Looky here!!! I just found me some new, and it looks like RECENT pictures of my childhood celebrity crush, the lovely and talented LINDA BLAIR!



Not that she's dog ugly or anything, but though it pains me to say it, the dispensation of the truth demands that I admit that her age is beginning to show. Gosh, I hope she never reads this blog.

Please don't tell Linda Blair what I just said.

Please.



Check 'em all out...

Celebrity Wonder



And what could be nicer than everyone who reads this blog sending me a LINDA BLAIR E-CARD straight from her official website, at LindaBlair.com??? I think I'm gonna send a few out myself...

Sigur Ros ( )

Sigur Ros ( )


The needle falls down on the record, a thump deep in the bass, the speaker cone shakes and the sound ocean floods from my Serwin-Vegas...That alien who stepped out of the saucer in Close Encounters of the Third Kind decides to speak to Dreyfuss, and this is what it sounds like. This is the language of his planet, on the other side of a black hole in the Gamma region.

A murder of crows, cold in the snow, muttering low, squeaking and squealing. Love taking on flesh and blood, suffocated by skin, now let's let the service begin. They sing their gut-hungry praises then flitter away.

Signifying nothing.

The priest places the wafer on the infidel's tongue. He lifts the cup to the liar's lips. A subtle glow emitted from a place slightly behind his head. He intones the Mass and tries to empty himself to allow the Holy Spirit to work through him as he ministers in the name of Jesus Christ to his congregation. The Spirit lifts up his voice to the sky and intercedes for my weak soul.

These chants are ancient, as old as the book of Genesis. These are the languages of the Mishraites or the Zareathites or the Eshtaulites. These are the tongues spoken by Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. A language taught to them by their slave ancestors, excommunicated from the clans of Sarah, mother of the promised. A language used by Abraham himself, when he beckoned Isaac to the land of Moriah, making him carry the sacrificial knife soon held to his throat.

The procession moves forward, each receiving the body and blood in turn, enriched and better for receiving it. They walk like slaves submitting to a kind master they love to serve back to their seats in the cathedral, to wait, to get lost in the sacred relics and the sacred art scattered throughout this beautiful sanctuary.
And surely the Lord is in this place, for all that is good is from the Lord and this music is exceptionally good.

The chanting continues, now sung in the language of Baal-Zephon, where the king went after the Israelites, translated: "Wasn't there enough room in Egypt to bury us? Is that why you brought us out here to die in the desert? Why did you bring us out of Egypt, anyway? While we were there didn't we tell you to leave us alone? We had rather be slaves in Egypt than die in this desert!..."

These tone poems, written in the days of the Exodus, have a modern sound to them that is uncanny. Aliens who landed on earth in 897 BC bestowed gifts of prophecy and tongues to the individual members of Sigur Ros, and they are merely tools at the disposal of the leader of the aliens in their attempts to express themselves to the earthlings. No, there's no way any of us not from their planet could ever understand their language, borrowed as it was from the priests, Zadok and Abiathar in a meeting held on Mount Calvary the last time they landed on earth. The chord progressions are subliminally tainted with commands to relax, encourage a sense of floating, drift off with the thoughts that interest you most.

A looping tribal dance, recorded on site at a Buddhist monastery where the monks would mumble polyphonic OMs and the tourists would catapult their spirits through a needle's eye just to show that it can be done... Are they praying for rain? Or is it a rich harvest they petition the Great Spirit for today, their knees to the ground? The dance turns into an orgy, bodies tangled up misplaced pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

They kill the whale, and so we mourn.

They fester hate like a sore that won't go away, so we sing this lamentation.

Translation: "The Son wants you...Hear things in the music that aren't there, only in your hammer struck head. Ring the living bell, ring the living bell, shine the living light, shine the living light...

They incite aggression, so we back off.

They treat the blind man with scorn and contempt, so we judge them.

They are good for nothing but fighting your wars, their stone hardened hearts too far gone to notice each life snuffed out under orders from ground patrol. So we pray for conflict. We petition the Lord for strife and discord. Exterminate these burned-out husks of men before their 4 years are up.

They lay hands upon the genius and lock him in institutions with people who pull steak knives on strangers. They are afraid of him, so they put him away, in sweat-stinking padded cells or wrapped up nice and tight in a straight, mornings woke and hustled to the breakfast line. They extricate his confidence, thought pattern by thought pattern, and curb the flow of his intellect. They leave us to sing a funeral song for the postmodern society on the day when common sense is evenly distributed amongst individuals and Moral Law is accepted as fact by each and all. A dirge for each time you've ever been hurt by someone's words or actions. Our common denominator of heartache and sorrow. Divided about all other things, by necessity united by tears, wailing, howling at the moon, primal scream therapy and insomnia.

And now the church is empty. Angels lingering to usher the Spirit from the echoing halls. Silence and stillness brutal proof of God. Music from the other side of this life. Welcoming songs played at St. Peter's Gate. Stubborn prayers from those passed over, coaxing us through, waiting with scissors at the ready to slice the mortal coil. Believers' bellys full of the body and blood of the Lord, digesting it at this very moment, letting the body do it's digestive work, preparing it for re-birth.

This music is a hand reaching out and over the chasm of being to grab and pull you into another reality for a few moments. For a few moments you will experience the world from the viewpoint of Jonsi. It is an exhilarating sensation, coveted by all.

This music is the voice of Thor, the cries of Aphrodite, the sins of Baal, the dreams of Pontius Pilate, the sound of coyotes cuddled in a cave, wailing at the moon. This music is the war of the worlds. It's release. Orgasm. A little death. Afterglow then off to sleep. Waking to Philip Glass, inspired to listen to him by Sigur Ros.


The needle is yanked from the record and silence and stillness return to claim their divinity.

Bloodrock 'n' Roll: Get Outta He-Ahh!!!

Bloodrock Bloodrock 2

Many critics seemed to enjoy deriding Bloodrock back in the early 70's when they were recording and performing to rabid fans (myself included, though I never got to see them live). And I will admit that Bloodrock's music has aged just a little bit...it's not quite as wonderful as I remembered it being as a child of 13 or 14, when I considered them my favourite band. I'd never heard too much of Grand Funk Railroad, so all the comparisons the critics were making of Bloodrock to Grand Funk were lost on me. I just knew that I really liked Bloodrock's sound.

It is a rich, tight, funky sound, a harbinger of Lynyrd Skynyrd and southern rock, prominently featuring a Hammond B-3 organ and with a vocalist whose vocal cords sounded like they had been soaked in whiskey. Personally I prefer Bloodrock's sound to Grand Funk's, but what do I know? I'm sentimental about this album...

Because it was one of the first rock albums I ever owned. Buying record albums was a weekly ritual for me, a pay-off for having a good week.

It was the morbid AM radio hit "D.O.A." that first caught my attention. With it's eerie sirens blaring and it's morose, morbid lyrics about a young couple's final moments after a fatal accident, how could a young rock and roller such as I was resist? I became a fan and eventually bought all of their albums. Bloodrock 2 was the one I considered the best. Both of the opening two songs are powerful ("Lucky In The Morning", "Cheater"), but things get bogged down a little with "Sable And Pearl". Now I can remember enjoying this song when I was younger, but these days I can't say I'm too fond of it. The first side of the album winds down with "Fallin", a solid, percussion-driven rocker about falling into a well...or perhaps it's a metaphor for the illusion of life being much like falling down a well (I keep fallin' through that well/It's so deep I can't see the sky/Someone come along and shake me/For if I wake I will surely die...).

The song which is the b-side of the "D.O.A." single was a straight ahead fast boogie called "Children's Heritage" (I like music, it makes me feel so good/And all of my children are gonna like it like they should...). It originally opened side 2 of the album, paving the way for "Dier Not A Lover" and, of course, the 8+ minute epic, the long version of "D.O.A.". I never listen to this song, always skipping over it. I mean, thoughts of death creep up on me enough as it is without encouraging more of them by listening to it. It's way too much of a downer, having been involved in an automobile accident myself a few years ago which but for the grace of God my life was miraculously spared. Naw, I don't need or want to hear Bloodrock's singer praying, "God in heaven, teach me how to die". What kind of wacko does it make me for finding much enjoyment in this song as a child? What kind of hell must I have been living through to have been able to find entertainment value in such a macabre ditty? In the same manner, whatever possessed me to embrave Alice Cooper so devoutly just a few years later, with his necrophilia anthem "I Love The Dead" and his tales of dead babies and sick things?

Bloodrock, even though the name sounds like they should fall into that same gory theatrical camp with the Coop, have a sound that bears absolutely no resemblance to what the Billion Dollar Babies were creating. Bloodrock sounded more like something you might hear blaring from a jukebox in a biker bar sandwiched between Steppenwolf's "The Pusher" and a Hank Williams Jr. number.

Ending the album (assuming the listener hasn't slit his wrists after being overcome with depression at the close of "D.O.A." and will actually hear the last track) is a swaggering rocker called, for some unknown reason, "Fancy Space Oddyssey". Good song with a memorable, abrupt ending.

There you have it...8 more songs from Bloodrock, after the fine batch of nine that were on their first album. They might never get nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but I think they belong in the pantheon of classic rock bands.

More Bloodrock:

Great rehearsal tonight. Things really coming together, I think. I wrote a song especially for the band and we worked it up. It's the second part of a two song suite called "Fantasy"/Reality". I don't know how they read but the lyrics sound good in the context of the song.

Here are the lyrics:





"Reality"

Hear me out...don't quit your day job

Not just yet, maybe not at all

Though I know you think you hear

The giddy sound of the good life callin' out to you

Sayin' "Come along!"

But that isn't Miss September whispering



Your glossy dreams...of the beautiful people

Far above everyone you know

Like they're from another world

A better place than anywhere you've ever been

You still think she's giving it to you

But it isn't Miss September's to give



And you'll never be a playboy, darling

And you'll never own a penthouse, baby

And you're never gonna be a playboy

So don't quit your day job, darling



It's enough...people laughing at the

Party jokes that you've memorized

And you tell them so well

But it's too much to expect her not to notice

The lecherous gleam there in your eye

Now you've frightened Miss September away...



And you'll never be a playboy, darling

And you'll never own a penthouse, baby

And you're never gonna be a playboy

So don't quit your day job, darling...

Well, it's been three days since the gig last Saturday and even though I'm still on cloud 9 because of our performance, the truth is that I'm just as excited about the next time I see the Fellowship Students as I am about the Mad Laugh playing again (and let me tell you, that is some serious anticipation). Rojo Fantastico, our keyboard player and a close friend of the Students, tells me that he thinks their best songs are not even on their CD-EP, and that bodes well for their debut long player, because The Youth Want Distortion is TOP NOTCH.

I've done a little research on the band...not as much as I'd like, though (I have to say that their "web presence" is sorely lacking for a band with such potential)...and I found out that OKC's hip night-life weekly The Oklahoma Gazette named them the Best New Artist in the state last go round. That does not surprise me at ALL. The performance I saw was simply galvanizing. One of the best shows I've seen since driving all the way to Colorado for a Sigur Ros show (that's in terms of musical quality, not meant to imply that the Fellowship Students sound anything like Sigur Ros).

They're playing tomorrow night at the OCU campus, and if it weren't for the fact that I have to get up very early for work the following morning I would be making plans right now to attend.

Aaaaagh! I've GOT to find a new day job, something with regular 8 hour days...the job I work now is a straight 40 hours from Friday @ 8am till Saturday @ 12midnight. This schedule is NOT GONNA WORK if I intend to stay active in the band and the local OKC music scene (and I fully intend to do just that).

So I should be out job-hunting right now instead of writing in this blog...

Oh well...the battery is almost dead in the second car, the only transportation I have at the present moment, so I guess it can wait at least until that situation gets fixed.

Next Mad Laugh gig is Friday, Sept 24th, I believe, and I am still trying to figure out how to swing my work schedule so that I can make it for that one...Two other Saturday night shows that I DO NOT WANT TO MISS the first two weekends of October, The first is a long-anticipated and highly touted gig at Hooters on the 2nd, and then on the 10th a show with the Fellowship Students at the infamous Hi-Lo club which promises to be a blow-out the likes of which have rarely been experienced in these parts...

That does it...

JobQuest 2004 begins VERY soon...

I might as well express my afterglow excitement about last night's first gig with the Mad Laugh, the band I'm currently involved in...

Man, oh man, words cannot even describe how great it was to be back on stage in front of a large and appreciative audience in the company of musicians that I respect and feel are my peers. We sounded really good and rocked ultra-hard, and you never would have guessed that I've only been with the band for 2 weeks (with maybe 5 rehearsals under my belt). GOOD things are bound to come from this particular music project, and that's SO refreshing to know, seeing as how the last few things I've tried to get off the ground crashed and burned. Not this one, I'll tell you.

If any of you readers/fellow bloggers find yourselves in Oklahoma, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me so I can let you know if we're playing during your stay...



But enough about me...I really wanted to rave about the bands that preceeded and followed us...I'm pretty hard to impress, but both of these acts proved to be capable of knocking me out flat and leaving me dazed with the conviction that once the rest of the country gets to hear them there's the distinct chance that Oklahoma will earn for itself a reputation for unique original music.

Ghosts of Monkshood opened the show and they were remarkable. They are a 5 piece with the members switching instruments throughout the set and they've got a side man who adds baritone saxophone and plays a snare drum and cymbal to augment the drummer. He also makes strange noises with the microphone pressed up against his larnyx, creating a sound that is like a 5th musical instrument but nothing you could identify. The main vocalist/guitarist actually put me in mind of Mark Kozelek in a way, and sometimes when the sideman would get busy on his stripped down drum set they bore a strong resemblance to The Feelies, with maybe a little mid-period Talking Heads influence thrown into the mix.

The only negative thing about them (and indeed, the only bummer of the evening) was that when I approached the sideman to tell him how impressed I was with what he added to the band's dynamic he avoided me as if I wasn't even there. I'd speak to him and he'd just look away and he never said a word in reply. I found that to be awfully rude and it really tinted my appreciation of the band as a whole in a "guilty-by-association" fashion. But some of the other guys were less abrasively dismissive and seemed to appreciate my sincere compliments, so I would definately like to catch them in concert again...

The band that followed us are pretty close friends with the other guys in my band. They are called The Fellowship Students, and mercy, mercy, mercy they had a killer rockin' sound and one truly incredible drummer...I mean to tell you this guy had his left arm in a sling, barely using it, and still was busting out fills that would make Neal Peart pay attention.

Once again, their sound is so unique that it's hard to describe or compare it to anyone else, but I have no doubt these guys are all Talking Heads fans, and it wouldn't surprise me if the guitarists listened to a bit of Television in their lifetimes, as that was what their interplay reminded me of. If not, then they come by it naturally, and that's even more impressive.

Got a chance to hang out with one of those guitarists, Matt Brown, who proved himself to be a festive individual and gave me a copy of their CD-EP, The Youth Want Distortion. It's a great CD with some really quirky stuff ("Bottle of Fizz"), solid rockers ("The Youth Want Distortion") and at least one track that, IMO, is like what Television would have sounded like if they were a jangle-pop band. My ONLY complaint about the CD is that it is just too short.

I look forward to playing lots of shows with these guys, and I think we compliment each other's styles...

So that was it. A great night. The first of many, I hope.

On the drive home from band rehearsal last night I popped XTC's English Settlement into the CD player and it really took me back to the early 80's when there was such a spirit of adventure and boundary-breaking in music.



Andy Partridge, XTC's primary tunesmith, is a master of the melody, and that talent is in full display on English Settlement, even if the backing tracks are often somewhat jarring. The juxtaposition of the stripped-down instrumentals and the sing-along melodies is what makes it such an entertaining set.

I've heard several of XTC's albums, but currently the only ones I own are this one and Oranges and Lemons. To my ears there is a huge difference in the band's approach between the two, with the latter employing a much richer musical sonic palette than the former. Oranges and Lemons is a good album with some excellent songs (most notably the hit single "The Mayor of Simpleton", with it's driving basslines), but for my money English Settlement is the better record.

I hadn't listened to it in a long, long time because I've been off exploring other genres, but hearing it has inspired me to re-investigate the other CDs from that period, and so I'm looking forward to rediscovering the joys of bands like the Psychedelic Furs, Talking Heads, Elvis Costello's early stuff, PiL, the Clash and the Pistols, New Model Army, Patti Smith, Wire and whatever else I find in my collection that I can remember being very into back in the early 80's...