News in Brief.

Apologies as usual for the lack of recent words here. By my own shambling, lethargic standards, this past week or so has been pretty busy, and yesterday in particular was a strange and somewhat frantic day, with news of celebrity deaths coming at rate of knots, as I found myself seeing through an evening of no money, no food and much free beer.

So, in the absence of any proper writing, here’s a… bunch of stuff:


1. Sky Saxon died yesterday.

Mysterious to the end, his age was unknown and the ailment that killed him remains unidentified. To wax lyrical re: the extent to which The Seeds ruled and the almost subliminal influence they wielded over the direction of both mainstream and underground rock from the late ‘60s onward would seem somewhat redundant, assuming I’m speaking to an audience who’ve ever taken an interest in good, weird rock n’ roll. I guess I’ve always envisioned Sky Saxon in his prime almost as a cartoon character, the ultimate fusion of punk and hippie, marauding down “The Strip” swinging his love-beads, ranting slurred diatribes against The Man before heading to Pandora’s Box to blow some wretched losers like The Doors off the fucking stage with a set of pre-Monks, pre-Fall grinding, semi-improvised visionary mayhem.

Everybody knows “Pushin’ Too Hard” and “Can’t Seem To Make You Mine” of course – indeed, the latter would definitely be my tune of choice should I ever stumble upon some mythical garage-punk karaoke bar of my dreams… not that I’d have much of a chance of replicating those incredible, lovelorn “Aaaa-AAAAWWWWwwwwww!”s; simply one of the most genius vocal performances of all time. But The Seeds were also one of the only Nuggets bands who successfully managed to channel their initial energy into making great albums too – “The Seeds”, “A Web of Sound” and “The Future” are all totally wonderful, nutzoid LPs that demand a place in anyone’s collection.

Saxon’s resurgence in the past few decades is a bit more problematic for me, given his ongoing association with The Source cult, but he still managed to play his barmy, mysterioso awesome dude role to perfection. I mean, this is the guy who, when somebody in the early/mid-sixties presumably asked him to come up with a new stage name, immediately blurted out “SKY SAXON”, for no apparent reason. What a hero. R.I.P.

Good obit by Nels Cline, via Arthur, here.




2. The Gories are back!

Well, I mean I knew they were back since they dropped the news about that joint, one-off European tour with The Oblivians last year, but still. Man, The Gories! As you’ll recall, I got so over-excited listening to The Gories a couple of years back, I even drew a picture of them.

There’s an absolutely terrific feature on the history of the band over at the Detroit Metro Times – a great example of the kind of straightforward, well-constructed overview I’d love to be able to read about more of my favourite bands of the 80s/90s/00s. (Thanks to Jessica Hopper’s blog for the link.)

There’s a lot more to The Gories than the ‘garage revivalist’ tag they’re often stuck with, so if that descriptor has ever put you off taking an interest, I’d recommend firing up yr last.fms or spotifys or whatever it is you kids have these days and taking a listen to their debut album ‘Houserockin’ – the sound of three untrained bozos in a shed making what’s pretty much a working definition of The Best Music Ever.

Here’s what happened the last time they quit the stage:




3. Veronica Falls

Veronica Falls – an ensemble previously known as The Draculas, before that Sexy Kids and once a faction of Glasgow’s The Royal We – headlined last night, and verily did they blow me away. With their dense Velvets strummage, minimal floor-tom/snare pounding, dreamy girl/boy harmonies, killer tunes, Flying Nun-esque understement and eerie graveyard atmospherics, it’s hard to imagine a band who could tap more perfectly into my current tastes. And that’s BEFORE they played a swoonsome cover of Roky Erickson’s ‘Starry Eyes’, casually breaking the Michael Jackson news to the thirty or so onlookers in the process. They were really something: go listen and befriend.


4. Sonic Youth Raid my Dreams

News at eleven: the new Sonic Youth video is like some kind of dream I’d probably have.

In fact, scratch ‘probably’, I think its entire stock of imagery is ripped straight from my nocturnal mind circa 2003-2004, thus rendering it unintentionally haunting viewing, for me at least.

It’s a great video, although I fear the band missed a trick by rather snootily portraying themselves as vague ‘overseers’ of the radical girls’ scheme, rather than placing themselves (with a wink & a nod) amongst the yuppie-cognoscenti victims.

It’s sad too that the song pretty much goes in one ear and out the other. Oh, hey, it’s another short, punky Kim one. I’ll file it with the rest.

Labels: deathblog, internet round-ups, lameness, Sonic Youth, The Gories, The Seeds, Veronica Falls, videos