echodusting

Mrs. Flanagan and myself are preparing to move in two days.  As anyone who has ever moved can tell you- it’s extremely stressful.  A co-worker told me that the 2nd most stressful day for people is a moving day.  I asked what the first was and he told me the death of a loved one.  My father passed away on the 12th.  I’m starting to wonder what the 3rd most stressful day is.  Might as well bang them all out in one month.

I’m sick of owning stuff.  Records, Books, personal ephemera.  I want to be able to pack my life into a suitcase or two and just zip away to anywhere.  Perhaps the death of my father has somehow amped up this emotion.  In comparison to the time I will no longer have with him a drawer full of markers and pens seems pretty insignificant.  I mean, when will I need all of these pens?  I need one good pen and that is all.

I told Jess that I wish we could just fast forward a month.  I know that once we have some time to settle in everything will be just right in our new space. 

And thus ends the most depressing blog post I’ve ever sputtered out.

 On the way to my job I walk from the 57^th St. N/Q Station to West 61^st St.  I come out from the subway right across from Carnegie Hall and head up 7^th Avenue.  After a couple blocks I hang a left onto 59^th and I’m now walking alongside the edge of Central Park. When I hit 8^th Ave I’m officially at Columbus Circle where II walk by the 70ft. high sculpture in honor of Columbus himself.   Supposedly, this exact location is used when you see signs measuring the distance to and from NYC. Though I can’t confirm that, I can definitely confirm that Columbus Circle is where the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man began his reign of terror in Ghostbusters. Anyways, from Columbus Circle I cut diagonally up to 60^th St. where I walk two avenues over to Amsterdam. From there it’s just a simple block up to 61^st and my office.  

 All said, it’s quite a nice walk.  I pass by landmarks, unique architecture, and the most visited park in the United States.  However, along with this interesting scenery come the tourists and the risk of stepping into their photos.  As much as I try to avoid this obstacle it is not always possible, especially when the photographers decide they need at least 20 feet between them and the subject of their photo.  Sorry Weegee, I’m walkin’ here.  Your exotic wonderland is my work commute, and as much as I appreciate how cute your two kids look posing in front of the Time Warner Center, I gots to get to work.

Fortunately, this experience is very familiar to me.  At college in Boston I regularly had to pass the Bull & Finch Pub to get to a class and more importantly the 7-11.  If you didn’t know, The Bull & Finch Pub was the bar that Cheers was based on, and the establishing shot for each episode was this exterior.  Pathetically, people flocked to take their picture next to the Cheers sign and even more pathetically I ended up in some of those pictures.   Years later I would have a job in the heart of Times Square where my work commute felt like a deep sea diving expedition into an ocean of camera toting tourist fish.  At least by this point I started smiling for the camera.  Might as well look good.

Suffice to say, no matter how much I smiled I‘ve still ruined my fair share of tourist photos by being smack dab in the middle at the very instant the photo was taken. Most likely these were deleted on the spot and another attempt was made.  But what about the photos where I’m off to the side or in the background?  These photos, the ones where I linger right on the edge of the frame, kind of fascinate me.  Theoretically I am trapped in that stranger’s photo forever, probably with a shitty expression on my face.     

I remember a picture of myself as a little kid at an amusement park.  I’m at the bottom of one of those slides you’d go down with a little burlap bag.  I look pretty cute with my bad haircut and football t-shirt, but for some reason I’m always drawn to these two little black girls standing off to the side.  They have cool braids and they’re eating ice cream cones.    They’re a million times cuter than me and I wonder where they are today.

For the last 3 months I’ve been booking and hosting a comedy show called Spit Take at Fort Useless in Brooklyn.   For the uninitiated Fort Useless is a very cool space run by my friend Jeremiah.  He’s been hosting live music there for almost a year, and I was prompted to start Spit Take when he decided to expand into live comedy as well.   Fortunately this coincided with my decision to finally start doing some stand up after months of writing material.  I’ve been lucky to host a bunch of great comics since we’ve kicked it off.  Let’s roll call that shit!

Luke Thayer!  Abbi Crutchfield!  Becca Jones!  Beowulf Jones!  Nigel Rawles!  Vince Averill!  Sara Schaefer!  Stephanie Holmes!  Brian McLoughlin!  Rocco George!  Brendan Fitzgibbons!

What has made me happiest about these shows is how much all the comedians enjoyed their sets at Spit Take.  I think Jeremiah’s cozy space and the awesomeness of all the folks that have come out have combined to equal some sort of comedy Xanadu.   As I prepare to host the 4^th Spit Take I’m trying to get the word out to more people about the fun little show we got going on over here, so if you’ve been please pass the word along.  If you’ve yet to check it out I hope you can make it.  This month’s lineup includes a couple returning champs as well as some new faces to the Spit Take world:

VINCE AVERILL

http://comedians.jokes.com/vince-averill/videos/vince-averill—-crack-head-logic?title=vince-averill-crack-head-logic&videoId=176137

ABBI CRUTCHFIELD

http://curlycomedy.blogspot.com/

GREG JOHNSON

http://greg-johnson.org/

DAN ST. GERMAIN

http://danstgermain.net/index.html

LUKE THAYER

http://web.me.com/comedianluke/comedianluke.com/Bio.html

….and maybe more.

I have a strange compulsion to enter this.  Strike that, I will enter this. 

http://blueberrymuffintops.malt-o-meal.com/

I’m not the vinyl fiend I used to be.  Sure, I still pick up a couple records a month, but it’s nothing compared to the first few years I lived in New York.  Perhaps I’m falling victim to selective memory, but it seems back in the good ol’ days at the turn of the century (2000-2002) every Goodwill or Salvation Army had piles of classic records available for a measly buck a piece.   Maybe I was just lucky, maybe I just have bad taste in music and nobody wanted the stuff I was into.  Suffice to say I ended up with an impressive collection before I even bothered to buy a turntable.  

There were two scores I remember the best.   The first happened right around the corner in Astoria.  There was an older Greek man who used to sell books near the Ditmars Blvd. train stop every weekend.  Occasionally he would have a single cardboard box of records and every once in a while I would find something worthwhile.  However, this particular day the vinyl gods smiled upon me and presented a whole chunk of amazing records.  Not only did he have all the crucial Issac Hayes records (Introducing, Hot Buttered Soul, Black Moses, Issac Hayes Movement, etc) but about a dozen other classic soul gems. Some Curtis Mayfield, Temptations, Marvin Gaye…hell, I think I even found a Cymande record in there!  I was barely able to keep my cool while I pulled out every other album he had in there.  This could be called the “vinyl junkie shivers”, the moment where you kind of start to panic that this is all too good to be true.  That the normal $1 per record price would go up to $10, that someone else is gonna wrestle these from your arms, that when you get to checking inside they’ll all turn out to be country records. Fortunately, none of these things happened.  The records weren’t pristine (OF COURSE these platters got played, it’d be criminal to think that they sat around getting dusty!), but they were in really good shape and now serve as the foundation of my soul collection.  So thank you Mr. Greek Book Guy, wherever you are….

The second score was more random.  I happened to be on the Upper West Side for a doctor’s appointment or something and I had some time to kill.  I typically avoid most Manhattan based thrift stores as they’re usually picked dry of anything good, but nonetheless I ventured inside.  As I entered I realized that this wasn’t even a normal gritty kind of thrift store as much as a kind of fancy, rich people thrift store.  This was like a boutique or something!  I pretty much considered it a lost cause as I started to flip through their tiny record section in a box or two hidden away in a corner.  All the sad staples of a thrift store record selection were here: Mantovani, Herb Alpert, Streisand, and of course Billy Joel’s ‘The Stranger’.  But near the end of the box I came across a Love and Rockets album, and another, and another, and then The Smiths ‘Louder Than Bombs”, and then The Cure’s ‘Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me’, and about four more killer late 80’s “modern rock” favorites.  This was obviously the former collection of some Upper West Sider who decided it was time to get rid of his vinyl.  I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Anyways, there’s a pretty great Flickr pool called Retro Records.  Just pages and pages of great record covers.  Sometimes I just like to click through a few pages and pretend to live in one of these covers.

CHECK IT OUT HERE: http://www.flickr.com/groups/52240935629@N01/

gifcat:

juliasegal: 35mmpaul: swisserswatter: none00: via marcelloetfils

THE 5 BEST RANDOMLY AWESOME PERFORMANCES BY AN ACTOR IN A MOVIE

1. Harry Dean Stanton in REPO MAN

Harry could easily also get nominated for his heartbreaking cameo in Red Dawn or his tour de force in Paris, Texas, but Repo Man is where he first won me over.  As “Bud” in the 1984 cult classic, Harry pretty much owns every scene he appears in.  One of those is this scene where he breaks down the “Repo Code” to his protege played by Emilio Estevez.

2. Jack Elam in ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST

Jack Elam barely even says anything in this film and he’s only in it for the 15 minutes, but his nuanced performance as Snaky is unforgettable.  Check out this clip of the opening 10 minutes and note at around the 6 minute mark where he has a moment interacting with a pesky fly. 

3. Gael Garcia Bernal in THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP

I can’t help but think that Gael is just playing a movie version of director Michel Gondry in this film as they both seem to share a certain creative mania.  That said, his performance is so full of mixed up whimsy it kind of freaks you out to consider that the character might just be totally nuts.  This is a short scene that seems to capture all of that in 30 seconds.

4. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins in MYSTERY TRAIN

Jim Jarmusch always manages to find the best musicians to act in his films(Tom Waits, Joe Strummer), but one of the best understated performances is Screamin’ Jay Hawkins as the night clerk of a Memphis hotel.  This scene that centers around an unusual plum always kills me.

5. Bill Murray in MEATBALLS

Much has been said about Bill Murray’s transformation into a more dramatic actor, and I’m a big fan of that side of him.  However, I’m convinced that some of his earlier goofball films have some of the best comedic moments ever.  In terms of films I think Stripes and Caddyshack are superior, but I’ve always loved his performance as “Tripper” in the 1979 summertime classic Meatballs.  In this scene we see him posing as the program director for Camp Mohawk, the arch nemesis of his own camp.

 next entry includes part 1 of liner notes for this mix

Last week my band El Jezel played at Cake Shop, arguably the last great small club left in Manhattan.  Sound is great, people that work there are cool, and it’s cozy in the good way.   I used that show as the kickoff for the limited run Echodust mix series, and gave out 8 copies of the first of this series.

REVERB 1960-69 is by no means a comprehensive overview of reverb usage in the 60’s.  These are simply songs that have a certain subtle consistency in the mood that reverb helps to create…and they’re all awesome.  Here are some accompanying liner notes.

Part One

1. The Cyrkle- The Visit (She Was Here)

The Cyrkle were a one hit wonder who charted in 1966 with a silly song entitled “Red Rubber Ball”.  I ended up with a promo of a collection of their songs and I hoped to find a song that would live up to the unusually spelled name,  The way I see it, if you throw the letter K into the middle of circle you better at least get mildly psychedelic on a song or two.  Sadly, there were no psych workouts but at least there was this pleasantly lilting love song.  Great brush action, sweet harmonies, and a lyric that seems to be about hallucination of the heartbreak variety.

2. The Gentle Soul-Our National Anthem

I can’t tell you much about The Gentle Soul off the top of my head beside the fact that this song was the only one on the album that sounded like this.  In fact, I don’t even think it got properly released until it was put on a Sundazed reissue in the 90’s.   It’s a shame, as this song was the only song on that very CD that caught my ear.  It’s all bursting with harmonies that almost too sugary sweet for their own good, if they weren’t so interestingly composed.  Check out the sustained “hey, hey, hey”s between each chorus and verse.  Lastly, what a great song title. 

3. Third Wave- Eleanor Rigby

I came across this Beatles cover via the amazing music blog ART DECADE.  Perhaps my favorite Beatles cover ever, definitely top 5.   The arrangement is so different from the original; jazzy rather than solemn, swinging rather than plodding.   Most importantly, the vocals of the 5 then teenage Philipino sisters that formed Third Wave are completely amazing.  This album was produced in 1969 by funky jazz keyboardist in 1969 and I’m still searching for an affordable copy.  Until than, thanks ART DECADE, for hooking a brother up with this jam.

4. The Zombies- Hung Up On A Dream

If The Zombies landmark album ‘Odessey & Oracle’ got a tenth of the attention that Sgt. Peppers did the world would be a better place.  I still get upset when I think that I was almost 30 before someone turned me onto this gem.  So to Nathan Waterman, I salute you for your uttering the same words I will now convey from me to you: “What d’ya mean you haven’t heard Odessey & Oracle?!?!?!”

5. Bob Lind- Drifter’s Sunrise

Bob Lind was introduced to me through his song “Cool Summer” which was featured on a compilation put together by Jarvis Cocker.   It’s pretty much perfect, though it probabaly is about 2 minutes too long.  More concise, but equally beautiful is this song about endless wanderlust that features this line: “you think about the good times, drinking coffee with your friends”.  I love that he puts drinking coffee in there.  I once sampled the first part of this song, threw a bunch of phaser on it, and just let it loop over and over and over…

6. The Turtles- You Showed Me

As much as I love this song, I never quite forgave The Turtles for suing the shit out of De La Soul after they sampled part of this song for what was only an interlude of 3 Feet High and Rising.   As Michael Jackson and Eddie Murphy would have asked- “Whazupwitu?”

7. Astrud Gilberto- Stay

Oh Astrud, how simply it all began for you.  It was just another one of your husbands recording sessions that you happened to attend.  He casually asked you to try singing a cut and the next thing ya know you are the voice of bossa nova.  Sure, not all of your music packed the punch of the immortal “The Girl From Ipanema”, but this obscure track “Stay” has always held a special place in my heart.  Quite frankly, this is a vicious groove that you manage to turn into an elegant siren song.  Did I happen to mention it also features some of the best cross stick hits ever recorded to tape? 

8. Margo Guryan- Sunday Morning

Apparently this is the demo for a proper version that was recorded later.  I never sought that out because I’m pretty sure they couldn’t top the slinky vibe of this one.  Along with Kris Kristofferson and the VelVet Underground, another wonderful artist pays tribute to the morning I’m most likely to sleep through.

9. Serge Gainsbourg- Requiem Pour Un Con

I cannot begin to explain the utter joy I felt upon first hearing this on some college radio station in the mid-90’s.  Definitely my all-time favorite Serge jam, and also in my Top 5 of best beats ever.  As of yet, I have never heard it sampled though I’m sure someone out there has.  I refrained from sampling it myself out of reverance to the song itself.  You cannot improve on perfection, my friends.   Here’s Serge “recording” the song in a French film called Le Pacha.

10. Francois Hardy- Je Ne Suis La Pour Personne

To keep the French mood going I selected this jaunty Francoise Hardy track that I discovered via the underrated film Mr. Jealousy.  It won’t change your life, but you’ll laugh.  Anyways, I recently purchased a super cheap Francoise box set that I hoped would have at least 7-8 songs as good as this song.  Strangely, this was not to be.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s some good stuff on there, but none of it seemed to be from the exact era.  So although I can’t advocate her entire catalog, I wholeheartedly recommend this one, as well as Mr Jealousy.  Eric Stoltz at his best.