Santogold L.E.S. ARTISTES

Santi White: leaping tiger in heels

On my iPod I've named a folder, 'happy.' Songs about happy things. It's a surprisingly small file, you try it sometime. But this downtown lullaby by Brooklyn's Santogold is definitely in.

The 80s production sound, guitars at 30,000ft and lyrics about getting on your feet in a new city. It's happiness in a New York minute.

Lyrics:
I can say, I hope it will be worth what I give up
If I could stand up mean for all the things that I believe

What am I here for
I left my home to disappear is all
I'm here for myself
Not to know you
I don't need no one else
Fit in so good the hope is that you cannot see me later
You don't know me
I am an introvert an excavator

I'm duckin' out for now
a face in dodgy elevators
Creep up and suddenly
I found myself
an innovator


Link: Santogold myspace page

some like it cold

a beautiful place where we shine

For the love of God, 2007, Damien Hirst

There must be another world, another world where we are light, where we become light. Part crystal, part sun, part raindrop, part rainbow, a beautiful place where we shine.

– Tracey Emin (a most beautiful tribute to Angus Fairhurst)

'tis very stimulating to move area. Go east young man, go east young woman. & don't be surprised if you hear there's a Rosé shortage in Brick Lane this summer. My new local will be the same one as Tracey Emin, if she still likes Rosé, that is (& yes, I still like Rosé - I'm deeply superficial). Pour the woman a drink, mf.


Link: Quote from Tracey Emin's blog in The Independent

song woman wine

wine song, & woman : song woman, & wine

Link: 30-second interview clip with Ryan Adams about getting on stage with Emmylou Harris (and how he nearly threw up with excitement)

Kurt Cobain at Rough Trade East

Kurt Cobain (1993) by Steve Gullick

Yesterday saw Steve Gullick's photographic exhibition, "Tenebrous" at Rough Trade East, Brick Lane, London E1 61L.

Like when you see a bird with a broken wing, and cry, "Look, it's hurt. (can't you do something?)" A crowd of girls stood around this photo and said, "Oh, it's Kurt...(can't we do something?)."


*sigh*


Link: Steve Gullick website


ps. Tenebrous = dark, shadowy or obscure.

New Ryan Adams song deleted from his blog

Really, it was only a matter of time before Ryan Adams featured here. Not because he is also born in the Year of the Tiger – his album is called Easy Tiger – but because, simply, I love love love him. That's it. That's all there is.


Anyway! (Short pause to admire this photo, in his room. Daymn.)

Anyway, anyway! – even the man himself admits he is a "fickle blogger". He'll put something up for a few hours, and then take it down.

Luckily this clip was grabbed before he trashed it. I like his solo acoustic songs the best and so, yeah, I guess I really like this clip... except one crucial thing that's missing.

Me. In his room (use your imagination).

Anyway! Back to my dreamtigers...




Link: Alt-Country site and Ryan Adams archive

wine women song

wine, women & song : wine woman, & song

Derrida: "I fight for improvisation"

'It's not easy to improvise, it's the most difficult thing to do. Even when one improvises in front of a camera or microphone, one ventriloquizes or leaves another to speak in one's place the schemas and languages that are already there.

There are already a great number of prescriptions that are prescribed in our memory and in our culture. All the names are already preprogrammed. It's already the names that inhibit our ability to ever really improvise. One can't say what ever one wants, one is obliged more or less to reproduce the stereotypical discourse.

And so I believe in improvisation and I fight for improvisation. But always with the belief that it's impossible.

And there, where there is improvisation, I am not able to see myself. I am blind to myself. And it's what I will see, no, I won't see it. It's for others to see. The one who is improvised here, no I won't ever see him.'


Link: Jacques Derrida, Unpublished interview, 1982

I play the drums in a band called okay

Is this book a cliché? Or do (some) bands believe their own bullshit so much that they become cliché? Does that make the band cliché rendered in this novel true? These are the ouroboros questions I asked myself as I read the 9th novel by Toby Litt.

The structure is laid out like a stage, with the drummer at the back narrating the action around him. Each chapter enters stage left like a short story in itself. Then comes the stereotypes beat out in 4/4 time: self-serving loneliness, chicks digging the lead singer over the drummer, drug-addiction, and the tedium of touring. Boom-tish!

Shuffle to the middle of the book and it gets a little more interesting. What happens after an ego-juggernaut stops? Enter the post-band comedown, when they’re in their 30s and it all begins to become too real… bored and jaded by all the fun but not able to give it up, either. For new haircuts, I mean - bands, in NME magazine this week (or last week, or whatever) it may be a nasty shock to see where it all leads. And it's not as tragic as you'd believe. It's downright mundane.

The drummer-narrator could’ve fallen a lot harder. I’ve seen it happen in real life enough to know he kept his sanity (if not his hearing) more than most. But this is fiction, and the band novel is always difficult when truth is often stranger than fiction: can you imagine a novel based on Keith Richards?? Also, the (Canadian, indie) band is called (lower-case, italics) okay; they are not larger than life rock stars. Which left me thinking: who cares?

If the larger-than-life rock star book is what you’re looking for then you won’t find it here. Read The Dirt - Motley Crue: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band for the ultimate band book – for structure, characters (!) and redemption – but I warn you now, only if you can stomach it: it's not okay.

Link: I play the drums in a band called okay - The Guardian Digested Read