kale gone bad (it smells horrible!)).

Anyway, this is not the teenage lobotomized pop “stars” mangling whatever they do. The Sugarmakers have a distinct sound; a luscious groove to make that dreary office environment bearable. I’ve found, as well, that when I’m not subject to awful music playing in the office and instead I have my MP3 player with me or maybe a CD player, etc., my productivity would go up. Masterwish would make me want to be there, at that desk, doing whatever it is I do there.

Sure, Betsy, over there, in marketing might like the biebs, or whatever the flavor-of-the-month is. It’s the same old game, vacuous pop songs which chase each other up and down the meaningless “charts” these days. How does that affect your life? Why should anyone care about how popular some ephemeral pop song fares? What really matters is that people are out there who appreciate original songs, written by those who are singing it, done with talented musicians and with lyrics that are pure poetry, listen to it and like it; not everyone likes pap that’ll be forgotten in a year or two, to be replaced with the “next big thing”.

But getting beyond the workplace, which really is a depressing place anyway, Danny & The Sugarmakers are a great band that really has a tight-knit sound. They’re not (purposefully or not) a garage band nor do they have that sound or aura. The focus seems to be on well-made music that focuses on writing great lyrics as well as a great musical sound.

When they were kicking around for a place that would get their album Masterwish out, Danny got hooked up with Mike McCready’s (Pearl Jam) label, Hockeytalk. And the rest, as they say, is history!

As for The Sugarmakers, the band consists of, well, Danny Newcomb, of course, who sings and plays guitar, Rick Friel on bass and Eric Eagle on drums. Having listened to Masterwish a couple times, I’ve definitely got the message that Danny is a fabulous guitar player. On various songs, from “Nightmare” to “One Wish” “Better When You Fail” or the opener, “Known World” there are some great guitar riffs that really do make Newcomb’s guitar playing shine. He isn’t overtly virtuosic or ostentatious as far as big solos or that kind of thing, but from hearing the bright points that do shine through, one can just tell that at the right moment, like, at a concert, on stage, et cetera, he could, no doubt, easily break into a wicked solo that would roil the show with a great string quality. So, besides the quite good band he has put together, Newcomb can also blow you away with his spirited guitar antics and hearing those will make you want to find out more about the things he can do with that thing and so, when the Sugarmakers come to your town, you’ll be that much more psyched up about going to the show.

Well, there is a way that, if your interest has been piqued, you can jump right to Danny’s Soundcloud page, where Masterwish is all queued up for one to listen to a la streaming: just click on: https://soundcloud.com/danny-and-the-sugarmakers/sets/masterwish-downloadable/s-Tucp3 and you’ll be able to hear the album in its entirety. Hope you enjoy it. -KM.

Gun-toting Granny (from Funny or Die website, (c) 2015) AND – Timothy Leary’s “Trip'” in (thanks to Dangerous Minds for the Pic & Write-Up)…[LINKS INCLUDED!]

The tale of acid sage Dr. Timothy Leary’s prison escape and subsequent exile is among the most amusing stories in the annals of drug culture lore—though sentenced to an absurd twenty years for utterly petty offenses including possession of a couple of roaches, Leary was able to game the prison system: as a reputable Harvard psychologist, it happened that he himself had designed the psychological examinations he was given by prison administrators to determine his security and work situations. He got himself assigned to a cushy gardening job in a minimum security facility, from which he handily escaped, issuing an outlandish revolutionary screed to taunt authorities shortly after he fled. Via a series of sneaks involving the Weather Underground, the Black Panthers, an arms dealer, and a socialite whom he eventually married (how has this not been a TV mini-series yet? Get on this, Netflix…) Leary ended up in Switzerland, where he met with the German Kosmiche band Ash Ra Tempel, with whom he recorded the album Seven Up.

Is Kim Davis “Secretly” an Ultra-Orthodox Jew & NOT a Christian?

I just found this incredibly cogent and wonderfully brilliant article online, from the New Yorker, for a long time, one of my absolute favorite magazines.  Anyway, one of the really pleasant surprises about it is that it reads pretty much the same things which I’ve been trying to point out in a number of comments after articles that have appeared around places online, whether it’s in Yahoo! or on the New York Times online articles I get in email daily.  It’s great that Gregg  Easterbrook, the ingenious author of this article, has a large forum in which to spread this message out to any who have it within their reach.

The main idea of this article is that, not just Davis, but all the other anti-gay haters out there who justify their bigotry by quoting bible passages that have been thoroughly cherry-picked and the funny thing is that they’re all from the OLD testament – including the first five books of the bible, which Jews use as one of their holy books, the “Pentateuch”; the “Torah” – it depicts an angry god who has no time for sinners and prescribes all sorts of nasty punishments for so-called “sinners” or rather, those who fail to follow certain, almost arbitrarily thought-up “laws”.  Well, I’m not going to synopsize it here, but I will re-print the article here -and I just want to say “THANK YOU” to Gregg Easterbrook for writing such a well-thought-out, intelligent rebuttal of the garbage that has been spewed over and over again, for decades, regarding gay people, by hypocritical, so-called “christians” who obviously have not taken much time to really read or study the bible -meaning the NEW testament – the book that is the foundation for christianity and which differentiates it from Judaism.  I hope those who read it email it around to as many people – send it to that holy-roller acquaintance of yours who’s always bragging about just what pious sonofabitch he is.

Well, hope you enjoy – ( (c) New Yorker / Gregg Easterbrook, 2015). -KM.

Kim Davis and her supporters lash out against homosexuality by calling on ancient divine pronouncements of anger, rather than upon the serene divinity who, in the New Testament, offered unconditional forgiveness.CREDITPHOTOGRAPH BY TIMOTHY D. EASLEY / AP

     [Above: some of the WORST people in the world!]

Kim Davis, the clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, returns to her post soon, after spending five nights in jail and then a few more days recovering at home. A Pentecostal Christian, Davis says “God’s authority” instructs her not to issue licenses for gay marriage, even though the law compels her to. Presidential contenders, including Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee, both fundamentalists, have praised her stance.

It’s undeniable that the earliest scripture books, the ones Christians call the Pentateuch and Jews call the Torah, don’t like same-sex relations. At the Garden of Eden, God decrees that a man will be the husband and a woman the wife. (See the second and third chapters of Genesis, ideally a scholarly translation such as the New Revised Standard; this article cites the N.R.S.V.) In Leviticus 18:22, the text states, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” In 20:13, Leviticus specifies that both parties in male-male sex shall “be put to death.”

That seems open-and-shut, though one might wonder why Davis, Cruz, Huckabee and the like seek only to deny gays marriage, rather than execute them as God decreed.

But here’s the thing. Christian theology says the New Testament amends the Old: what happened in the days of the apostles amends what came long before. Acts 13:39: “By this Jesus everyone who believes is set free from all those sins from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.” (Acts is the founding text of Pentecostalism.) Jesus overturned existing law about sin, the Sabbath, the afterlife and many other matters. His ministry proclaimed “a new covenant, not of letter but of spirit; for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” (II Corinthians 3:6.) “Letter” in this context means archaic law—that is, the law Davis, Cruz, and Huckabee want applied today.

When conservative Christians justify opposition to gay relations by citing ancient scripture, by the most amazing coincidence they don’t mention the other stuff there. The ancient passages that denounce same-sex relations also denounce eating shellfish and trimming one’s beard. The Christian who says God forbids homosexuality – then shaves before going out for dinner at Red Lobster – is speaking from both sides of his mouth.

In Leviticus, the Old Testament book that calls homosexuality an abomination, God not only sanctions but encourages slavery. Leviticus 25:44–46 , spells out rules for seizing, holding, and selling slaves. And there’s no estate tax: slaves may be kept “as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property.” In Deuteronomy 21:18–21, near the passages on the abomination of same-sex relations, ancient scripture directs that a disobedient child be taken by his parents to the city gate and stoned to death.

If banning homosexuality is “God’s authority” to a modern Christian, ritual murder of children ought to be as well. So why don’t today’s Judeo-Christians believe in slavery and filicide? For mainstream Jews, some ancient doctrine has been reinterpreted by rabbinical commentary or civil law; for Christians, premises of ancient scripture have been amended. This happened first via the middle prophets Isaiah and Hosea, who came centuries after ancient scripture—biblical tip: the key that unlocks the beauty of Abrahamic faith is the seldom read Book of Hosea—and then through the ministry of the Redeemer.

What does the New Testament say about homosexuality and gay marriage? Silence on the latter; on the former, there’s one reference. In his Letter to the Romans, verses 1:26-27, Paul observes of idol worshippers, “Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.”

Conservatives prefer translations, such as the God’s Word Bible, that substitute “perversion” for “error.” Yet many church-married, monogamous, man-woman, devout Christian couples engage in acts once thought perversion. Beyond this, Paul frowned on all sexual interaction, including by men and women married to each other. (I Corinthians 7:29.) The apostles evinced no interest in any form of carnality. Jesus never wed, and if he experienced erotic longing, the specifics are lost to history. The Old Testament is chock-full with lust and rape: by the New Testament, it’s as if sex has gone out of style. Those who beheld Jesus bathed in the glory of the resurrection believed the long-dreamt golden age about to arrive. Sex just didn’t seem terribly important compared to that.

At any rate, the key word in Romans is not “perversion;” rather, “natural.” The science of the question of what a person’s natural sexual preferences are is unsettled, but tends toward the idea that people are born that way. If we are born with our sexuality, either it is a gift from God or evolved naturally. And if same-sex attraction is natural, then it is in concord with the New Testament.

Of course, believers of all stripes pick and choose. Liberal Christians avert their eyes from Christ’s near-absolute ban on divorce, in Matthew 5:32. Wealthy Christians ignore their Redeemer’s warning that the rich are barred from heaven, in Matthew 19:24. Most Christians would rather not know that Jesus said to give to panhandlers, in Luke 6:30. Right now, the mainly Christian leaders of the European Union don’t seem concerned that Jesus said that only helping the destitute counts in the eyes of God. (Christ says, in Luke 6:33, “If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.”) Republican candidates thumping their chests about how admirably Christian they are skip the fact that Christ banned exactly such puffery. (Matthew 6:1 reads, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.”) The Israeli right pounds the table about ancient scripture, but skips Exodus 22:21: “You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt.”

In the eight hundred thousand words of the Bible, one can find a verse to support just about anything. Even so, it’s disturbing that contemporary Christian conservatives lash out against homosexuality by calling on ancient divine pronouncements of anger, rather than upon the serene divinity who offered the world unconditional forgiveness.

Voicing the thoughts of the serene God in John 15:12, Jesus summed up Christian theology in one sentence: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” Once, God was full of anger; ultimately, the Maker cared solely about love. Why don’t today’s Christian conservatives understand that the second part amends the first part?

An “Inner-Ear” Thing”…

Life Like Thunderstorms

Awkward Balance

Released on Cassette by Killer Tofu records, 2015

Review by Kent Manthie                                                     

Well, Jared Balogh is at it again: always bringing something new and interesting to the fore and, being a self-releasing, DIY artist, his stuff can be found on sites like Free Music Archive – https://www.freemusicarchive.org/music/Life_Like_Thunderstorms  Bandcamp:  https://alteredstatereflections.bandcamp.com/album/life-like-thunderstorms-awkward-balance-24-bit-wav-version or Archive.org:  https://www.archive.org/details/Life_Like_Thunderstorms-AwkwardBalance.  One more link that you can get to is the Killer Tofu Records site, where, if you’d like to buy a physical, “hard copy” of Awkward Balance on cassette, go check out:  https://www.killertofurecs.storenvy.com/products/14171088-life-like-thunderstorms-awkward-balance.

So, Jared’s new work, Awkward Balance, under the moniker, Life Like Thunderstorms gives off the aura of a whole band doing its thang, together, but, what you are hearing is actually Jared playing all the instruments, being the sole creative force on this one.  Using the Life Like Thunderstorms title, one can see the work being differentiated somewhat from Balogh’s solo albums, which are usually instrumental and have a life of their own.  That is just one reviewer’s guess, but, it could be.  Not that there’s anything sub-par about Awkward Balance that he’d want to distance himself, in name, from.  Just a slightly different style.  Not too far off, but a good way to expand one’s horizons and keep ’em guessing at the same time.

Life Like Thunderstorms is nearer in style to his work with Aniqatia, a full band, in which Jared played bass, which released some great stuff a little over a year ago: an EP, Erratics, the review for which, one can read here, in I.R.

But with Life Like Thunderstorms, Balogh has gone it alone, creating some fabulous vistas on Awkward Balance. The album starts out with a steady, thundering drum intro and then, a slow, measured rock sound which has reminds me of Joy Division, believe it or not, what with a similar sounding bassline and that mellow baritone voice that sounds a little like Ian Curtis. Next up, “Sneak Attack” has a bit of a faster pulse and some guitar feedback that soon gives way to some ultra-hip vibraphones/marimba that goes well with the edgy guitar licks that after a bit, give way to a nice balance between the vibes and a really smoky bass jam. Then it opens up again, with a bit of blistering guitar riffs, ending abruptly with a cymbal crash which then goes right into the next tune, “Deeply Lucid”; in fact, if you’re not paying attention, you don’t even really notice that it’s gone onto the next tune.

It’s almost as if, after “Resonate”, the next four tunes are all part of one long suite, somewhat reminiscent of the old days, in the late 60s/early 70s when progressive rock stalwarts like Yes and King Crimson put out some of their earlier albums (such as In the Court of the Crimson King, In the Wake of Poseidon and Yes’s The Yes Album or Close to the Edge) where, due more to pressure from the record labels, these longer-than-usual “rock” songs, which would clock in at anywhere from 12 minutes, up to 18 minutes, as in the case with the title track of Yes’s Close to the Edge, these songs were “split up” into several “parts”; breaking these long (for the era) songs which weren’t radio-friendly, three-minute pop singles, into more palatable, 3-4 minute sections, each with a certain sub-title to it.

Anyway, that whole silly gimmick was done away with by 74 or so, with the realization that these songs were not meant to be split up into separate parts, but were wholes, that were supposed to be played in one, long setting, much the way that many a “concept” album was meant to be listened to all in one playing, to appreciate the whole connectedness of it. Well, I’m not saying that, on Awkward Balance, Life Like Thunderstorms were trying to make a “suite” out of these four songs, necessarily, but it surely was a great way to keep one listening in, which wouldn’t have been a hard thing to do anyway, as it was so dreamy, so textured and quite a joy to hear.

The last two songs, “Improv Ambient Bass Jamm in the Key of D” and the closer, “Fleeing Dreams”, were like a dual finale in themselves; a separate piece from the four middle songs.

No matter how one slices it up, though, Awkward Balance is really a brilliant work of fancy that keeps one going back, over and over, picking up more and more elements with each new listen and also just to enjoy again and again. One of the most intriguing parts of listening to a Jared Balogh album the first time out is in wondering just what it will sound like and where it will take you. That’s one of the great pleasures of his sonic experiments: that they’re not predictable in the sense that when you hear about a new release of his you have a good idea of what it’s going to sound like, except in a roughly abstract way. No, not until you actually sit down and push play for the first time, will you be able to figure out just what Jared did this time. That is the mark of one who is always looking to innovate, experiment and who is willing to be as much of an outlier as possible; never being derivative, at least not blatantly; not wearing his influences on his sleeve, but trying, genuinely, to be as original as he can and, in the process, being quite successful at always being able to turn heads and keep one’s attention. Never a dull moment! –KM.

Cruising – the movie!!!

I don’t care what ANYONE says – Cruising is a GREAT film.  IMO, it should’ve won Best Picture in 1980!

Enjoy it (while you can-??) KM.

Lou Reed – Early live solo show: 12/26/72!

Here you go, all you lovers of depravity, you hipsters and those w/”Pale Blue Eyes”…Sorry, no live footage, just the music from the night after xmas, 1972.

ENJOY!!

 

Borrowing from The NEW YORKER

The following is something I read online, an article that appeared on the website of probably the greatest magazine, EVER, The New Yorker.  I wanted to put that out there, so, 1) one doesn’t mistakenly think that I wrote it (it was written by humorist Andy Borowitz – (c) 2015 and has an accompanying photograph taken by Daniel Acker/courtesy of Getty) and 2) because it’s just SO hilarious, I really wanted to get this thing out there  (thanks in advance, Andy/New Yorker) .  Also, just to put this out one last time:  the article, below, is a SATIRE, it is NOT  “real” news.  Hope you find it as funny as I did!  What makes it so funny is that, even though it’s humor is rather “over-the-top”, the gist of it is not really that far-fetched!  Enjoy…

P.S. – a couple more reviews are on their way really soon.  Keep an eye out in the next few days –KM.

Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin and 2016 Republican presidential candidate, center, pauses while speaking with the media during the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, U.S., on Monday, Aug. 17, 2015. Like most every other candidate in the historically crowded field, the Wisconsin governor’s standing in state and national polls has been hurt by the summer surge of billionaire Donald Trump, the party’s front-runner. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images

WICHITA (The Borowitz Report)—Saying that “things just didn’t work out,” the billionaire Koch brothers have decided to put Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker up for sale.

The Kochs, who earlier had purchased Gov. Walker with great fanfare, announced their plan to sell the politician in a terse statement from Koch Industries headquarters in Wichita.

“Scott Walker is a fine individual, and we wish him well,” the Kochs’ statement read. “We are confident that he will be a good fit for some other billionaire industrialists.”

Republican insiders, however, called the Kochs’ plan to sell Walker highly optimistic, and noted that the market for the Wisconsin Governor was, at this point, virtually nonexistent.

The Kochs, who reportedly had been frustrated by Walker’s poor performance in the polls, finally decided to sell the Wisconsinite after last weekend’s odd pronouncement, in which he seemed to support a border wall with Canada.

According to a Koch associate, “Ignorance has always been a part of Scott’s appeal, but that Canada thing was just too much.”

After their plan to sell him was announced, the Kochs immediately pulled Walker off the campaign trail for fear that he might say something that would further reduce his dwindling market value.

In Iowa, an aide to Walker said that the Governor was “still processing” the news that he had been put up for sale. “It takes a while for Scott to understand things,” the aide said.