I test drove the new Grinderman album over the weekend on a roundtrip roadtrip between Austin and Houston. Listening to a CD while driving down long stretches of highway is my favorite way to get to know a fresh chunk of music. Grinderman 2 is epic and intimate, a roiling, raging, rock and roll masterpiece. Nick Cave’s lyrics twined with Warren Ellis’s feral guitar is a rope of flame dangling over a pit of white hot Devil cum. This is some fucking seriously beautiful torment.

Listening to Cave’s romantic wail at dusk, the Texas sky black and blue, striated with the blood orange of a sinking sun, life seems like some sweet agony, every breath a birth, every breath a death. I ride through the hill country toward some unknown thing…and not knowing is the mystery that sparkplugs the engine that rules these infinite rolling hills. Between two places is where I’ve always been. I’m learning to be content in being nowhere.

When music makes me think musically, when it inspires me to create something approximating art, it’s done its job. Art is a contagion.

‘Palaces Of Montezuma’, a song I particularly admire from Grinderman 2, contains the following lines:

“The spinal cord of JFK
Wrapped in Marilyn Monroe’s negligee
I give to you
I want nothing in return
Just the softest little breathless word”

Many songwriters claim Rimbaud’s mantle, Cave nails it.
 

 
More Grinderman after the jump…

Sad news via John Lydon.com:

John and Nora have asked us to let everyone know that Nora’s daughter Arianna (aka Ari-Up) died today (Wednesday, October 20th) after a serious illness. She will be sadly missed.

Everyone at JohnLydon.com and PiLofficial.Com would like to pass on their heartfelt condolences to John , Nora and family.

Rest in Peace.

 
Thanks Jimi Hey

 
The following is a slightly expanded version of a post I did on Boing Boing last year when I was guest blogging,

While the Sex Pistols were regurgitating old Who and Chuck Berry riffs in London, and the Ramones were dumbing down the Beach Boys’ sound in New York City, something truly weird was going on in San Francisco. Formed in 1977 by multi-instrumentalists, Blaine L. Reininger and Steven Brown (and later joined by Peter Principle and puppeteer/weirdo, Winston Tong) Tuxedomoon are a group that, like their singular Ralph Records label-mates, The Residents, fall into exactly one category, the category of Tuxedomoon. With a sonic aesthetic difficult to describe (electronic, erudite, evil, with lots of strings and a sleazy sax, if that helps) but once called the sound of “ectoplasmic formation” (any better?), Tuxedomoon never fit into the San Francisco punk scene, they were viewed as “too European.” Not surprisingly, the band decamped to Rotterdam, then Brussels in the early 1980s where they were more warmly received. Since then, Tuxedomoon have rarely played in America—just five concerts—and I can count myself as lucky enough to have attended one of them.
 

 
Tuxedomoon celebrated their 30th anniversary in 2007 with a box set,77o7 Tm consisting of a then new album (Vapour Trails), a CD of the new album played live, a rarities disc and a nearly three-hour long DVD of their multi-media film works and performance documentation. A friend gave me this box set and it absolutely floored me. I played it for weeks on end and the video material was a joy for a longtime fan to behold. There’s a definitive 450-page book book written on the group titled Music for Vagabonds - The Tuxedomoon Chronicles by Isabelle Corbisier.
 

 
Many more Tuxedomoon videos after the jump!

 
He says, “I’ve seen the Beatles on television and have heard of few of their songs. It’s not my kind of thing. I prefer classical music.”

Seniors!

 
The Cramps make an appearance on the exceedingly cool Chicago public access kiddie show Chic-A-Go-Go. Late 1990’s.

Lil’ Ratso goes nuts!

“Our next letter is C.”
 

 
The Residents on Chic-A-Go-Go after the jump…

 
Here’s a very nicely done and highly marvy little innerweb commercial for the spankin’ new Bob Dylan box: The Original Mono Recordings. I don’t think I’ll be shelling out for it but it’s an awfully cool idea.
 

 
Thanks Matt Devine !

 
The late great Stooge Larry Fine meets the late great Stooge Ron Asheton as photographed by either Michael Tipton or Jimmy Recca at the MGM country retirement home in Calabasas,California circa early 70’s. That’s Larry’s granddaughter in the photo also. The story of this unlikely, but poetically perfect friendship is documented in the excellent book Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk (An Evergreen book).
 
Collection of Rich Dorris, much thanks to Heather Harris and Kim Retro Kimmer Maki !

 
Here’s a bracing Monday morning wake up call: The Yosuke Yamashita Trio providing a suitable furious soundtrack for a series of Japanese Red Army Faction bombings in this controversial and frequently banned “pink film” Ecstasy of the Angels.
 

 
Thx again, Tony Coulter !

 
“Kill Your Co-workers,” the latest video from the genre-hopping maestro of Los Angeles, Flying Lotus. From the new EP,  Pattern+Grid World.

Directed by beeple AKA Mike Winkelmann. Gorgeous!
 

 
Sister Ray meets Lawrence Welk.

The sound synch is so cool on this and it’s particularly impressive considering that Darren Hacker made the video in a very lo-tech way. Hacker describes the process:

“I rigged up 2 ancient VCRs and a CD player across my living room floor, layed down on my stomach, cued everything up and then manually activated all 3 devices at precise intervals, live…in real time. One take, no edits…”