I don't drive out to the outer suburbs much, and navigate the lanes around the mall with some trepidation. I get lost in subdivisions and cul-de-sacs where the names run together, usually conjuring up images of nature scenes and old estates in the British isles but instead bare lawns and generic architecture of new money. I call her when I realize I don't have directions and it takes a couple turns through this development to get there.
My landlady's friend's friend answers the door and she's very nice, welcomes me in, and shows me where the cat is hiding behind the couch. The little one was spayed yesterday so she's sore and cranky and while she sits on my lap, she's skittish and growling and muttering. I guess I'd probably be the same way if someone removed my uterus so it doesn't bother me. She's tiny, with black fur tinged slightly auburn, five pounds of scaredness, yellow eyes avoiding my gaze.
I bring her home and she's somewhat chill in the car, making the occasional sad noises that break my heart. I hope that Mike Patton's voice isn't driving her crazy, and when I bring her up the stairs and let her out, it takes me a half hour to find her again, huddled behind the couch. I can understand being freaked out, so I set up a corner for her with ample hiding spots, food and litter in a side room behind the curtain and bring her over there. From behind one of the paintings unhung, she purrs, and I think she'll be okay in a few days, and I hope she gets along well with the other one.
Friday, April 6, 2012
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Best of the Blotter: Varangian Kitties, Pants on the Ground, and Resurrection Men
ANIMAL FIGHT, OVERLOOK AVENUE: A dog went under a fence to chase after the neighbor’s cat March 28.
The incident caused the cat’s owner to receive cuts, apparently from the cat. The animal also had scratches and cuts from the incident. Neither the pet nor the owner needed medical attention.
There were no reports of the dog attacking other animals and the owner’s fencing was secure and in good repair. Where the dog escaped was through fencing that belonged to the cat’s owner.
Based on the evidence, the dog owner was not cited and the city’s animal warden was given the report for further review.
JUVENILE COMPLAINT, MOORE ROAD: A woman told police March 30 that a teenage boy walking down the street exposed himself when his pants fell down. Police caught up with boy and advised him to keep his pants up.
SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOR, SOMERSET LANE: A resident April 1 reported seeing three kids wheeling a TV around in a wheelbarrow. When officers arrived, they failed to locate the children, the TV or the wheelbarrow.
SUSPICIOUS PERSONS, SOUTH FRANKLIN STREET: Responding to a report of people in Evergreen Cemetery with metal detectors shortly before 1:30 p.m. March 30, police promptly told the foursome from Twinsburg — three men and one woman — that the graveyard was considered sacred ground and that they would have to leave and take all their equipment, including excavation tools, with them.
SUSPICIOUS VEHICLE, PEBBLEBROOK LANE: Police checked out a late morning call March 29, concerning an unknown car circulating through the area and ascertained that that driver and occupants were in fact Jehovah’s Witnesses going door-to-door.
BARKING DOGS, CEDARBROOK ROAD: A man, 39, was cited for having barking or howling dogs after a neighbor complained about noise March 29. The neighbor gave police a cassette tape of the man’s dog barking.
DISTURBANCE: Police were called to intervene March 23 when people complained about a couple fighting over custody of their lizard. The male was able to leave with the reptile.
TRUANCY, LAKE AVENUE: A 14-year-old boy was getting unruly and telling his mother that he didn’t want to go to school.
He takes classes online and was refusing to log on.
TURFING, BUNTS ROAD: A trio of teenagers have been driving across a neighbor’s tree lawn recently.
An officer followed up and found out that the teens were learning how to drive. They said that they would be more careful in the future.
TRESPASSING, HEATHER LANE: A resident stole a cage used for catching feral cats from their neighbor because they don’t like the fact their neighbor catches cats.
Police talked to the resident who was told to stay off the neighbor’s property and to return the cage.
DISTURBANCE, ROYALTON ROAD: A woman reported two teens were making out on the Castletown Playground and making crude comments to kids March 27.
The teens denied making rude comments but were advised of the complaints.
ASSAULT, DETROIT ROAD: A 19-year-old Elyria man told police March 24 he was assaulted by a 17-year-old Avon Lake boy at a local restaurant. The two parties were fighting over the affections of an Olmsted Falls girl. The 17-year-old fled before police arrived, but was arrested not far from the location of the incident. The 19-year-old victim complained of a headache, but refused treatment for his injuries. The suspect was later released to his parents.
Kids Hiding
Someone reported a group of kids hiding in the area of Wolzhaven and Fairtree about 9:50 p.m. Saturday.
It was true, police learned. A family was hosting a birthday party and the kids were playing hide and seek.
'Tis the Season
Mentor Police officers arrested a man who was pretending to be the Easter Bunny Saturday.
Police were looking for 27-year-old Justin Medema because he is suspected of shoplifting more than a $1,000 worth of DVDs from Sam's Club Mentor Police Sgt. Michael Majernik said.
Mentor Municipal Court issued a warrant for Medema's arrest. Officers then found out that he was working as the Easter Bunny at Heartland of Mentor, a retirement home, Majernik said.
The incident caused the cat’s owner to receive cuts, apparently from the cat. The animal also had scratches and cuts from the incident. Neither the pet nor the owner needed medical attention.
There were no reports of the dog attacking other animals and the owner’s fencing was secure and in good repair. Where the dog escaped was through fencing that belonged to the cat’s owner.
Based on the evidence, the dog owner was not cited and the city’s animal warden was given the report for further review.
JUVENILE COMPLAINT, MOORE ROAD: A woman told police March 30 that a teenage boy walking down the street exposed himself when his pants fell down. Police caught up with boy and advised him to keep his pants up.
SUSPICIOUS BEHAVIOR, SOMERSET LANE: A resident April 1 reported seeing three kids wheeling a TV around in a wheelbarrow. When officers arrived, they failed to locate the children, the TV or the wheelbarrow.
SUSPICIOUS PERSONS, SOUTH FRANKLIN STREET: Responding to a report of people in Evergreen Cemetery with metal detectors shortly before 1:30 p.m. March 30, police promptly told the foursome from Twinsburg — three men and one woman — that the graveyard was considered sacred ground and that they would have to leave and take all their equipment, including excavation tools, with them.
SUSPICIOUS VEHICLE, PEBBLEBROOK LANE: Police checked out a late morning call March 29, concerning an unknown car circulating through the area and ascertained that that driver and occupants were in fact Jehovah’s Witnesses going door-to-door.
BARKING DOGS, CEDARBROOK ROAD: A man, 39, was cited for having barking or howling dogs after a neighbor complained about noise March 29. The neighbor gave police a cassette tape of the man’s dog barking.
DISTURBANCE: Police were called to intervene March 23 when people complained about a couple fighting over custody of their lizard. The male was able to leave with the reptile.
TRUANCY, LAKE AVENUE: A 14-year-old boy was getting unruly and telling his mother that he didn’t want to go to school.
He takes classes online and was refusing to log on.
TURFING, BUNTS ROAD: A trio of teenagers have been driving across a neighbor’s tree lawn recently.
An officer followed up and found out that the teens were learning how to drive. They said that they would be more careful in the future.
TRESPASSING, HEATHER LANE: A resident stole a cage used for catching feral cats from their neighbor because they don’t like the fact their neighbor catches cats.
Police talked to the resident who was told to stay off the neighbor’s property and to return the cage.
DISTURBANCE, ROYALTON ROAD: A woman reported two teens were making out on the Castletown Playground and making crude comments to kids March 27.
The teens denied making rude comments but were advised of the complaints.
ASSAULT, DETROIT ROAD: A 19-year-old Elyria man told police March 24 he was assaulted by a 17-year-old Avon Lake boy at a local restaurant. The two parties were fighting over the affections of an Olmsted Falls girl. The 17-year-old fled before police arrived, but was arrested not far from the location of the incident. The 19-year-old victim complained of a headache, but refused treatment for his injuries. The suspect was later released to his parents.
Kids Hiding
Someone reported a group of kids hiding in the area of Wolzhaven and Fairtree about 9:50 p.m. Saturday.
It was true, police learned. A family was hosting a birthday party and the kids were playing hide and seek.
'Tis the Season
Mentor Police officers arrested a man who was pretending to be the Easter Bunny Saturday.
Police were looking for 27-year-old Justin Medema because he is suspected of shoplifting more than a $1,000 worth of DVDs from Sam's Club Mentor Police Sgt. Michael Majernik said.
Mentor Municipal Court issued a warrant for Medema's arrest. Officers then found out that he was working as the Easter Bunny at Heartland of Mentor, a retirement home, Majernik said.
slow suicide's no way to go...
I can't believe he's dead!
Dude, you knew it was going to happen sometime.
The Internets waxes poetic about Kurt Cobain, who will probably be viewed by the Kids of the Future with the same eye-rolling that accompanies Bob Dylan hagiography. It's cool to like grunge again I guess, now that the second-rate Vedders have been replaced by hipster-lites and Eddie's playing a ukulele instead of trying to be all about women's issues, and the kids who may or may not have listened to In Utero are snatching up fake vintage Nirvana shirts at Urban Outfitters and Topshop. This doesn't bother me much, since it was already marketed once and I came along to this in a time when it wasn't very cool.
I was ten years old when Kurt died, and I don't remember much, except that other people died too, like Biggie, Tupac, and Shannon Hoon. . The girl down the street that I rode bikes to the pool with had an older brother who had friends with long hair and black t-shirts who skateboarded and shoplifted and were listening to Dirt. They scared me and the cover looked freaky too and it sounded disturbing and messed up. I guess it kind of is. My love affair with heroin addicts with ethereally spooky harmonies and riffs that straddled that gap between the Sunset Strip and Seattle would come much later.
Fast forward five years, I didn't realize that my dad was into this "alternative rock" thing that seemed scary to my sheltered and uninterested ears and that these songs on the radio that spoke to a generation of middle schoolers who didn't know very much about heroin except that DARE said it was bad, failed to generate any memories until much later on, around the time I was 15 and suddenly things like God and rock and or roll went from being background noise to powerful entities in my subconscious and expression. I learned how to play "Heaven Beside You" from one of his old guitar magazines, and remember hearing it for the first time on the radio. It was storming and the swirling guitars in the coda and the blueness of the world just crystallized in this moment of father-daughter bonding.
I found that the 'scary kids' that seemed so intimidating were the people that tended to accept me and the splashy hand-me-downs of dorkness and florals gave way to an increasingly dark-toned wardrobe, baggy jeans and my dad's national guard army green pants hanging loose on my skinny frame and bony hips, baggy, often-black t-shirts from the thrift store, hair grown long like Jerry Cantrell's out of slackerness more than any fashion statement, heavy chain around my neck, converse all-stars that were once still a badge of subcultural tendencies, and one didn't have to try too hard.
I was smuggling home CDs from the library I worked at stashed in my backpack because while this was stuff my dad liked, it was something that would cause my mom to be even more concerned than she was, and these songs were reserved for times when no one was home and I'd run downstairs to turn off the stereo when I heard the garage door open. Someone stole 'Dirt' so I had to content myself with the self-titled, MTV Unplugged, and a greatest hits compilation no doubt to fulfill some recording contract. Some of my former bandmates gave me a hard time for still liking this band that they were "so over" by now, but they were into the Goo Goo Dolls so what did they know.
While we were waiting for our parents to pick us up my senior year, a skinny kid with long hair who looked like a dead ringer for Bender from the Breakfast Club asked me if I was into Nirvana because of those tattered black low-tops with the glitter and scribbles. Like me, he was an oddball among oddballs, a straight-and-narrow who grew up Catholic and still believed in something, reverberating to the tunes of stoners, junkies and freaks who waxed poetic over those otherworldly harmonies.
Our group of miscreants sat around outside, cut class at the community college where no one took attendance and you were still allowed to smoke, and no one had a social networking site outside of livejournal or a cell phone. It sounds utopian to say that it was a refuge for us weirdos of various stripes, because there was always some drama or other, but when Layne died, he came to school dressed in the usual flannels, a stocking cap with a blond wig, and a backpatch on his denim jacket vowing that we'd never forget. We cried in the basement next to the vending machines as the TV showed reruns of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and ended up bored at prom a few months later yelling out requests for Slayer. We're still friends to this day. Teenage angst has paid off well,I guess.
My first year of college was socially isolating and profoundly lonely, but my next door neighbor in the dorms grew up on the same records as me, and I did a painting with a bunch of little squares of Kurt Cobain and no one there knew who he was because it was a small town and somewhat conservative. Who's that guy and why's he wearing eyeliner? This painting hung in every house I lived in until I moved home.
I transferred schools and found that my beloved grunge figureheads made for great art-making music and my roommate and I would make trips to the Record Exchange in Canton for bargain bin CDs. I ended up with her Meat Puppets album and her copy of Jar of Flies that she didn't listen to much anymore. When we rented the church building that used to belong to the local fundie cult and began painting and cleaning it up, that album was in constant rotation along with Paul's Boutique and Nothing's Shocking. My pastor remembers sitting in a cold apartment in Pittsburgh listening to Dirt as snow blew through a hole in the roof.
What was once an adolescent subculture that involved the littlest sartorial effort is still my comfort music, my bad day music, my driving around with the windows down music, my cartharsis and creative fuel. I still wear the tattered jeans and flannels and black t-shirts around the house, though having to go and get a Real Office Job means that I've carried over the almost-monochrome to the world of academic peonage. My fellow peon and homie in all things literate and heavy Randal's writeup is pretty damn good, by the way, though he'd probably say otherwise.
I've found that Alice has stuck with me way more than I thought it would, and Mad Season is definitely on my desert island disc list and makes me cry sometimes when I think about what could have been. I still want to ask God someday why Layne is dead and Dave Navarro is still alive.
Dude, you knew it was going to happen sometime.
The Internets waxes poetic about Kurt Cobain, who will probably be viewed by the Kids of the Future with the same eye-rolling that accompanies Bob Dylan hagiography. It's cool to like grunge again I guess, now that the second-rate Vedders have been replaced by hipster-lites and Eddie's playing a ukulele instead of trying to be all about women's issues, and the kids who may or may not have listened to In Utero are snatching up fake vintage Nirvana shirts at Urban Outfitters and Topshop. This doesn't bother me much, since it was already marketed once and I came along to this in a time when it wasn't very cool.
I was ten years old when Kurt died, and I don't remember much, except that other people died too, like Biggie, Tupac, and Shannon Hoon. . The girl down the street that I rode bikes to the pool with had an older brother who had friends with long hair and black t-shirts who skateboarded and shoplifted and were listening to Dirt. They scared me and the cover looked freaky too and it sounded disturbing and messed up. I guess it kind of is. My love affair with heroin addicts with ethereally spooky harmonies and riffs that straddled that gap between the Sunset Strip and Seattle would come much later.
Fast forward five years, I didn't realize that my dad was into this "alternative rock" thing that seemed scary to my sheltered and uninterested ears and that these songs on the radio that spoke to a generation of middle schoolers who didn't know very much about heroin except that DARE said it was bad, failed to generate any memories until much later on, around the time I was 15 and suddenly things like God and rock and or roll went from being background noise to powerful entities in my subconscious and expression. I learned how to play "Heaven Beside You" from one of his old guitar magazines, and remember hearing it for the first time on the radio. It was storming and the swirling guitars in the coda and the blueness of the world just crystallized in this moment of father-daughter bonding.
I found that the 'scary kids' that seemed so intimidating were the people that tended to accept me and the splashy hand-me-downs of dorkness and florals gave way to an increasingly dark-toned wardrobe, baggy jeans and my dad's national guard army green pants hanging loose on my skinny frame and bony hips, baggy, often-black t-shirts from the thrift store, hair grown long like Jerry Cantrell's out of slackerness more than any fashion statement, heavy chain around my neck, converse all-stars that were once still a badge of subcultural tendencies, and one didn't have to try too hard.
I was smuggling home CDs from the library I worked at stashed in my backpack because while this was stuff my dad liked, it was something that would cause my mom to be even more concerned than she was, and these songs were reserved for times when no one was home and I'd run downstairs to turn off the stereo when I heard the garage door open. Someone stole 'Dirt' so I had to content myself with the self-titled, MTV Unplugged, and a greatest hits compilation no doubt to fulfill some recording contract. Some of my former bandmates gave me a hard time for still liking this band that they were "so over" by now, but they were into the Goo Goo Dolls so what did they know.
While we were waiting for our parents to pick us up my senior year, a skinny kid with long hair who looked like a dead ringer for Bender from the Breakfast Club asked me if I was into Nirvana because of those tattered black low-tops with the glitter and scribbles. Like me, he was an oddball among oddballs, a straight-and-narrow who grew up Catholic and still believed in something, reverberating to the tunes of stoners, junkies and freaks who waxed poetic over those otherworldly harmonies.
Our group of miscreants sat around outside, cut class at the community college where no one took attendance and you were still allowed to smoke, and no one had a social networking site outside of livejournal or a cell phone. It sounds utopian to say that it was a refuge for us weirdos of various stripes, because there was always some drama or other, but when Layne died, he came to school dressed in the usual flannels, a stocking cap with a blond wig, and a backpatch on his denim jacket vowing that we'd never forget. We cried in the basement next to the vending machines as the TV showed reruns of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and ended up bored at prom a few months later yelling out requests for Slayer. We're still friends to this day. Teenage angst has paid off well,I guess.
My first year of college was socially isolating and profoundly lonely, but my next door neighbor in the dorms grew up on the same records as me, and I did a painting with a bunch of little squares of Kurt Cobain and no one there knew who he was because it was a small town and somewhat conservative. Who's that guy and why's he wearing eyeliner? This painting hung in every house I lived in until I moved home.
I transferred schools and found that my beloved grunge figureheads made for great art-making music and my roommate and I would make trips to the Record Exchange in Canton for bargain bin CDs. I ended up with her Meat Puppets album and her copy of Jar of Flies that she didn't listen to much anymore. When we rented the church building that used to belong to the local fundie cult and began painting and cleaning it up, that album was in constant rotation along with Paul's Boutique and Nothing's Shocking. My pastor remembers sitting in a cold apartment in Pittsburgh listening to Dirt as snow blew through a hole in the roof.
What was once an adolescent subculture that involved the littlest sartorial effort is still my comfort music, my bad day music, my driving around with the windows down music, my cartharsis and creative fuel. I still wear the tattered jeans and flannels and black t-shirts around the house, though having to go and get a Real Office Job means that I've carried over the almost-monochrome to the world of academic peonage. My fellow peon and homie in all things literate and heavy Randal's writeup is pretty damn good, by the way, though he'd probably say otherwise.
I've found that Alice has stuck with me way more than I thought it would, and Mad Season is definitely on my desert island disc list and makes me cry sometimes when I think about what could have been. I still want to ask God someday why Layne is dead and Dave Navarro is still alive.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
connections and dissections
I sat across a table last night with a cup of yerba mate tea and a growling stomach because it's more datelike when someone else pays and I'm not one to take advantage of gender dynamics like that, and it's a coffeeshop so I don't want want bakery when mine is better or an overpriced salad and as we talk I'm noticing a tendency to zone out into smile/nods, because we've covered all this ground before and I want to talk about something else, but I'm not sure what or if I'm just being moody and unreasonable or if I'm just spoiled by my morning coffee and snark partners in peonage and have become too accustomed to a certain level of most-encompassing discourse. And I'm not sure where he's at either, because we're not kids anymore, and usually the lines are laid out more firmly: platonic or not so much.
I drive home, coming up the stairs I realize I'm so glad to be alone now, wondering how this happened as I scoop some leftovers out of the fridge to nuke in the microwave and make myself some tea and wait for the neighbors to stop by with house keys and cat-watching details. There are other things I'm thinking about, spinstery things like my garden plot and the cats that will be taking up residence this weekend and what I want to make next on the pottery wheel and how I need to start taking these little scattered bits and get my guitar out and see if I can write something I'd want to listen to. It might be that this is easier and safer.
It's not that I'm antisocial at all, I hosted dinner on Monday night and when the Queen of the Bondo and her husband came over, we hung out for a bit in the living room talking about books and cities and such, but then I cherish this space of solitude that's my own domain and wonder if that makes me selfish or self-preserving or a little bit of both.
I drive home, coming up the stairs I realize I'm so glad to be alone now, wondering how this happened as I scoop some leftovers out of the fridge to nuke in the microwave and make myself some tea and wait for the neighbors to stop by with house keys and cat-watching details. There are other things I'm thinking about, spinstery things like my garden plot and the cats that will be taking up residence this weekend and what I want to make next on the pottery wheel and how I need to start taking these little scattered bits and get my guitar out and see if I can write something I'd want to listen to. It might be that this is easier and safer.
It's not that I'm antisocial at all, I hosted dinner on Monday night and when the Queen of the Bondo and her husband came over, we hung out for a bit in the living room talking about books and cities and such, but then I cherish this space of solitude that's my own domain and wonder if that makes me selfish or self-preserving or a little bit of both.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
kites
Ten years into adulthood and I still haven't grown out of certain childhood pleasures. I usually end up with a new kite every year until the plastic breaks or it gets stuck in a tree or snaps off and flies away into oblivion.
The African refugees I once tutored told me they made kites in the camp out of plastic bags and string, and in the summers my dad would take us to the soccer field at St. Bridget's, and when I was too old to get an Easter basket, my friends and I would buy cheap plastic ones at Marc's and fly them at Edgewater Park where they looked pitiful next to the swandiving stunt kites and the stunning swirls of the Chinese ones.
A little bit of google-fu and I learned that the Day of the Dead in Guatemala is celebrated in part by flying seriously amazing kites in the graveyard. This is pretty awesome. I think I need to find a cemetery to fly mine in.
The African refugees I once tutored told me they made kites in the camp out of plastic bags and string, and in the summers my dad would take us to the soccer field at St. Bridget's, and when I was too old to get an Easter basket, my friends and I would buy cheap plastic ones at Marc's and fly them at Edgewater Park where they looked pitiful next to the swandiving stunt kites and the stunning swirls of the Chinese ones.
A little bit of google-fu and I learned that the Day of the Dead in Guatemala is celebrated in part by flying seriously amazing kites in the graveyard. This is pretty awesome. I think I need to find a cemetery to fly mine in.
don't it make you smile
You'll be successful in life because you have such a wonderful smile. Did you know that they didn't hire people to work at the casino because they didn't smile. Let me tell you what I learn in sales training school. Smiling happy people have greater productivity! Corporate America is waiting for you. Rich people help people. Poor people can't help people because they have nothing. Rich people help other people.
Oh really. Not that there aren't generous rich folk out there somewhere, but what I see usually is that such gifts come strings attached or a giant spotlight rather than sheer altruism. There are some in my world with some means who I see helping out everyone around them, but they don't make a show of it, but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule.
There's a lot of stiff-lipped humorless individuals who have "succeeded" in life if that's your definition of success and a lot of us who do wear the perpetual grin usually work in the lower echelons of the customer service industry where other people are always right no matter how wrong they are. It takes less muscles, and sometimes if the teeth are showing and the mouth goes up far enough, you can't always see the curve of the cynical eyebrow, the frustration of being unable to respond in kind and knowing that this is our life destiny, for opting out of networking and ladder-climbing but still having to deal with those who do.
Oh really. Not that there aren't generous rich folk out there somewhere, but what I see usually is that such gifts come strings attached or a giant spotlight rather than sheer altruism. There are some in my world with some means who I see helping out everyone around them, but they don't make a show of it, but that seems to be the exception rather than the rule.
There's a lot of stiff-lipped humorless individuals who have "succeeded" in life if that's your definition of success and a lot of us who do wear the perpetual grin usually work in the lower echelons of the customer service industry where other people are always right no matter how wrong they are. It takes less muscles, and sometimes if the teeth are showing and the mouth goes up far enough, you can't always see the curve of the cynical eyebrow, the frustration of being unable to respond in kind and knowing that this is our life destiny, for opting out of networking and ladder-climbing but still having to deal with those who do.
Monday, April 2, 2012
if tears were liquor
I didn't used to like Mark Lanegan's voice when he sang for the Screaming Trees, but like most good slow-burn things, it grew on me, and since that band broke up, I've followed his solo career and collaborations closely, loving some of his work for the way it tingles my spine and moves my soul when staying up late painting, huddling in grunge layers around the house on wintry snowbound days, and driving through deserted streets late at night.
It's mix CD music, tracks I play on the radio and throw on CDs for everyone, but music that I listen to alone almost exclusively. I saw him perform with the Soulsavers a few years back and had the time of my life alone in the Grog Shop with my eyes closed, enraptured to hear that timbre six feet away as powerful as ever.
So I heard the new record reflected his love of synthy general 80's-ness and was reluctant to pick up the album without listening to it first courtesy of the local bibliotheque. I don't fault that as selling out or going with the times because my musical taste goes down all sorts of weird rabbit holes too, but there are certain things that are more my thing, and I infinitely prefer guitars to keys and prefer my electronica to be organic, dark and melancholy rather than 80's-clubby.
So the first cut has the whole Queens of the Stone Age-ish stomp, which is cool and more what the last outing with the band was like when he was dueting most swankly with PJ Harvey (which I would have preferred as a collaboration more than Isobel Campbell) and wailing about methamphetamines.
Track two is chill and bluesy, muddy water and rain, like a chillout companion to 'When the Levee Breaks,' hypnotic that it seems like it could go on longer than six-plus minutes.
Gray Goes Black has the echoes of skittish post-punk reverberating through it, but I find myself skipping to St. Louis Elegy already, sounding like part of the lost sequel to Saturnalia with the atmospheric feel and the harmonies of Greg Dulli.
There's some synthastic numbers on here that just aren't my thing, but that The Kids might dig, and the rest hasn't quite sunk in yet. Some albums are growers, some wear thin in a few listens, we'll see where this one falls, though it's not quite Whiskey for the Holy Ghost or Saturnalia yet for me...
It's mix CD music, tracks I play on the radio and throw on CDs for everyone, but music that I listen to alone almost exclusively. I saw him perform with the Soulsavers a few years back and had the time of my life alone in the Grog Shop with my eyes closed, enraptured to hear that timbre six feet away as powerful as ever.
So I heard the new record reflected his love of synthy general 80's-ness and was reluctant to pick up the album without listening to it first courtesy of the local bibliotheque. I don't fault that as selling out or going with the times because my musical taste goes down all sorts of weird rabbit holes too, but there are certain things that are more my thing, and I infinitely prefer guitars to keys and prefer my electronica to be organic, dark and melancholy rather than 80's-clubby.
So the first cut has the whole Queens of the Stone Age-ish stomp, which is cool and more what the last outing with the band was like when he was dueting most swankly with PJ Harvey (which I would have preferred as a collaboration more than Isobel Campbell) and wailing about methamphetamines.
Track two is chill and bluesy, muddy water and rain, like a chillout companion to 'When the Levee Breaks,' hypnotic that it seems like it could go on longer than six-plus minutes.
Gray Goes Black has the echoes of skittish post-punk reverberating through it, but I find myself skipping to St. Louis Elegy already, sounding like part of the lost sequel to Saturnalia with the atmospheric feel and the harmonies of Greg Dulli.
There's some synthastic numbers on here that just aren't my thing, but that The Kids might dig, and the rest hasn't quite sunk in yet. Some albums are growers, some wear thin in a few listens, we'll see where this one falls, though it's not quite Whiskey for the Holy Ghost or Saturnalia yet for me...
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