Obsessively devoted to excavating the unjustifiably overlooked, forgotten, hidden in plain sight & truly underappreciated in the musical universe, old and new.
Just a quick one this week if that’s okay! We have been working day and night on a forthcoming discographic deep dive (!) on a legendary artist (you’ll see!) and so have been devoting all attention in that direction ( coming this very month!). And, AND, there is a forthcoming monster-sized piece coming on musical website Cover Me for someone’s birthday later this week which I will alert y’all to once it’s posted ( it’s massive and also freakin’ nuts). But enough excuses, please enjoy the latest installment of the WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest new music that has crossed our path this week. This week has blessed us with a lot of tuneful, tear-jerking, lush, heart-squeezing anthems for driving and/or walking away from things. Don’t look back, a new day’s breaking…
Love this pic by late photographer Chauncey Hare taken at San Francisco’s Playland Amusement Park in the late ’60s. Whatever this lady is feeling, I f-ing feel it too. Ride that tiger girl. Plus when I was a kid when it came to the carousel, I never, ever wanted to sit on a horse, I always gravitated to the weird nonsensical creatures that couldn’t be ridden in real life ( the rabbit at Jolly Roger’s Park on Long Island was my main squeeze for years). This is just one of those pictures that feels like life.
Time for the WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST showcasing the finest new songs that have crossed our path over recent days. There is an unusually high concentration of familiar names in this week’s countdown hence it is extra welcoming, wisdom-filled, and super old-school handsome. Listen below on Soundcloud or Spotify.
I am a nerd. Earlier this week I walked all the way over to the west village to the cool magazine store to buy a special edition mag about the f-ing Eagles, a band I like and hate in equal measure. When I got there I was excited to see they had the mag displayed in the window (pic above, plus look at that superhot Winston Churchill mag) but I couldn’t go in to get it because something was being filmed in the shop and it was packed with crew people. F-ing New York City. And so I trundled back home empty-handed. I went back the next day to get it because now the nerd had to have it on principle. And here I am today listening to Eagles guy Don Henley ( whom I like and hate in equal measure) sing “The Boys of Summer” ( which I only got love for) for the billionth time and thinking of a particular day about five years ago. I was at work and having an absolutely crap afternoon. “The Boys of Summer” started playing over the sound system and all of a sudden I felt the urge to cry. I literally had to hustle to the bathroom to hide. As I was lightly losing it, I remember thinking something to the effect of, “damn, this song is so good, it’s so poetic and well-constructed”. Even in the heat of human emotion, I couldn’t stop being a f*cking nerd.
It is now time for the latest WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST starring the finest songs we have had the pleasure of meeting over the past two weeks. It is hefty with melodic amazingness. It is full of swoon-inducing magnificence. What I’m trying to say is that there were a lot of wondrous songs that joined the world over the past couple of weeks and I hope you find one to adore. Listen below on Soundcloud or Spotify. I feel it in the air…
As a teenager in the ’80s, I admit I was kind of in love with New York City, most especially its myriad of wonderful downtown record stores (oh I was a freakin’ nerd). Nearly every day after school, whether I had money in my pocket or not, I would catch the Broadway bus downtown to embark on my patented-customized-fantastical-magicalistic-obsessively over-indulgent record store safari. I followed the same routine every time, beginning my journey at Tower Records on 4th street then working my way over to the West Village to the myriad of awesome shops over there. Even while I was rumbling through the bins in one place, I would be in an absolute fever to get to the next one, always worried someone would get something I wanted before I had a chance. And so yes, NERD, but oh my God, did I looove them record stores.
The ballpoint drawing above is me (as a much cooler than I actually was) bird in NYC in the ’80s, amongst the neon and manhole smoke, on a record run. While I didn’t have a crazy Bowie jacket like the one in the pic, I did wear a little pin depicting him in his pointed Pierrot hat from the “Ashes To Ashes” video for years, that I wish, wish, wish I still had ( I lost it decades ago and it is truly my Rosebud).
Okay, enough indulgent rambling, because hey it’s time for the latest WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest songs that have surfaced over recent days.They are wistful, wondrous, dirty ‘n’ beautiful and you can listen to them below on Soundcloud or Spotify. Let’s dance…
Last week I was sitting on my bike in Central Park in my usual spot making a playlist (nerd) when I heard some rustling next to me. When I turned to see what it was, I saw this lady in the picture above, foraging in broad daylight. To be honest it scared me for a second as I wasn’t sure if she was going to climb over the fence. Last year a brazenly bold squirrel hopped this same fence and planted himself on my bike tire, then stared me down hoping to will some snacks out of me, so you never know with these NYC creatures. Anyway, lady raccoon stuck to her guns, digging and ignoring both me and the mounting chaos around her. Yeah, it wasn’t long before everyone took notice of this daring daytime raccoon cameo and swarmed to the spot to take pix. Okay, I took pix too, but look, I was already sitting there so uh, yeah. I worry about animals in the city, even ones with bad reputations like raccoons, and so here’s hoping she’s doing okay.
Right enough raccooning, it’s time for the WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest songs that have crossed our path over recent days. It’s two weeks’ worth and so is overflowing with awesome fabulousness. Subtle f*ck you anthems, lustrous hook-filled heartbreakers, and sundown twangers await you below. Raccoon On…
For some inexplicable reason, this week I found myself drawn into an ’80s-soul-gospel rabbit hole. This in turn led me back to one of my old favorites from the genre-era that I hadn’t listened to for a while: Elbernita “Twinkie” Clark’s “My Soul Loves Jesus” (listen above). This song is nuts. It is downright lustful. It is a Jesus-themed sister to Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On”. It is 7 minutes of Twinkie really, really feelin’ the spirit.
My soul loves Jesus My soul thirsteth for Him I just can’t get enough of Him He has planted His love so that I find it hard to let go
All day I love Him All night I love Him I can’t sleep lest I dream of Him When I rise I always think of Him His love is a root in the ground, way deep down in my soul Never in my life have I felt this way before
If you don’t get the message, there is a sequence of “oh-oh-oh’s” following all this that well and truly drives the point home. I should note that in addition to composing and singing the living daylights out of it, Twinkie also played the piano on this damn thing, and kills it there as well.
But no matter how you hear “My Soul Loves Jesus”, it’s worth giving 7 minutes of your time to. It’s just so crazy beautiful and heartfelt and who among us doesn’t need a little bit of that right now?
Right, time for some new stuff! Welcome to the latest WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest new songs that have surfaced over the past couple of weeks. Lush and screamy, quiet and heart-squeezing, they are all #1.
There is a plush toy company called Jelly Cat which hopefully a few of you have heard of. They offer many wonderful animal creatures. They also offer a series of plushies known as “Amusables” that features all sorts of household and everyday items with smiling faces. And yes, they are pretty amusing. But the best ones are those that take things a step further and are not so much “amusing” as they are just plain weird. I don’t know about you but I love the idea of crying into a smiling pretzel or acorn. When I first saw the “Amusables” page on their website, I started spontaneously naming each toy but felt seriously challenged when I saw these two guys above. “Salty” and “Piney” (or “Coney”) seemed too obvious. That’s your challenge for today, think of more kickass names for these guys. Also consider this my very, very early holiday-birthday wish list.
It’s time for the latest WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest songs that have crossed our path in recent days. They are all utterly glorious and gorgeous. Listen below on Soundcloud or Spotify.
I draw a lot of birds and sheep. They are my default creatures and I love them. I just drew the ballpoint peacock bird up top for a friend’s forthcoming album art. He’d said the album was inspired by late, fabled novelist Flannery O’Connor and then told me about her obsession with birds, something I had no awareness of.
I did a little research and came upon this amazing magazine essay O’Connor wrote in 1964 where she explained the roots of her bird-love and why she raised peacocks in particular.
Here is a completely awesome quote from it:
“The peacock does most of his serious strutting in the spring and summer when he has a full tail to do it with. Usually he begins shortly after breakfast, struts for several hours, desists in the heat of the day, and begins again in the late afternoon. Each cock has a favorite station where he performs every day in the hope of attracting some passing hen; but if I have found anyone indifferent to the peacock’s display, besides the telephone lineman, it is the peahen. She seldom casts an eye at it. The cock, his tail raised in a shimmering arch around him, will turn this way and that, and with his clay-colored wing feathers touching the ground, will dance forward and backward, his neck curved, his beak parted, his eyes glittering. Meanwhile, the hen goes about her business, diligently searching the ground as if any bug in the grass were of more importance than the unfurled map of the universe which floats nearby.”
Amazingly, hilariously perfect.
On that note, it is now time for the latest WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest songs from this week’s travels. There are many beauties, for real, for real. You can listen below on Soundcloud or Spotify. Bird on…
A couple of weeks ago, Robyn released a really cool cover of Neneh Cherry’s 1988 classic “Buffalo Stance” (listen here). And unsurprisingly, it inspired me to revisit and fall down the rabbit hole of reminiscing, like every damn pop song from the ’80s does.
But “Buffalo Stance’ was special. It’s hard to explain how out there and amazing it sounded in comparison to everything else in late ’88. I’m not exaggerating when I say hearing it for the first time was revelatory, and a genuine “what the fuck?!” musical moment.
I was instantly, endlessly smitten with the sound and Neneh herself. I had the picture at the top of this piece hanging on my wall for years ( that is the actual artifact, complete with pinholes).
In the early ’90s, one of my best pals, Angel Ugarte, a tall, lanky, and debonair DJ, got invited to a party in NYC where she was the guest of honor. I could have gone but for reasons I cannot recall, didn’t (absolute idiot move). Neneh made a big entrance at the event, doing a dramatic descent down a long staircase as everyone gasped and cheered. Angel was standing along the staircase railing and as she was coming down, she stopped and kissed him. She freakin’ kissed him. Just him. When he told me about it the next day I was both overcome with jealousy because I wished it had been me, and ridiculously thrilled that she had chosen him above all others. And I get why she did it because he really was the coolest.
Angel passed away from AIDS in 1996 and I still miss him a ton. I know he would find it ridiculously funny that whenever I hear “Buffalo Stance” I think of him and that legendary kiss. I am also 100% sure he would rather have been making out with Peter Gabriel but hey, Neneh is a pretty damn good runner-up pal 😉
And now it is time for the latest WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest new songs that have come down the pike over recent days. They are melodic, anthemic, jittery, weird, and beautiful to the last. You can listen on Soundcloud or Spotify below.
That’s a pic by Swiss photographer Karlheinz Weinberger whose photos of unspeakably cool teenagers in the late ’50s & ’60s have to be seen to be believed ( this pic is actually pretty tame, there’s a lot of homoerotic rock ‘n’ roll rebel boy action to be had and all of it is awesome). Weinberger’s photos are among the myriad of crazy, amazing art that is being shown at the annual Outsider Art Fair which is happening in NYC this week. I can confirm that it is full of all sorts of treasures.
The first time I attended this event was around 1990 and I was very much blown away by, well, everything. Both Peter Gabriel and David Byrne were there, walking around like regular humans and buying art right off the wall (uh, this very much excited me). It’s where I first became acquainted with perhaps the best- known outsider artist in history, Henry Darger, whose work unsettled and impressed me so much I wrote about it in my freakin’ diary which up until then had only featured angsty personal adventures and mishaps. But what I loved most about the show was that it was full of artists I could relate to, who just made stuff because they couldn’t help it and looked to please and sate no one other than their own weird selves. It made me feel so validated and alive regarding my own demented, oddball ballpoint pen art. And it still does. I’d always been jealous of painters, the attention and glory they got and at times wished I could express myself that way…but all I wanted to do was to draw bizarro shit on small pieces of paper with cheap BIC pens.
That was all brought home at the show yesterday while looking at a display of 2 inch(!) paintings(!) of landscapes by a guy named M Winston who is currently incarcerated in Wisconsin. Looking at them, you can’t help but think, what is so great about “big”? Their power is in their tininess. You had to get right up next to the wall to meet them. They weren’t sucking all the air out of the room demanding to be stared at. Anyway, Outsider Art Fair is cool and moving and I just wanted to share that with y’all and encourage you to check out Weinberger’s incredible photos if you are doing any online rabbithole-ing today.
Hey, it’s time for the WEEKLY NEW WONDERS PLAYLIST featuring the finest new music that has crossed our path over recent days. There is some seriously lustrous and melodic magic happening in this week’s small but perfectly formed playlist. You can listen on Soundcloud or Spotify below. Embrace the weirdness…
PICKING UP ROCKS 