Human Being

Repeat this mantra three times and have a nice day.

"I'm a human being"

Download:

"Human Being" mp3
by The New York Dolls, 1974.
available on Too Much Too Soon

New Post at Moistworks

A few weeks ago Alex Abramovich asked me to do an occasional post for Moistworks and offered to do the same here. I was excited and a little intimidated by the prospect, since it is like The Paris Review of mp3 blogs and they are all writers. However, I've taken the challenge, and while I don't consider myself a "writer," I do work in another descriptive medium that is not unlike writing. Besides, it's about the music. So, things are changing slightly here in Fluville. Don't be surprised to see other contributors here. Mike DeCapite (who is a writer) has posted a beautiful memorial to his friend Jim Jones, and there are other contributors on deck. I'll still be the primary voice here, but it may become a less singular one. Oh, and if you are wondering what that picture is about, go to Moistworks and check out my post, "Missed Communications."

and here's a track that didn't make the playlist.

Download:

"He'll Have to Go" mp3
by Ry Cooder, 1976.
available on Chicken Skin Music

Listening Party

By Mike DeCapite

Jim Jones, who died last week in his lounge chair, at the helm of his unparalleled archive of music and videotape and movies and memorabilia, in his house on Lake Erie, played with three of the best bands that Cleveland produced (or that produced themselves in spite of Cleveland)—Pere Ubu, Easter Monkeys, and Home and Garden—and he influenced most of the rest of them. Whether by way of the music he made or by way of the music and sensibility he introduced people to as resident DJ and clerk/consultant at Record Rendezvous, or one-on-one, through mix tapes and listening sessions at his home, Jones opened people’s minds. He was a connection to the wider world. I called this “Listening Party” because Jones was always having people over and setting them up with chili and whatever they needed to drink and putting them in that chair—the one he died in—and playing them records and showing them clips from movies and the Three Stooges and Ghoulardi and the early Stones or whomever and opening up the world. And he did this at Record Rendezvous, too: He’d stand at the turntable and play you things for as long as you’d stand there and listen. The last time I saw him he gave me a stack of CDs he’d burned for me, including Max Richter, Prokofiev’s Alexander Nevsky score, a Captain Beefheart radio show, and Erik Satie, and we hadn’t even really been in touch in years. A full description of his career (Mirrors, Electric Eels, Styrenes, Foreign Bodies, Easter Monkeys, Home and Garden, David Thomas & the Pedestrians, Wooden Birds, Pere Ubu, and solo work, but minus his work with Speaker/Cranker and King NXN) can be found in an interview posted at Ubu’s website. I’ve never felt a more immediate or unmediated connection to a musician’s work than to Jones’s. He was the first person I met whose work made me think, “Wow, I want to make something that good.” I realize that by writing about him, I’m setting myself up as a prime target for a pie from beyond the grave, so I’ll end this quick and then duck. Nothing I can say about his work can convey the hundredth part of what I feel when I hear the songs posted below, but I’ll just embarrass everyone, me and Jones included, by saying it’s something blazing and senseless and pretty close to love.

Download:

"Emerald Necklace" mp3
by Foreign Bodies, circa 1980.
CLE magazine 3A flexidisc
out of print
all instruments: Jim Jones

"Marco Polo: City of Kin-Sai" mp3
by Home and Garden, 1984.
available on History and Geography
guitar: Jim Jones

"Underpants" mp3
by Easter Monkeys, 1984.
Splendor of Sorrow
out of print
guitar: Jim Jones

"Nailed to the Cross" mp3
by Easter Monkeys, 1984.
Splendor of Sorrow outtake
previously unreleased
guitar: Jim Jones

"Heaven/.357" mp3
by Easter Monkeys, 1984.
Splendor of Sorrow
out of print
guitar: Jim Jones

"Miss You" mp3
by Pere Ubu, 1988.
available on The Tenement Year
guitar: Jim Jones

"Forever Lost (Nocturne)" mp3
by Jim Jones, circa 1990.
News from the Firelands
previously unreleased
all instruments: Jim Jones

Where Are You Tonight?

Download:

"Where Are You Tonight (Journey Through Dark Heat)" mp3
by Bob Dylan, 1978.
available on Street Legal

Sam Stone

Jerry Williams Jr. AKA Swamp Dogg is one of the great weirdos of American music. I'll get more into his records as an artist and producer in another post. In the meantime, here's his take on John Prine's composition "Sam Stone," the tale of a dope addicted Vietnam Vet. It's a great record, one that blurs the lines between Country/Folk and Soul music. It's about the song and the performance, both of which are perfect.
























Download:

"Sam Stone" mp3
by Swamp Dogg, 1973.
available on Excellent Sides Of Swamp Dogg Vol.2

"Sam Stone" mp3
by John Prine, 1971
available on John Prine

"Sam Stone" mp3
by Laura Cantrell, 2004.
available on Future Soundtrack for America

Post Valentine's Day Post

It's been a week now since Valentine's Day.

The flowers have all died and gone are the romantic delusions that have long since crumbled away like the icing on the cupcake that you maybe didn't get. What is this love shit? The evidence of its tortured nature is here below: Billie Holiday is saddened by the charade she is trying to keep up, Lonnie Johnson's poor heart is all confused, Dinah Washington is on the verge of tears, and The Cats And The Fiddle are pleading their case the only way they can - with a tipple and tenor guitar.

Download:


















"I Can't Pretend" mp3
by Billie Holiday, 1936.
available on Billie Holiday



















"Confused" mp3
by Lonnie Johnson, 1950.
available on 1949-1952



















"Feel Like I Wanna Cry" mp3
by Dinah Washington, 1953.
available on The Complete Dinah Washington on Mercury, Vol. 3 (1952-1954)


















"Please Don't Leave Me Now" mp3
by The Cats And The Fiddle, 1946.
available on Hep Cats Swing: Complete Recordings, Vol. 2 (1941-1946)

Presidents Day Special

Download:

"When Did I Stop Wanting To Be President?" mp3
by William S. Burroughs, 1975.
available on William Burroughs: From Giorno Poetry Systems

from UBUWEB Sound Archive

buy Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader
edited by James Grauerholz and Ira Silverberg
Grove Press © 1998

originally published in Roosevelt After Inauguration
City Lights Books © 1979.