are we going too fast?

dear friends,

1. the comas played rothko on a tuesday once & I missed it 'cause I had to watch american idol &/or wuz broke. months later, I'm still broke & I am rootin' for coked-up southern boy bo over fembot carrie (perpetually peppy vonzie don't have a chance!) & I still haven't been able to catch the comas' live show. nevertheless I will try & make their upcoming 5/24 gig if any of youse from the nyc are willing to brooklyn it up & come to see them with me at southpaw. the comas have three songs on their cd, conductor, that have charmed me silly with their pop meets indie vibe. the first is science of your mind, which has an my bloody valentine-type guitar line snaking throughout the song like a chocolate ribbon in a scoop of vanilla fudge ice cream. add to that some discreet handclaps & a spanish guitar type solo that sounds as high school bitter as the song's protagonist. the second song is the equally relationship angry hologram which progresses expertly, as if some brilliant child was methodically assembling a complex lego city. build like this is hard to find in your average pop offering. third, but not least, is the charming boy/girl sung moonrainbow which has the female counterpart cooing "but you caaaaan't" in a way that turns this musical druggie into a parrot. I sit at my desk, fluff my wings & repeatedly mutter/sing that refrain under my breath much to chagrin of my co-workers.

2. I've been enjoying the work of black mountain*. one particular title, set us free, is a cool trip down a dark street. a sexy, slow hip-twitcher that rides its male/female harmonies through a night-time tour bus ride of southern locales. repetitive, hypnotic & vaguely freedom rock in a way I can't explain, put this ditty on your greyhound bus playlist & try & ignore the obese man using your arm rest.

3. I heart the dears & I especially heart their slinky & slow, I am a raven haired spy at the bar, version of autotomy on their live disc thank you goodnight sold out. heavy lidded drama! cellos! gitane references! cock rock guitar chord stabbings! ghostly "oooooo" coda! noir rock meet the masses. masses meet noir rock. I hope you enjoy your time together.

4. I write about things when I damn well get to them, so forgive me if I'm past the due date on hipster favorites deerhoof. but boy, oh boy, do I LERV milk man. I play it on repeat as I ride my way to & fro work. this song manages to have a three-way with a keyboard line that sounds like yes (the band, not the affirmation) gone skeletal, a cutely clipped girl vocal & that inside-out groove favored by art students gone muso the world over. stop, start, slow, faster, soft, louder. green light, red light rock. these are not a bad things. coming 5/21 & 5/22 to brooklyn's northsix. who's down?

5. I love kylie minogue. it's not her golden shortie short clad behind (though it is lovely), her ingratiatingly toothy smile nor the locomotion (blegh!) could it be come into my world which is even more head-stuckable than can't get you out of my head? definitely! swirly, romantic & stoopid all at once; the chorus doesn't even sound dirty even though it should! I blame my childhood games of "I am olivia newton-john"**, it made me weirdly attracted to that sort of breathless soprano that could be hopelessly devoted to you as well as all about skippin' a beat & moving with your body. it just goes to show that from the obscure to the sublime to the lowbrow & trashily enjoyable, sometimes music is just one big game of emotional connect the dots & I just freakin' love it. next!

best wishes for your recovery, miss minogue.

love, d

* contributor phil has already written about black mountain, or more specifically their label, jagjaguwar, for soft communication. you can find that post here.

** elaborate skit game I'd play with my cousin mane, now married with child & living in queens. we'd pick an olivia incarnation (grease, physical, xanadu, early innocent period, late slutty period) & perform one of her songs for my grandma. with choreography. suddenly! something about an ocean! & I-aha-a-I would swim any ocean!, etc... we would also do abba & because my cousin was older & a bossy little bitch to boot, I was always stuck being frida. sniff. at least she had there's something going on.

songs to seek: science of your mind/the comas, hologram/the comas, moonrainbow/the comas, set us free/black mountain, autotomy (live)/the dears, milk man/deerhoof, come into my world/kylie minogue