#also the new black dog remastered album is really good

[cannibal-nightmares]

pre-work defrag

[modernelectricvinyl]

THE JESUS LIZARD - Down

2009 U.S. Remastered Resissue Gatefold on Touch and Go.

[Autographed]

I have a great David Yow story. Wanna hear it?

Here it goes...

Back in 1994, when Down was released, me and a pair of my teenage hooligan friends got super high and drunk and snuck into a Jesus Lizard show at the Venus DeMilo in Boston, Ma.

We had been playing the album religiously, and saw that they were playing there and wanted to get in really bad. Since we were underage, accomplishing that would be a bit of a challenge. How we got it done is an epic story for another day, but our mission was indeed accomplished.

Now, even though I was drinking and smoking weed all day, I was still clear-headed enough to bring my cassette copy of Down with me, along with a black sharpie marker, just in case we’d run into any members of the band.

About 15 minutes after our arrival, I told my friends that I’d catch up with them in a few, that I really had to go to the bathroom. Desperate to empty the day’s intake of Sam Adams, I drunkenly stumble into the men’s room, and who did I see standing at the wall urinal draining his own lizard?

Mr. David Yow.

Lead singer of the Jesus Lizard, and one of my all-time heroes.

Swaying back and forth, a little drunk himself, taking a leak.

Now... at this point, because I’m super hammered, I have absolutely NO SOCIAL TACT whatsoever. I approach him, take my cassette copy and marker out of my pocket, tell him I’m a huge fan of his, and ask him to sign it for me. WHILE THE MAN IS PISSING.

Now, I think that because Yow was having such a good time on whatever planet he was on, he didn’t respond to me in the way that any normal person would have in that situation; by telling me to fuck off and leave him alone, because he was going to the bathroom.

NO. He did the complete opposite of that.

Instead, he says “Sure thing, man. Thanks for coming tonight”, and proceeds to autograph my cassette copy of Down... WHILE CONTINUING TO URINATE!!!

HE didn’t even wait to finish doing his business. He grabbed my tape sleeve, grabbed my marker, and held it up in the air in front of him and signed his name, as a steady and powerful stream of piss continued to rocket into the wall urinal.

He finishes signing it, hands it back to me, and then completes the most surreal piss I’ve ever witnessed in my life. He packs the lizard away, zips his fly, says “See you out there”, and leaves me standing alone, slackjawed, in the bathroom of the Venus Demilo. For the next twenty minutes, I wasn’t sure if what happened actually had happened, or if seeing David Yow’s urinating penis was some ridiculously bizarre figment of my drunkest imagination.

After sitting through opening acts Boys Against Girls and Sunny Day Real Estate, the Jesus lizard then proceeded to deliver one of the most awesomely intense shows I had ever seen. And as I am witnessing this epic rock n roll explosion, I keep repeating the same thing over and over to myself in my head:

I can’t believe that shit just happened.

Fast forward to 2007.

I am moving my life from Rhode Island to Vancouver with my new wife, my dog and kitten, and somewhere along the way, that autographed prized possession of mine somehow got lost in the move. I was devastated.

After getting settled into our new home in Canada, I find David Yow on Facebook, and without ever thinking he’d ever reply or get back to me, sent him a message. I regaled him with the tale of our encounter that night back in 1994, and how my precious artifact from that unfathomable meeting was now lost forever. I then asked him if there is some way I could get my vinyl gatefold jacket of Down to him to sign for me; to replace the lost cassette version, and to hang it in the recording studio of my new house in Canada.

About three days later, I get a response from David Yow saying he’d be more than happy to sign it for me, and tells me where to send it.

His home address in Los Angeles, California.

About two weeks later I received the sleeve pictured above, which David signed in three very creative ways.

1. With an “X” marking the very bad landing spot of the dog, along with an exasperated “fuck” from the doomed pup in question.

2. Also, a very polite dog fart introducing itself to me on the album’s inside gatefold.

3. And on the back, the name “David Yow”.

This record is my prized possession. Not only for the record itself, but for the story attached to it, and the long journey of getting it signed some 13 years later through the absolute warmth and kindness of one of my absolute artistic and musical heroes.

Thank you, David.

[rageprayer]

get to know your followers 💕

i got tagged by @plutosmoons, thank you so much! ^___^

Rules: Answer the questions (which you can change if you don’t feel like answering certain questions) then tag 20 followers you want to get to know better!

1. Nickname? i've never had a cool nickname but people in school used to call me gluten (or any variation of rye/wheat/oat boy) because my surname in my language literally means 'an ear of wheat' :') i actually liked it just because it was a running joke between all of us

2. Gender? male. i'm trans too

3. Star sign? taurus sun scorpio moon leo rising

4. Height? i'm 164cm which is like, almost 5'4 i think? i'm a smol boy

5. Favorite feature? i'm just gonna list some things i like about my body ok are you ready - my pupils are always slightly asymmetrical, and noone knows why. it happened around the time i started getting migraines and my right one is constantly slightly more dilated than my left. it's just a neat random thing that looks cool - my nose. i have hands down the best nose from my entire family and i'm damn proud of it, it's cute - my hands and lower arms in general, i've always liked them but i have like. visible veins on there now which is.. my kink tbh. i have really small wrists and my forearms are covered in scars which i used to hide but i love them now and i'd never get rid of them, even if i could. i also really like the shape of my nails. - i've been on t for so long that my midsection/hip area and neck/shoulders/arms actually have some definition to them now and ngl, it's kinda hot. i constantly stare at myself in mirrors @__@

6. Favorite plant? i fucking love plants, all of them. BUT my favourite ones are any that have purple leaves instead of green, they're like the goths of the plant world and i want some in the epic garden i'm gonna have someday. in terms of flowers i am obviously in love with roses and anything that blooms dark purple or black, but also dandelions! they are rays of sunshine and the fact that they're so common just adds to the magic. joy really is everywhere my favourite trees are pine trees - they smell amazing, and poland is covered in pine forests so they just really remind me of home and i feel connected to them. my favourite plant of mine that i'm growing (i love them all equally though, they're my children) is currently my tomato bush because like, it's turned into an actual bush. it's only in a box on the balcony but i had to put a stick in there to support it because of how big it is. and i grew it from seed too :o

7. Favorite animal? dogs! i will always have at least one dog, i love dogs with my whole heart and i want several when i have my own place and space for them all :D some other animals i really like are rats, bats, spiders and ants

8. Favorite Bands? What have you been listening to lately? i'm changing this because i suck at picking favourites. i actually haven't been discovering much new music lately; in terms of albums, it's been type o negative's october rust and bloody kisses, and this fabulous remaster of depeche mode's violator (i am IN LOVE with what they did to personal jesus at the end, seriously. so good. if you scroll down the comments far enough there's some people hating on it but honestly? i don't know music and it all sounds gr8 to me so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯) i'm not religious at all, but i discovered this collection of russian hymns and it's one of the most haunting and beautiful things i've heard in a while. the fact that i can kind of half understand the words just adds to the mysterious magical feel it has. i really like the first one on there, and it kind of makes me wish i could sing in any way because like, it's SO beautiful, i actually had a dream about it. also lots of adam lambert, placebo, some random fifth harmony songs from the reflection album and helena by mcr because it was stuck in my head all day yesterday >__< (yes, i am perfectly aware that there is no coherency here. i thrive on chaos)

9. Dogs or cats? dogs all the way, but i can apprecieate a good cat. i'm not one of those weird cat haters

10. Number of blankets you sleep with? two, and i hug pillows because i'm l o n e l y

11. What’s your dream trip? somewhere warm because i am so. tired. of whatever the heck this is and i need the sun. i'm thinking warm but not too tourist-y? if i do go somewhere, i want to see interesting things but also be surrounded by nature. honestly take me anywhere though. surprise me. i love going places and i have no expectations show me a big rock or something and i'll be like !! WOW

12.  What’s your dream job? i have no idea .___. i know i want to be self-employed eventually because the perspective of having to arrange my entire life around strict work hours is depressing at best, but i don't know what i actually want to do

13. When did you make this account? i don't remember precisely, i know it was a few months before i started using it so i'm guessing sometime in summer 2017

14. How many followers do you have? i'm choosing to keep that a mystery, but my follower count is actually quite close to the number of people i follow so that's cool

15. How many pets do you have? I HAVE A DOG i love him so much he's an angel <3

16. Best places to visit in your town or country? my town isn't the biggest or most exciting place to be, but we do have a very nice central area with some impressive views over the river, a very old cathedral, some good cafes poland is mostly fields and forests, we have the sea up north and mountains at the bottom, and a cool lake region too

17. Favorite ice cream flavor? mint chocolate chip, pistachio, coconut and lemon sorbet. anything fruity is good too

18. How often do you read? not nearly as often as i used to. i read things on the internet all the time but i haven't touched a book in a few months, and i don't really have the attention span for it anymore. which is sad because i used to regularly take things out from my school's library and i loved reading so much, my brain just doesn't work like that nowadays. it's also really hard to find interesting books without some hetero bullshit in them, but maybe i'm just looking in the wrong places

19. Favorite study locations? this is irrelevant because i'm not in school anymore lmao

20. Favorite book series? Favourite movie? yes, i’m that bitch that chooses films over books. fight me about it. i’m sure you’ve all seen me post about it, but my current obsession is the lost boys. i actually wasn’t that impressed by it the first time i saw it, but it really grew on me when i realised just how gay it was. gay vampires are like. My Thing and the tension between david and michael is SO there i just can’t unsee it. it was filmed in the 80s too so it has that sligthly odd vibe to it and i love the idea of a group of vampires on motorbikes so much, it’s so cool

Now tag 20 of your followers! i'm tagging 13 of you because i do what i want (no pressure though, you absolutely do not have to do this if you don't feel like it)

@sinistergouache @bugzrule @cerise-cutie @gendermenace @bitchinpoison @softvamps @necrocomicon @garbage---rat @sableyesmaw @queer--cryptid @gutlessghostboy @killrot @that-spooky-boy

i'm also officially tagging any of my followers who aren't mutuals but see this and want to do it anyway, go for it!

[theliterateape]

Beyoncé’s Lemonade Suckers

By David Himmel

“You have to get older to leave your legacy.” — Lady Gaga

Since 1994, I’ve had the Oasis song, Supersonic playing in my head to some degree. That was when I first heard the band and immediately began devouring the music with a voraciousness only a teenager can display.

Oasis has been a favorite band since. Though I stopped buying the group’s albums after Standing on the Shoulder of Giants because I thought the quality had slipped, the first three albums and every B-side that came from those recording sessions remain in a place of fondness and reverence. So when the band released box sets of Definitely Maybe, (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? and Be Here Now, I didn’t pause a second to purchase them. Well, my then girlfriend and now wife, Katie, bought me Definitely Maybe for my birthday but only because I made such a fanboy fuss over it that she would be remiss not to. She was a good girlfriend and that’s part of the reason why I married her.

These Oasis box sets were released to coincide with the 20-year anniversary of the original release of Definitely Maybe and then (What’s the Story) Morning Glory?. They came with a big black book of stories about the band and the making of the record, retrospective writings and photos, and collectible items like post cards, pins, tote bags and key chains, and 180-gram, remastered vinyl LPs, a few vinyl singles and a three-disk CD set with the remastered album as well as demos, B-sides, live cuts and alternate recordings. And, of course, digital downloads of all of this. Well, not the tote bags. You can’t digitally download a tote bag, ya goof.

Your opinion of Oasis doesn’t matter. These were fantastic purchases for fans who were still in love with the albums and had a feeling of nostalgia for what the music represents as well as an interest in how the music and the band holds up today. It would be a great purchase for newer Oasis fans, too, looking to get all of the band’s offerings in one fell swoop. All of this for the low price of $200 per box set.

Now, on the other side of my musical marital bed is my wife. Where I have attended services held by Oasis' Noel and Liam Gallagher, Katie is a cardinal in the Church of Beyoncé. So when Lemonade was released on April 26, 2016, she went, understandably, ballistic. She bought the digital album and watched the HBO film on repeat for several days. It was even part of the entertainment at her bachelorette party—naked dues in the afternoon, black feminism in the evening. The film remains delete proof on our DVR.

Lemonade is a helluva work of art. The way Bey released it, the way the HBO film complimented and added to the album, the way it was so personally raw… Lemonade went on to collect awards and praise easier than my Roomba collects my dog’s hair and my wife’s hair ties and my Cocoa Krispie cereal crumbs. Regardless of what you think of the music or the film or of Beyoncé, it’s hard to deny the immediate impact of the album.

You see, this isn’t about the quality of the music. It doesn’t matter if you love or hate Oasis or Beyoncé. This is about the illusion of self-importance. And in the 1990s, there were no two men more obsessed with their self-importance than Noel and Liam Gallagher. In the 2010s, that title goes to Queen B.

Just 16 months after Lemonade disrupted the world of pop culture, Beyoncé released the limited-edition box set, How to Make Lemonade. It’s a behind the scenes look at, well, the making of Lemonade. A 600-page book weighing in at 15.8 pounds—yes, I put it on our bathroom scale. The book was hyped as having never before seen photos of the inspiration behind the album. There’s a double 180-gram vinyl LP as well as digital and visual downloads. No tote bags, however, unfortunately for Katie and her like-minded cardinals. She’ll have to keep using my Oasis tote.

When How to Make Lemonade went up for pre-sale, Katie logged on and paid the $300. She was excited to get the vinyl and the additional downloads. But when you consider the economics of commerce, the thing she and all the others really paid for was the 600-page, 15.8-pound coffee table book of which I am confident after a few flips, will become the world’s most high-end dust collector ever brought to market. I know this because we have a lot of heavy coffee table books that live nowhere near our coffee table. They live on the lowest level of our bookshelves—blankets of dust covering their hard covers, which protect their pages of glossy, beautiful art and history. Hell, that’s exactly the condition of my Oasis box set books. The dust is so thick on those things, the Gallagher Brothers could easily cut it, line it up and snort it like some kind of rock history powder drug.

But before I buried those books where they belong, I flipped through them and read the stories and took in the photos and enjoyed looking back on the past 20 years while listening to my favorite songs from a time when things were different. Very different. The music now, the retrospective now, provides new shape and new experiences and engagement. That’s the best part about those Oasis box sets—they are time capsules. That’s the best part about all box sets. Box sets bring in the best and more of your previous life and remind you of what you were and what you can be. Usually, by the time these things are released, we’ve forgotten ourselves. Maybe we’ve forgotten the songs and the bands who made them. We need these box sets all these years later.

Beyoncé’s How to Make Lemonade does none of this. And not because it doesn’t have the ability to do so but because it hasn’t given itself enough time to be able to do so. It hasn’t earned enough street cred.

This is not the album’s or box set’s fault. Of course, not. This is Beyoncé’s doing. And for a woman who understands the intricacies of brand and impact, she should have known better. But she also understands the intricacies of brand and impact, and above all, she understands how important she is. And she knows how her followers, like lemmings to the edge of the earth, will follow her anywhere and do whatever she says and buy whatever she sells. They are loyal, they are always hungry for more of what Queen B is dishing up, even if it is 15.8 pounds of gruel. Beautiful, glossy-page gruel.

How to Make Lemonade was a cash grab. And as a result of this grab, Beyoncé blew the opportunity to surprise and excite the world in 20 years when, in the case that it happens, she needs to remind the world of how incredible she was.

Yes, Oasis can be accused of the same thing—cash grabbing. But if that were true, and there may be some truth to it since there’s no way any of the guys are pulling down the dough they were two decades ago, they had good reason. Because, well, they aren’t pulling down the same dough they were two decades ago.

I’ve read through How to Make Lemonade. It’s rich with beautiful images and surely offers a look into the making of the album. For a superfan, it’s an orgy of joy and brilliance. For the casual fan or studious sociologist, it provides insight into the struggle of black women through imagery and Malcom X quotes. And it provides insight into the pride and relevance of the black woman through imagery and Hattie White Quotes. (Hattie White being Beyoncé’s husband, Jay Z’s grandmother—the woman who inspired the title of the original album.) And she’s made a case for the pregnant woman, too, as there are photographs of her on tour while pregnant with her twins. She makes that look easy. As if any woman could do it. And that’s what Beyoncé’s feminism has always been about. (“Who run the world? Girls!”) Of course, it helps if you’re Beyoncé. And it helps to have a perfectly curated photo album helping you make your case.

Although, the book isn’t all that perfectly curated. The foreword written by Michael Eric Dyson states in part: “Beyoncé pushed herself harder, and with greater velocity, and morw [sic] e [sic] force, under incalculable pressure, and with greater skill, arguably, than anyone ever.” I had to read it over several times to make sure that I was seeing what I was seeing. “morw e force.” Maybe it’s a Latin phrase I don’t know. Or maybe it’s French, I thought, giving Beyoncé and a Dyson and a pop culture blitz of this magnitude the benefit of the doubt. I looked it up in the dictionary and online, and came up with nothing. It’s not Latin or French. It’s a typo. The closest thing you’ll find to “morw e force” is in the Urban Dictionary, which defines only morw as: “to express that someone is fat in a specific area on their body. use hand gestures to signify where exactly this area is located. usually used when somone [sic] walks by with a weirdly huge ass, or abnormally huge area of body fat usually hanging off body due to force of gravity. also usd [sic] to make fun of people we don't like.” So there’s that. But if that’s what Dyson intended to convey, it doesn’t work.

How to Make Lemonade was a cash grab. And as a result of this grab, Beyoncé blew the opportunity to surprise and excite the world in 20 years when, in the case that it happens, she needs to remind the world of how incredible she was.

Full disclosure: I’ve published plenty of writing that has gone to publication and print that has typos. It’s not often, but it happens. Mistakes happen, even to American Royalty like Beyoncé. But this is Beyoncé we’re talking about here. This project had more people involved in its ideal perfect design than any book I’ve worked on or any magazine or newspaper article I’ve ever written. The worst part is that Beyoncé herself is listed as the book’s editor in chief and creative director.

I can’t help but think, having been in the position of editor in chief and creative director—yes, on smaller scales—had Bey not rushed to get How to Make Lemonade out the door, she might have caught that mistake. Thing is, there’s not a ton of text in the book either so it’s hard to blame text-eye fatigue. It’s unfortunate. It's the price of rushing—forcing—legacy.

I recognize that Lemonade carried with it a message of importance—engagement, public unrest, blackness, feminism—and I applaud that, especially when compared to—by my own doing—Oasis albums about being a rock star, doing cocaine and drinking. But impact and influence, when true, only become more so with time. Bey has not given Lemonade time. Whatever fruit Lemonade—and Beyoncé as a whole—may go on to bare, what she has to give us right now is only just barely ripe.