A friend who works as a pollster reported that he had this conversation yesterday:

Q: "I just have a few prepared questions I'd like to ask you about your experiences during and after the hurricane...So, at any time since the storm, did you have any trouble sleeping?"

A. "Fuck yeah, I had trouble sleeping! Man, I was in fuckin' jail when it hit, and man, when the waters come in the building, them motherfuckers left me there to die! Man, me and these other poor souls, we were locked in these cells, I can hear them other brothers moanin' and cryin', and the goddamn water starts spillin' into my cell, three feet of fuckin' water in there and me no way to get out, you think I'm gonna go to sleep!? Man, I was up there yelling into the wall, hopin' somebody would hear me, come and help. We were in there three days, prayin' to God that water wouldn't rise no further while we's waiting for somebody to come let us out, nothing to eat, and afraid to go to sleep for fear we'd fuckin' drown. And then the second day I look up and see them fuckin' water moccasins twisting and sliding across the surface of the water, and as it's going past my cell, one of them evil mothers turns and looks at me, like it's thinking...man, I don't even like to think about it. So, my man, what's your next question?"

Q. "Uh...at any time after the hurricane, did you ever feel nervous or edgy?"

Feb 16 at the Carousel, pictures by Dutcher.

Parks & Wildlife


Parks & Wildlife with Julie Stiles & Matt Baab (aka the semi-Trouble Down South reunion)


The Distant Seconds

The Casting Couch

This is fascinating. Melville might have intended Moby-Dick to have a happy ending (and we have many thanks to give that the narrative didn't go that way).

Also, think on this:

The Beale, he says, "puts us pretty close to Melville composing Moby-Dick. He's reading it at the time, and some of the marginalia not only find their way into the actual text ... but all the passages that are incorporated freely or in a modified way ... are also marked in this copy."

In light of all the invective thrown at Brad Vice, consider that the Greatest Novel Ever Written incorporates verbatim passages taken from a non-fiction source. Shocking!

(link stolen shamelessly and admiringly, as always, from Maud Newton)

Book No. 3: Running the Voodoo Down by Phil Freeman



I'm going to come clean from the start: Phil Freeman's a friend of mine and a hell of a writer. Even if I didn't know the guy, I'd be flipped-out in-love with this book.

Running the Voodoo Down is a critical assessment of Miles's electric period, starting in 1968 with the introduction of a Rhodes in the Filles de Kilimanjaro sessions to the hip-hop electrofunk of his last few albums in the late-80s and early-90s. Freeman spends time lovingly dissecting the music to talk about what works and what doesn't (in his opinion, which is formidable) and lingers over select topics, such as an evaluation of the guitarists who pass through Miles's band and studio during this period.

Miles created some of my favorite music between 1969 and 1975, most of which, as Freeman points out, is only available via bootlegs. The studio albums are also brilliant, but (again, a major point of Freeman's) sliced and diced in the studio and quite different from the expansive monster funk of the live shows. Both studio and stage shows were miles ahead (pun intentional) of almost everything happening at the time. The comparisons that leap to mind - Parliament/Funkadelic, Sly & The Family Stone, James Brown, Can - all had different goals and means to get there. And none of them had Pete Cosey, Davis's ace-in-the-hole guitarist in the early 70s.

Can is actually the closest analogue to Davis's early 70s music to my mind. Both had the same bifurcated approach to studio and stage shows, and both seemed to draw from the same well of Stockhausen noise and groove. This was probably a one-way conversation, though, because I seriously doubt that Davis was aware of, let alone interested in, Can, whereas the Germans could not help but be aware of the jazz legend. This is all my own theory, by the way. Freeman mentions Can at one point but doesn't draw an explicit analogy between their early 70s output.

Anyway, Freeman's book is smart, opinionated, thorough, and thoroughly fascinating. Recommended to all fans of electric Miles and avant-skronk. I want to also mention that these adjectives also describe Freeman's previous book New York Is Now!, a fantastic introduction to the current free jazz scene. Buy 'em both and send me your thank-you emails later.

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Very briefly: In light of my book deal, there's no way in the world that I'm going to have time to read 50 books this year. I'll keep reading and reviewing at this blog, but I hereby renounce the 50 books challenge until next year. I'm sure my adoring fans, if I actually had any, would be crushed. Buck up, imaginary troupers. Keep that chin high.

Parks and Wildlife with The Distant Seconds and The Casting Couch

Thursday, February 16th at The Carousel (Austin, TX, natch)

Here's my Top 10 Albums for 2005:


1. Animal Collective – Feels


2. Deerhoof – The Runners Four


3. Konono No. 1 – Congotronics


4. Sufjan Stevens – Illinois


5. Andrew Bird – The Mysterious Production of Eggs


6. Broken Social Scene – s/t


7. Six Organs of Admittance – School of the Flower


8. Spoon – Gimme Fiction


9. The New Pornographers – Twin Cinema


10. The Decemberists – Picaresque

Also-rans: Devendra Banhart – Cripple Crow, Antony & The Johnsons – I Am a Bird Now, The Fiery Furnaces – EP, The Mountain Goats – The Sunset Tree, The Go-Betweens – Oceans Apart, The Hold Steady – Separation Sunday, Calexico/Iron & Wine – In the Reins, Eric Matthews – Six Kinds of Passion Looking For An Exit, Danger Doom – The Mouse and the Mask, Lyrics Born – Same !@#$ Different Day, Architecture In Helsinki – In Case We Die, Okkervil River – Black Sheep Boy, Clem Snide – The End of Love, Vashti Bunyan – Lookaftering

YouTube goodness:

Miles, Trane, and the Gil Evans Orchestra performing "So What"

Can doing "Paperhouse"

There's plenty more, but these are a great place to start.

I suggested some goofy names to Annie's search for the title of the Great American Zombie Novel.