October 19, 2004

hey bore hey (bore now bore)

The new Boredoms--album, can one really call it? It would've been an album 20 years ago, when a 23-minute song and a 20-minute song could be an album--is the button I keep hitting for the pleasure pellet. When it's playing, every so often I realize that I need to listen to something else for work or whatever, but then I think: that would involve pausing or stopping the Boredoms CD. (It's called Seadrum/House of Sun.)

I've heard it said that Boredoms actually broke up in 1998, when they played a "perfect" show at the Fuji Rock festival and Yamamotor smashed his guitar, and that the current band is either called Vooredoms (with or without an infinity sign replacing the "oo") or 7V07. I don't care. This says "Boredoms" on the front, and it sounds like the quietest parts and the loudest parts of Vision Creation Newsun at the same time, or what Amon Düül dreamed about growing up to become, and as far as I'm concerned it's the return of a band that is almost impossibly dear to me. (It's hard for me to come up with a decent point of comparison for them. The day I bought it, somebody asked me what they were like, and I sputtered something about "like the most intense instrumental fragmentary cross-sections of your favorite pure-rock record pulled like bubbling elastic into endless glorious jamming," and she said "ew, that sounds like String Cheese Incident or something," and I was ashamed.)

Lisa's off in New York for a week or so; I'm still in Portland. Edie is deeply freaked out by this. She jumps into the bed and sniffs around for Lisa-scent. When I'm typing, she comes up to me and stares at me accusatorily: "WHERRRRE IS SHE? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH HER, YOU BASTARD!!" Then she grooms herself until the fur stands up, wet, on her back, claws at the leg of my jeans, and stalks off.

Michele and I went to see David Thomas and two pale boys last night--one of the pale boys being, of course, Andy Diagram of the mighty Spaceheads. Really extraordinary: D.T. was in a very bad mood, as he seems to be often when I see him play, but a black cloud of charisma hovers over him when he's annoyed. As usual, he was playing his little accordion while wearing a huge red slick apron. Somebody yelled "What's with the apron?" Thomas fixed him with a Zero Mostel-type glare, and announced in the voice of a contemptuous schoolteacher: "The apron is a condom. A protective barrier... a prophylactic device... that protects the delicate workings of the accordion... from the PASSION THAT FLOWS OUT OF ME."

Posted by Douglas at October 19, 2004 11:05 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Douglas and Edie are like a bickering sitcom couple -- they pretend to dislike each other, but underneath there's secret affection.

And Douglas -- take her for a walk! She'll forget all about me. Cat harness is under the sink.

About 40 NYFD firefighters just walked into my internet cafe, and there's a lovely burnt-Windows smell. Perhaps I should go.

xol.

Posted by: lisa g on October 20, 2004 7:51 PM

Trying to describe the Boredoms. I've given up, honestly.

The only analog, I suppose, is to compare them to The Fall - for the sole reason that both groups make a lot of records, and each one sounds different from the one previous (and the one that will follow it), but you can still tell that the same basic core group of people conspired to create it.

For those times that I miss the Boredoms, I play records by The Pugs. An acceptable substitute, and the singer, Honey*K, actually sings in Japanese from time to tome, so I can understand what she is saying.

Posted by: jodi, samurai photographer on October 25, 2004 8:58 AM
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