Since the day I was born I knew I was destined to run a blog. Not just any blog, this blog, the only blog. What some may call "the Last Blog". But I don't follow that sort of trite sentimentalism. I like to look at things as they are: the year 2018 is done, complete, is it not? And as an online semi-periodical for a dormant record label, it is our civic, if not global duty to contribute to the torrential flood of reflective opinions on the year's happenings, goings on, banquets, do's, festivities, mundanities, successes, failures, disappearances, coersions, murders, , and other forms of EVENTS, both of the sonic and material qualities - is it not?
DB Influenza would never have bothered because he was too preoccupied watching his psychological mind-sculpture slowly disintegrate in front of him. He claims it took seven years to carve out, seven lonely years spent in an oversized refrigerator where the only the source of consistent illumination was the light of his mind. Apparently, this light has since gone out.
Yes sireee bill it's a year end list like all the rest of em. When it comes to the musical endeavours I hardly heard a peep from the world, though more than in past years. Truth be told I listened to Townes van Z, Sandy Denny, and old Jim Shepard 90% of the time. That's the truth. The lie is that I was mining the underground from my remote maritime outpost, digging up gems that I shall now impart upon you, the reader. But I probably heard plenty of stuff. Here's what I can guarantee you was listened to by me more than twice:
Tarkamt :: "Live at the Necropolis"
- I guess this one takes the cake. Just the kinda thing I like, not just because Alan Bishop shows up to blast a sax solo.
NON Worldwide Compilation Trilogy
- behemoth encyclopaedia of contemporary mega music.
Enhet for fri musik ::"Det finss ett hjorta som for dig"
- wrought iron proof that Scandinavians still have access to recording devices.
Special Interests :: "Spiraling"
- a supergroup, of sorts.
Agnarkea :: "Black Helicopters"
- a conversational beat parade. Pronounced "anarchy".
Bonaventure :: "Mentor"
- mostly the title track.
Essaie Pas :: "New Path"
- Marie Davidson and some guy - maybe you know him?
Rik and the Pigs :: "A Child's Gator"
- rock music should not mean suck music.
Eiko Ishibashi and Darin Gray :: "Ichida"
- I had a few good mid-year naps to this that I will never forget.
chik white :: "Stranger Calls to Land"
- wait...didn't this come out in 2017!?
Honorable mentions to Hank Wood and Friends, Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement, Klein, US Girls, Lonnie Holley, anything that ended up on the Blog of Roland, Richard Papiercuts, Mosquitoes, Mariah Carey, JPEGMAFIA, Lavender Flu, Senyawa, Mdou Moctar, Alison Cotton, Chris C. and Bill O., Dead Girl's Party, Rosali, Negative Scanner, Judy Dyble, Soho Rezanejad, William Parker, Tashi Dorji, etc. etc. etc. ad infintum... +reissues.
And there you have it. A mych heavy year on the rhythm beat than on the traditional scuzz n scronk than I've gravitated towards in the past. Perhaps it was due to the official retirement of Brian Turner's show on WFMU, my primary source of scuzz n scronk for nary a decade. No matter, I just go with the flo. I synthesize the sensory world into my own making, as should you.
I know yr wondering, but Glen, you said chik white, but where's the rest of the LOCAL TALENT? Have you no respect for your community? Tsktsk, there were plenty of worthwhile transmissions emanating from my immediate proximity, I was just going thru a "phase" and a lot of it didn't make it past my nose hairs. No matter, I predict 2019 will be a champagne year for K'jipuktuk/Halifax City. Yes it's all gonna happen in 2019. It's already happening, innit?
And the rest of you...better luck next year!
-G. Davis
Thursday, 31 January 2019
Tuesday, 27 November 2018
VARIOUS INTERRUPTUS
A time to live a time to die, a time to gather stones and spread stones around. I never got what old Pete was on about but it sure sounded nice. Apparently he read it in some book that made people love and kill each other.
I had a good run, as Various CE/A/FO and janitor. Those bygone glory days of folding inserts and dubbing cassettes, selling em for less than they cost to make. It was all worth every ounce of sweat and pennies. But I've grown now, into the kind of person I swore I'd never become. My hands are charred with red dust and my eyes sink well below my nostrils. I've taken all the mirrors out of my apartment and cancelled my subscriptions to the Wire and MRR. I'm one of them now and I hope you never forgive me for it.
No, it didn't happen instantly. There were even some happenings, proceedings, whatever you'd like to call them during that painful and degrading process. For one, Surveillance played their first show in almost two years at the Seahorse Tavern in the colonial city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, better known as K'jipuktuk. It was a bill shared with the Booji Boys and Washing Machine. Then they played again at the same location, only a few months later. Rabies almost played in their hometown, even made it on to a bill, but vanished, almost out of thin air, due to a minor rift in the forced time continuum. Still, it was a saucy show and I made a poster for it, which looked like this:
Notice that glub, sweatstained whitetoothed icon hiding something that was, perhaps, once visible. Will its panic stricken smile ever fade into transparency, revealing the words it so plainly obscures? But this is a blog not a fortune cookie, and, as it should be, that future is as veiled to me as it is to you.
Surveillance and Rabies also visited St. John's, Newfoundland (real name unknown) in August to graciously participate in the first annual Out of Earshot Festival. It was their most triumphant moment, from which they made it out by their skivvies and hope to return someday.
So this is all to say that people and objects exist and probably always will in some shape or form despite the fact that I, DB Influenza, am stepping down from my post as overseer/C/F/A/O/janitorial executor of Various Antinational Corporate Enterprise LTD to pass on such pressing duties to another uniquely qualified individual of remarkably similar build, age, race, gender, taste, flavour, class, and magnitude, an individual who arbitrarily calls himself Glen Davis.
Oh, you know him? You listened to CKDU 88.1 FM on the night of September 21st between the hours of 10:30 pm and midnite? Well then good for you. Send away for your reward. Perhaps you can retire early and live on some desert island beach if you didn't already spend your entire life there.
Anyways I've spoken to Glen of his plans for the enterprise and he has assured me of its almost guaranteed future success in all fields of exploits, which is to include a wide swath of casual investments in both far right and left wing political ventures, burgeoning anarchist hierarchies, innovative indoor-ecotourism, cosmic geo-thermal industrial manufacturing, and a devastating concept he is apparently finalizing a patent on known as "silent music".
As for this little space on the global network of digidungeons, he may have mentioned something about his self-styled lit-fiction, pseudo-journalism, personal feline photocollage, and other semi-creative mind farts. He's just chomping at the bit, galloping towards you like a herd of infected equine to get some screen time in yr mind's eye, so I'll ease up and pass the buck. I hear him coming now, humming some monotonous tune from the previous, nearly forgotten century. "Denim and Leather". What does this even refer to? Disgusting. I fear for the future.
Good bye forever,
DB Influenza.
I had a good run, as Various CE/A/FO and janitor. Those bygone glory days of folding inserts and dubbing cassettes, selling em for less than they cost to make. It was all worth every ounce of sweat and pennies. But I've grown now, into the kind of person I swore I'd never become. My hands are charred with red dust and my eyes sink well below my nostrils. I've taken all the mirrors out of my apartment and cancelled my subscriptions to the Wire and MRR. I'm one of them now and I hope you never forgive me for it.
No, it didn't happen instantly. There were even some happenings, proceedings, whatever you'd like to call them during that painful and degrading process. For one, Surveillance played their first show in almost two years at the Seahorse Tavern in the colonial city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, better known as K'jipuktuk. It was a bill shared with the Booji Boys and Washing Machine. Then they played again at the same location, only a few months later. Rabies almost played in their hometown, even made it on to a bill, but vanished, almost out of thin air, due to a minor rift in the forced time continuum. Still, it was a saucy show and I made a poster for it, which looked like this:
Notice that glub, sweatstained whitetoothed icon hiding something that was, perhaps, once visible. Will its panic stricken smile ever fade into transparency, revealing the words it so plainly obscures? But this is a blog not a fortune cookie, and, as it should be, that future is as veiled to me as it is to you.
Surveillance and Rabies also visited St. John's, Newfoundland (real name unknown) in August to graciously participate in the first annual Out of Earshot Festival. It was their most triumphant moment, from which they made it out by their skivvies and hope to return someday.
So this is all to say that people and objects exist and probably always will in some shape or form despite the fact that I, DB Influenza, am stepping down from my post as overseer/C/F/A/O/janitorial executor of Various Antinational Corporate Enterprise LTD to pass on such pressing duties to another uniquely qualified individual of remarkably similar build, age, race, gender, taste, flavour, class, and magnitude, an individual who arbitrarily calls himself Glen Davis.
Oh, you know him? You listened to CKDU 88.1 FM on the night of September 21st between the hours of 10:30 pm and midnite? Well then good for you. Send away for your reward. Perhaps you can retire early and live on some desert island beach if you didn't already spend your entire life there.
Anyways I've spoken to Glen of his plans for the enterprise and he has assured me of its almost guaranteed future success in all fields of exploits, which is to include a wide swath of casual investments in both far right and left wing political ventures, burgeoning anarchist hierarchies, innovative indoor-ecotourism, cosmic geo-thermal industrial manufacturing, and a devastating concept he is apparently finalizing a patent on known as "silent music".
As for this little space on the global network of digidungeons, he may have mentioned something about his self-styled lit-fiction, pseudo-journalism, personal feline photocollage, and other semi-creative mind farts. He's just chomping at the bit, galloping towards you like a herd of infected equine to get some screen time in yr mind's eye, so I'll ease up and pass the buck. I hear him coming now, humming some monotonous tune from the previous, nearly forgotten century. "Denim and Leather". What does this even refer to? Disgusting. I fear for the future.
Good bye forever,
DB Influenza.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)