Richard Youngs might not be what you call a good singer. Hell, he might not even be what I call a good singer. However, his frail falsetto on Fullness Of Light In Your Soul turns this restrained piece of nylon-stringed guitar music into something exceptional.

Youngs' prolific output runs from folk to free improv, and many of his CD-Rs have been released in such minuscule amounts that some might suspect he was taking the piss. Either that, or embracing the necessity of file-sharing to actually get his music heard. Fullness of Light comes not from one of these releases, but from his more widely available album Sapphie, first released in 1998. Like Jandek, in whose backing band he briefly played, you might suspect that there's a fearful sadness at work here. Unlike Jandek, Youngs actually manages to convey this through his music without descending into an abyss of self-indulgence. It is personal music, perhaps too personal, but I for one am glad that Youngs decided to share it.

Richard Youngs - Fullness Of Light In Your Soul

well i wasn't quite expecting to do TWO updates in the same day after so long, and especially not two updates on a musical theme... but such is life!

today, although coming after a night of little sleep and various slight ailments, i decided - a little foolishly maybe - to meet johare of this parish and her new beau dan in rochdale. i rarely volunteer to go to rochdale (especially now the only real reason to ever go there - the oxfam bookshop - has gone) but this was to attend their free music festival. i really, *really* didn't want to go after a bad night's sleep but decided to give it a go, and boy... was i glad i did



first on was one denis jones... bloody hell. you must remember i don't really do live gigs that often, so i can't really confirm or not how common the use of effects pedals/ pro-tools and the like is with solo performers these days. but bloody hell did jones know how to use those tools... my benchmark for such accessible experimentation is gruff rhys' use of sound loops and recordings in his live shows and although jones doesn't have the same stage presence or rapport with the audience that rhys has (he tries, but it's not really one of his greatest skills bless him. thankfully he has more than enough other skills at hand to cover this small problem...), bloody hell is it mesmerising to watch. we wandered in to see him bellowing through a loud hailer into one microphone whilst creating loops of guitar and vocal noise which he later dismissed as a bit of "mediocre" improvisation. not to me it wasn't. what really made the performance was that the restless invention combined beautifully with riveting passion and focus... but most importantly he also wrote bloody spectacular, moving, poweful songs. needless to say i bought the album immediately

second was magic arm... poor sod. he really wasn't done any favours by coming after someone whose invention and skill was so effortless as jones' so obviously was. nothing that the man did was anything less than great... but... it was never even remotely as riveting and brilliant as jones was. it's kind of like having dogs die in hot cars (remember them?) come AFTER a performance xtc - all very nice, but all slightly... dull in comparison to the creativity of the band playing before. i really enjoyed his set - some really great moments including a fantastic, sprawling, maddening performance of "daft punk is playing at my house" (and a not bad stab at "melody nelson" either) - but none of it was anything quite as incredible as the music of denis jones. i did like the rather unexpected, slightly wonky tonal quality of his guitar and keyboard solos which never quite developed in the way i imagined they would... but, poor bloke, in the end he didn't *quite* cut the mustard (still worth investigating though)



finally liz green. oh my. see, i rather feared the worst with this one. she wandered in, all frail and waiflike dwarfed by her acoustic guitar and being brought a cup of tea by one of the sound technicians, put down her guitar and promptly picked up a small leather book and said "i want to read you a story". my worry was that this would end up some nambling pambling rubbish like the one isobel campbell was wont to ruin belle and sebastian songs by wibbling along to. but oh no... instead we got the poem "cock robin" sung, unaccompanied and in this strange, rich, fruity tenor voice which seems like kate nash combined with some weird mixture of lal waterson style folk singer and a number of 1920s, 1930s jazz singer. i'd heard a couple of her songs on myspace and thought... bloody hell this is all a bit mannered. but NO! not mannered at all - the difference between the frail, friendly in between songs banter and the quietly stunning, rich voice that frequently brought a shiver down my spine. she had a nice line in morbid humour in her faux blues songs which reminded me more than a little of the handsome family at times... but it didn't seem like pastiche at all. i really wasn't expecting to be so bewitched by her music but there was such... intensity and power and clarity in her performance i could not FAIL to be taken in

crikey, i'm most certainly going to buy her music when i can afford to. and what an afternoon of brilliant music. from someone who constantly whittles on about the paucity of truly great music he has seen live, i think i just saw two of the greatest performances i have ever seen in one fell swoop. and even magic arm was one of the better performers i've seen. i really need to see more music in similar circumstances: small, unpretentious, comfortable and friendly. i could even get used to this...

This 100% real story falls somewhere between The Onion and Lovecraft:

WASHINGTON – CIA Director Leon Panetta has terminated a "very serious" covert program the spy agency kept secret from Congress for eight years, Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a House Intelligence subcommittee chairwoman, said Friday.

Schakowsky is pressing for an immediate committee investigation of the classified program, which has not been described publicly. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has said he is considering an investigation.

"The program is a very, very serious program and certainly deserved a serious debate at the time and through the years," Schakowsky told The Associated Press in an interview. "But now it's over."

Democrats revealed late Tuesday that CIA Director Leon Panetta had informed members of the House Intelligence Committee on June 24 that the spy agency had been withholding important information about a secret intelligence program begun after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Schakowsky described Panetta as "stunned" that he had not been informed of the program until nearly five months into his tenure as director.

Panetta had learned of the program only the day before informing the lawmakers, according to a U.S. intelligence official. The official spoke on condition of anonymity Friday because he was not authorized to discuss the program publicly.

Panetta has launched an internal probe at the CIA to determine why Congress was not told about the program. Exactly what the classified program entailed is still unclear.

The intelligence official said the program was "on-again/off-again" and that it was never fully operational, but he would not provide details.

Um...the fuck was "on-again/off-again"? The mind reels between punchline and horror.

It's like we're on the wrong side of one of those laughingly obtuse briefing scenes in television shows. The one's which exist to set up something else, so characters utter phrases which only make sense as part of a larger explanation, but the scene is poorly structured so they just walk in, offer a vague statement, say "that is all for now" and leave. And you think, "Wait, they didn't..." Which may fit a world where newspapers contain headlines like INVESTIGATION CONTINUES but in this one we're all the hell aren't you telling us? Maybe that's how residents of TV New York feel all the time. I'm pretty certain they do in Horatio Caine's Miami.

Which makes me long for flip side of that trend, where news stories contain precise details no reporter on earth could have gotten in the sequence of events as shown. And I could turn on the TV right now and see news story right at the point where all the key details are being provided. And then I could call my friends, and they could turn on the TV and find another channel with a similar report at the exact same point, right now.

But no, instead I'm all WHAT? Like my life nothing but a series of macros indicating confusion.

Man, this Test match is just like a return to the not-very-good old days of Mike Denness or Tony Greig; watching the current England team in action is like watching donkeys led by donkeys, not that I'm taking anything away from the excellence of the Aussies. Men against boys, and high time that the whole ECB setup was shaken up from top to bottom; it continues to be dominated by clueless old buffers in egg-and-bacon ties who still think they're living in the last days of the Raj. One blogger who agrees with me is, not surprisingly, a fellow Yorkshireman; his cricket blog is here and can be added to your LJ feed at lenthekitman. It's the best one I've yet seen about the great game in general and cricket in God's Own County in particular.

I've been quiet on the subject of Coulsongate; like Fayed v Hamilton or Archer v Express Newspapers it's the kind of case where you wish both parties could lose. The most telling thing here has been the near-total silence from News Corp, which more-or-less confirms that Murdoch will indeed be backing the Conservatives at the General Election as expected. Whether David Cameron, who hired the long-standing News Corp placeman Andy Coulson after all, will develop the cojones to tell Murdoch where to stick his tabloid agenda is a matter for conjecture, though one is not holding one's breath. And yet, it's almost as if Murdoch is getting away with this scot free, as he so often does in his New York lair well away from British justice; no matter what his executives were telling the Press Complaints Commission, they were acting directly on his orders. As for Coulson, I do not believe for a moment that someone who rose to edit a national newspaper - and not just any old national paper, but the scurrilous old News Of The Screws - could possibly have been so ingenuous about News Corp's illegal phonetapping shenanigans. This is not a scenario where one can "make one's excuses and leave" like one of your hacks in a knocking shop for "research purposes". If Cameron had any backbone, Coulson would be on his bike. It's possible to become leader of your country without the support of Rupert Murdoch - ask President Obama - though sadly that hasn't happened in Britain since 1974. If there's any truth to said allegations, Coulson could be embroiled in something far more serious than McBride's emails or Expensesgate, and yet the Dirty Digger remains untouchable.

Meanwhile, as the government earmark yet more money for armaments despite the "recession", the unwinnable war in Afghanistan drags on and more and more British servicemen are coming back to Northolt in boxes. And for what, exactly? The time has come to pull out now. Now that he's put his head above the parapet, Clegg should be riding this one the way Charlie Kennedy did with Iraq before he was brought down (much more so by the Murdoch press than by booze, let us not forget).

Many thanks to Ryan for adding my feed to LibDemBlogs by the way. A very useful resource. For a start, it has a "mute" feature, which comes in very dandy when finding out there are allegedly "liberal" bloggers claiming that "Many women don’t have a clue about politics so they need someone to make their decisions for them and for that reason its OK for the man to decide who the woman votes"(sic). There are a few of us have been very hacked off for some time about this particular blogger's lack of Clue; for all I know he could be another party's black ops creation with his inane wibbling. For a good take on it, check out the decidedly non-inane, non-wibbling Caron here.

A recent discussion about my style of writing brought up the question of nudism and if I write while naked. My reply was: “Eww, I can’t stand nudism.” This prompted me to think about my nudism-ism, the fact that nudism grosses me out, freaks me out, gives me nightmares, makes my skin crawl.

I realized this. As much writing as I do here in this “public” place, in reality I am a total recluse. Social interaction makes me really uncomfortable. I like to be left alone. When I do things with people, I prefer when we do things alone together (e.g. make art, go to a movie, or do something where our focus is on an activity not being all face-to-face). One of the reasons the early punk rock scene appealed to me is because it gave me a place to be alone together with people. It wasn’t about getting all touchy feely, enjoying the love vibe and communing with each other through music. It was about relishing our existential isolation in a public place in which we were alone together. Nudism is the antithesis of the punk aesthetic. Punk was about modifying our bodies and fashions as art to express our rebellion against our position as products within a system that commodifies, controls, boxes and sells everything, including people. (Admittedly, the punk aesthetic rapidly became commodified, controlled, boxed and sold, but it doesn’t mean that the philosophy at the core isn’t still valid!)

I have always been dreadfully uncomfortable being in any kind of “community” environment, even with people wearing clothes. Throw in the nudism factor, and I am running at high speeds for cover. It’s not that the naked bodies gross me out. It is the unfiltered proximity of the human presence, the fact that every single one of their pores is exposed and emitting their personness to my poor uber sensitive psychic receivers. And besides, there is a reason fashion was invented. It’s way more fabulous than nudism, and I’ll take fabulosity over nudism any day.

Speaking of fashion, could you imagine Freddie Mercury as a nudist? No way. He just wouldn’t be the Freddie Mercury we know and love. He was a man who not only understood the importance of fashion, but understood how to deploy a jumpsuit like no other human ever has or ever will.
I mention Freddie Mercury because Bohemian Rhapsody came on the radio the other day, and never have I heard the song with such a sense of poignant loss. Listening to Freddie sing, “goodbye everybody, I've got to go, gotta leave you all behind and face the truth” tore my heart to a million shreds of sadness. Never has Bohemian Rhapsody sounded so laden with tragic loss as it did to me on Tuesday when I was driving in the car and singing along with my kid. So sad. We miss you Freddie Mercury.


Speaking of losses, remember my friend Stephane the art collector? Well he and the love of his life Michael collected ceramic art together. When Michael died of AIDS Stephane donated the entire collection to the Ceramics Research Center at ASU. Michael wanted to keep the collection together and not break it up. I went up to Phoenix on Wednesday to look at the pieces from the collection on exhibit. Talk about bittersweet. Knowing how much Stephane loved Michael and how much he was devastated by his death, looking at the ceramics was like seeing the material evidence of this profound love and loss. It’s quite an amazing collection.



I took some photos for Stephane. Here are a few for you. (Note: Robert Arneson's penis is behind the cut!)



End random ramble. Time to get back to My Almodovar Makeover.

I like to think these 78 Diamondback Terrapins were protesting last month's launch of New York City's obscene airport-vicinity goose holocaust.

Returned to the river again yesterday to see how far I could get. This was as far upriver as I was able to go in my kayak. Had to clamber over twelve beaver dams and six downed trees to get to this remote spot. Lovely place: pitcher plants were everywhere, some pitchers reaching almost a foot in length. It was as if the past two centuries never happened. No evidence of human beings anywhere.

So: can you find the snake in this picture?

docmanhattan comments on a dubious metaphorical claim in ads for Coleman camping gear:

You didn't really invent "social networking" either. Camping can be social, but it's the exact opposite of a network. If there were a trail in the woods where I would randomly run into people from my past, who would then shout what they were doing every so often, believe me when I say: I would not hike that trail.

Just finished watching the 5 part TORCHWOOD mini series on BBC1. Thoroughly enjoyed it and it is the darkest one yet with a sad twist to the end. Highly recommended and if you not seen it yet then without hesitation i would implore you to watch it.

Some of my online friends have been complaining about Charlie Brooker's new show You Have Been Watching (still available on 4OD if you haven't seen it yet), in which he moves away from obscurist, BBC4 stuff like Screen Wipe and News Wipe into a prime time Channel 4 slot complete with celebrity guests and slightly cheesy Noel's House Party-esque quiz show format.

These friends are saying that he's sold out and gone bland, having taken the Channel 4 shilling and watered down his message in doing so.

These people, in my view, are missing the point of art. The true purpose of great art, the reason why individuals strive towards the heights of creativity and unlocking the secrets of the human soul is to find and articulate a great noble truth, thereby giving more insight into ourselves and giving us all a greater quality of life score with hot chicks.

And let's be honest, despite his status as Livejournal's Imaginary Boyfriend, it's clear from his Guardian columns that Charlie just isn't getting any action. Okay, he get's to hang around with Aisleyne. But he does so with that expression that tries to say, "What, us? Nah, we're just good mates us, hahahahah, no no I don't fancy her hahah we just have a laugh together it's all platonic hahahah", all the while trying hard to conceal from Aisleyne that deep down he'd really, really, really, really like to come on her tits.

Basically, having a show on BBC4 is a bit like being some highbrow, arty indie band playing on a cupboard-sized stage at the Cardiff Barfly. Okay, you might get some attention, but it'll be from the slightly intellectual, mousey girls who just want to talk about guitar pedals and Allen Ginsburg with you anyway. Meanwhile, over at the Millenium Stadium, Razorlight may have a fraction of your art-indie credibility, but they're backstage having a money fight while a queue of buxom rock chicks are inviting them to insert whatever they like into whatever orifice they like.

For final proof that this is Charlie's motivation, he seems to have decided that the best person to give incisive, witty analysis of the week's TV is Jamelia in a ludicrously low-cut dress barely restraining her pendulous udders.

So, if you lot want Charlie to get back to doing highbrow cult TV on arty digital channels, then you're just going to have to offer him some pervy sex. brownstudies, uglybuffy and annomalley you have work to do. Now get to it.

i've been urged by a_bonsai_tree and the wife to be less... silent round here? i shall try to post something of worth in the next week... but in the meantime can i just recommend pie warmer's "the fearsome feeling" as possibly the most LUDICROUSLY enjoyable record of the year? it's jollied up a quiet saturday morning where i've been more than feeling the effect of a bad night of sleep. glorious GLORIOUS stuff

hope all are well. more me next week i hope! sorry for silence!

I did it again. I cleaned, prepped and painted walls from 9 o’clock this morning until 10 o’clock tonight. I cannot even move my legs. I am so physically exhausted. But totally happy. When I set out to do something, I freaking do it, dammit. Today my mission was to paint the kitchen and the connecting wall to the family room. What a monstrous undertaking. I'm talking scrubbing the GREASY CRUD off of everything. And talk about masking tape, holy shit I used miles of that stuff to tape off all the cabinets, funny angles, and windows and . . . But I did it. In one day. Because that’s how I do things.

The color is so fantastic. Stella D’oro gold (just like the cookies I loved when I was a kid). It totally looks like a color you’d find in an Almodovar movie, so from now on I am referring to my maniacal home renovation project as My Almodovar Makeover. It is so righteous.

The thing about painting my house with COLORS (see previous note on how I love color even on my walls) is that it’s like making art except REALLY FUCKING BIG. I’m making Art Walls as part of my Almodovar Makeover, and I’m enjoying the hell out of myself.

So that’s why I’m so scarce. I am too exhausted to say anything else at this point. Crash.

Photos tomorrow.

I don't do camp. I certainly don't do drag. Maybe it was childhood trauma brought on by the comedy stylings of Dick Emery and Danny la Rue. I also never had the stomach for gay counterculture, a fact I attribute to a lifelong loathing of the music of Abba. All that tacky kitsch makes me shudder. Give me Gore Vidal any day.

The late Ethyl Eichelberger wasn't your usual drag act. He may have worn ludicrous frocks and pantomime dame makeup - always a rather misogynistic stance, I've always thought, but now's not the time for that - but his true love was classical theatre. He once joked that the main reason he got into drag was for a chance to play Medea.

"Jocasta (Boy Crazy)" or "She Married Her Son" tells the story of Jocasta, mother and wife of Oedipus. Starting as a soliloquy, two thirds of the way through it turns into an amazing Alvaro-esque song, with Ethyl accompanying himself on accordion. There's no sense of reserve here; it's an overblown piece of burlesque. I think the reason this works is because Eichelberger is so clearly not mocking his subject. I'd normally chop this down and just give you the second part, but I think it really needs to be heard as a whole. Tell me what you think.

Ethyl Eichenberger - "Jocasta (Boy Crazy)" or "She Married Her Son"
(alternate download)

That there are several secret messages encoded within the String Quintet 5 in C (G324) by Boccherini - i.e most of the movements begin with extremely modern, filmic passages that cannot have come from the 18th Century. I walked through the 10th district today, listening to this music. I was shocked to find that there was a large section of neighborhoods which I had never walked through. At the very same time I was hearing the Quintet for the first time. All seemed askew, the light itself, so clear in its summer waning into gold, and the idea of a lump in the carpet of time when Boccherini composed this music..and the fact that I was in a place I had never been before, when in actuality I was certain that I had wandered thouroughly, every single nieghborhood in Vienna. Nothing is what it seems.