#but albums were still buy 2 get 1 free and they only had one jewel case version so i took it as a sign that i needed it LOL

[doyunhos]

we love making questionable financial decisions before noon <3

[stereostevie]

Jazz musicians have always placed a premium on “saying something.” Technique, training, and theory will only get you so far, and may even lead you in the wrong direction; what matters is the ability to hit on an emotion or an idea that feels at once familiar and revelatory—to speak a common language in a decidedly uncommon way.

From this standpoint, few musicians have said more than the saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, the son of a school-cafeteria cook and a city employee, Sanders moved to New York in 1962, at the height of jazz’s postwar avant-garde—also known as “free jazz” or “the new thing”—which was spawned by the late-fifties experiments of the saxophonist Ornette Coleman and the pianist Cecil Taylor. Sanders’s début album, recorded in 1964 for the ESP label, garnered little attention, but his playing caught the ear of John Coltrane. Coltrane invited Sanders to join his band in 1965. The following year, Impulse!, the label that had been exhaustively documenting Coltrane’s evolution, gave Sanders another chance to record as a leader. The result was the surging and expansive “Tauhid,” an album that positioned Sanders as both Coltrane’s foremost disciple and an artist with ideas of his own.

Coltrane died in 1967, and Sanders recorded some with his widow, Alice Coltrane, a multi-instrumentalist and composer, before returning to the studio for Impulse! two years later, with his own group. The resulting album, “Karma,” set the template for a remarkable five-year run. While remaining as fiery as ever, Sanders had developed an interest in soaring, magisterial melodies, and the rhythms of his recordings, while dense and multi-layered, often hewed toward a steady groove. He also incorporated unexpected elements: non-Western instruments, yodelling by the sui generis vocalist Leon Thomas. As the title of “Karma” suggests, Sanders, like Coltrane, felt that music had a spiritual dimension. “The whole musical persona of Pharoah Sanders is of a consciousness in conscious search of a higher consciousness,” Amiri Baraka later wrote.

Subsequent Impulse! releases, such as “Jewels of Thought,” “Thembi,” and “Black Unity,” extended a musical quest that has now, in one form of another, lasted more than fifty years. But for someone who has said so much through music, Sanders has said very little to the press, doing only a handful of interviews in the course of his career. I spoke with Sanders earlier this fall, in Los Angeles, where he had just celebrated his seventy-ninth birthday by playing two shows in the area. Sanders still projects a distinctly Southern brand of soft-spokenness, one that’s equal parts humility and aversion to fuss. Although he is an acknowledged master who has been honored at the Kennedy Center, he speaks of himself—and seems to sincerely regard himself—as just another working musician trying to make a living.

We talked about his beginnings as a musician, his approach to recording over the years, and his collaborations with jazz legends. But Sanders was more inclined to reflect on the challenge of finding a good reed than to dilate on his legacy. What really mattered, it seemed, was his feeling that he could never get it right. Over the course of the conversation, it became clear that he wasn’t being compulsively hard on himself or willfully oblivious. Rather, he was still searching, possibly for something that he knew he would never find.

The interview has been edited and condensed.

You just had your seventy-ninth birthday—happy birthday!

Thank you.

What keeps you going, musically? Why are you still out there touring?

Well, I still try to make a living. I haven’t retired. I’m not working that much, but, you know, jobs come through.

What are you trying to accomplish artistically at this point?

Right now, I don’t even know myself!

Your sets these days touch on all the different things you’ve explored in your career. I saw you play in Portland earlier this year, and you played some standards and ballads as well older, more open-ended material, like “The Creator Has a Master Plan,”1 from “Karma.”

I just play whatever I feel like playing. It’s hard to keep a band together these days, so I never know most of the time who’s going to be in the band. Whoever I decide to use, if I can use them, well, that’s it!

Let’s go back to the beginning. Before you took up the saxophone, you played the clarinet in church?

I started playing drums first.

Oh, I didn’t know that.

Then I wanted to play clarinet. I went to church every Sunday, and there was this memo up in church that someone had a metal clarinet. That person just passed away maybe a few days ago. He was about ninety-three or ninety-four. That’s how I got my first instrument. Seventeen dollars!

When did you switch to saxophone?

Well, in high school I was always trying to figure out what I wanted to do as a career. What I really wanted to do was play the saxophone—that was one of the instruments that I really loved. I started playing the alto. It’s similar to the clarinet—if you can play the clarinet, you can play the saxophone.

Why did you switch to tenor from alto? What did you like about the sound?

Tenor was the most popular instrument at that time to get work. I would rent the school saxophone. You could rent it every day if you wanted to. It wasn’t a great horn. It was sort of beat-up and out of condition. I never owned a saxophone until I finished high school and went to Oakland, California. I had a clarinet, and so I traded that for a new silver tenor saxophone, and that got me started playing the tenor. The minute I bought it, I wanted an older horn, so I traded my new horn for an older model.

I read that you went to Oakland because you were studying art and you were going to go to art school.

I was painting all the time, pictures. I got into music very late. I used to do all that kind of work.

Have you painted at all since then?

No, I haven’t done anything for many, many years. I’ve wanted to go back into it, but I just haven’t.

After just a couple of years in Oakland, you moved to New York. Had you decided to focus exclusively on music?

I had to get it all together. I didn’t know enough about lots of things—basic things. I knew I needed to get some studying in, in order to get into playing saxophone, because I wanted to play jazz. So I had to cut out a lot of activities that I was doing and spend more time practicing scales and stuff like that.

Is it true that you were homeless when you first moved to the city?

I didn’t have nowhere to stay. Everybody was talking about, “You should go to New York.” They said, “That’s the place to go!” So that’s the reason I went to New York. I hitchhiked a ride to New York.

What year was this?

1962.

So, when you get there, the avant-garde—or whatever you want to call it—is in full swing. It’s been three years since Ornette Coleman’s residency2 at the Five Spot.3 Sun Ra has moved the Arkestra4 from Chicago to New York. Were you following all of this?

I didn’t know what was going on. I was trying to survive some kind of way. I used to work a few jobs here and there, earn five dollars, buy some food, buy some pizza. I had no money at all. I used to give blood and make fifteen dollars or ten dollars or whatever. I had to keep eating something.

But you managed to establish yourself as a musician.

I always wanted to work with my own band, so I got some guys together and started working down in New York, in Greenwich Village. I could pick up a few little weekend jobs. You had to do something to survive.

Who was in that band with you, your first band?

I would ask around for some musicians, and we played—I didn’t even hardly know their names.

Was Billy Higgins5 in that band? I read that you two knew each other—and that he was homeless, too.

Billy Higgins, he would come around in that location a lot, in the Village. I met him, and I heard him play. On occasion, we kind of talked a little bit about the music, and I found out how great he was. I started listening to some of his recordings. Like I said, all the time, I was still trying to find some type of job or work—it didn’t matter whether it was playing music or whatever it was. There was one time I got a job being a chef, cooking, in order to survive.

You started working with the Arkestra in 1964, and then, in September, 1965, you joined Coltrane’s band.6 That was a lot of people’s first exposure to you. Do you know why he chose you?

I don’t even know the reason myself. I don’t feel like he needed me or another horn. I think he just felt like he was going to do something different.

What was it like to work with him? There’s an idea of him as this saint-like figure.

His whole demeanor reminded me of a minister. He didn’t act like a lot of musicians that I’ve met in my life. John, he was always extremely quiet. He didn’t say anything unless you asked him something. I never asked him anything about music.

Really?

Never.

But he was making a conscious choice to work with younger musicians.

He always had some kind of a way of looking to the future, like a kaleidoscope. He saw himself playing something different. And it seemed like he wanted to get to that level of playing—I don’t know if it was a dream that came to him, but that’s what he wanted to do. I couldn’t figure out why he wanted me to play with him, because I didn’t feel like, at the time, that I was ready to play with John Coltrane. Being around him was almost, like, “Well, what do you want me to do? I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

He always told me, “Play.” That’s what I did.

What was your relationship with him like?

I loved being around him because I don’t talk that much, either. It was just good vibes between us both. We were just very quiet. All the time that I’d been listening to John, I’m hearing something else, just being around him. He would never start some kind of conversation—he would say something, but it wouldn’t last that long. He never would elaborate, or go deep into it. He said a few words, and that was it.

Was he funny at all? Did he ever joke around?

He had a sense of humor about him, I think. One time, Jimmy Cobb was playing with him, and his stick got loose, and it went across to John and hit him, or something. John said, “Yeah, he’s just trying to get back at me.”

His sense of humor was in his music. Sometimes he’d remind me of Monk.7 John would play things Monk would play, but it was a little bit different, faster. I’d turn around and look and say, “Oh. O.K.”

Monk’s music is definitely humorous, but I don’t think many people hear that in Coltrane.

He got a lot of stuff from being around Monk. He didn’t sound like Monk, but he understood the humor.

After John passed away, you continued recording with Alice Coltrane.8

You know, her playing was amazing. I loved what she was doing. But I always felt like what I was doing wasn’t good enough. Maybe I was playing a little bit more dominant than what she wanted—she seemed more intellectual than I was. But I tried to play something close to the concept that she was doing.

At one point, I had told her, “I don’t know if you like the way I’m playing or not. I don’t know whether this fits, or what.” She said, “You’re doing O.K. Just keep on playing. Keep on blowing.”

Around this time you also start leading your own bands, and you start recording for Impulse! as a leader. Did you feel like you knew what you were doing then?

No, I don’t think I was really ready. But I had to go on anyway, and study while I was trying to get it all together. I knew I had to be better than what I was. I had to keep moving. I learned a lot from John. I remember I used to talk to Philly Joe Jones.9 I talked to a lot of different people.

On those Impulse! records, you’re experimenting a lot with non-Western instruments, finding ways to use vocals in a freer context, and getting into more groove-oriented rhythms. Were you thinking through things in advance or just figuring them out in the studio?

We just worked it out while we was there. That kind of spontaneous move.

You started working with some musicians who people didn’t know well at the time, like Leon Thomas,10 Lonnie Liston Smith,11 Sonny Sharrock.12 What were you looking for when you heard them?

I was looking for musicians who played with lots of energy. I wanted to be able to play that way myself. In order to do that, I had to find musicians to work with who had that kind of energy.

You were making incredibly intense music during this period, on albums like “Jewels of Thought” and “Thembi.” Was that just where your head was at that time—constantly in a kind of heightened state?

I don’t know. I was still trying to reach for something, I didn’t know what.

Today people call this music “spiritual jazz.” But it wasn’t like anyone sat down at a table and said, “Let’s invent this whole new kind of music.”

It just happened. That’s the way I look at it. It just happened. I was never satisfied with my playing, for a long, long time. Still sort of have problems like that.

Still? Do you feel like you’ve ever had a moment, or a record, where you’ve been, like, “I got this one right”?

No.

Really?

I used to hear other bands, other groups, when they were making a recording. And a lot of musicians I’d hear would be working on one song maybe for, could be a week, or a few weeks. Make sure everything is right.

You, on the other hand, were recording two or three albums a year with Impulse! Was that how often the label wanted you in the studio?

Well, they wanted a certain number of records a year, being signed with somebody. The thing you don’t want to do is make them too close together, playing the same way as you were before. You’ve got to do something fresh. Some people like to wait for that kind of thing to happen.

But that’s not how you approached it.

I just felt like going in there and doing what I wanted to do.

Would the label give you any direction, or were they hands-off?

They tried to let you know how many songs to play. I just kind of ignored it. Sometimes, I would just play one tune for the whole side. I just kept on playing, like it was a suite. Looking from one thing to another. If you’re in the song, keep on playing.

Did you rehearse?

No, we never rehearsed.

Did you ever do more than one take?

Maybe on a few things we did, something where I didn’t really like the way I first got started up and started out playing. But whenever I heard it back, I kind of liked it, so I said, “Well, I should have kept it.” Anyways, it’s too late now.

It kind of taught me something else. It made me think, Why do I have to do it this way? Let’s keep on playing until it all comes together. That’s what we did. That’s what I always do. You know, try to keep on creating.

You’ve mentioned several times now having not liked how your playing sounded—this seems tied into the idea of your always searching for something new. Is there any recording where you’re happy with your sound?

I haven’t made it yet. Sometimes on my horn, a couple of notes, I’m feeling satisfied with it, but the rest of the notes just is not sounding right. So I’m still working on that.

I have a problem with finding the right reeds, and the right mouthpiece, the right horns. I used to buy boxes of reeds, and if they don’t play right I’d just throw them right on the floor, put them in the trash. Maybe a box of threes, or a box of fours. They never sound the same.

Do you think most musicians think this way? Are you all just perfectionists?

I don’t know. I know when I listen to other musicians, they sound beautiful to me. When I hear myself playing, I sound like… They sound beautiful. I just wonder, what are they all using?

What do you listen to these days?

I haven’t been listening to anybody.

Not even older stuff?

I haven’t been listening to anything.

I listen to things that maybe some guys don’t. I listen to the waves of the water. Train coming down. Or I listen to an airplane taking off.

Have you always been listening for sounds like that?

I’ve always been like that, especially when I was small. I used to love hearing old car doors squeaking…. Maybe it’s something you’re really into, then maybe you’ll get a sound like that. I just wondered, Would that be a good sound?

Sometimes, when I’m playing, I want to do something, but I feel like, if I did, it wouldn’t sound right. So I’m always trying to make something that might sound bad sound beautiful in some way. I’m a person who just starts playing anything I want to play, and make it turn out to be maybe some beautiful music.

When you were first in the public eye, with Coltrane, people didn’t get that.

I don’t know if I got it myself.

Do you go back and listen to your recordings?

Yeah, I look at them sometime. I’ll change it up if I’ve been playing something that I’ve maybe played before.

The goal is to never repeat yourself?

I try not to, but it seems like I do at times. Then I stop playing and catch myself and say, “Let me try something else.” It’s almost like I play one idea and then I just try to look at it, like, “O.K., I’m going to try to see if I can play it backward.”

People still associate you with the kind of music you were making in the sixties and seventies. But over the years you started doing a lot more traditional playing.

Well, I was trying to do a lot of things—like ballads. I was playing a lot of those before I came to New York, before I started recording. Maybe I just kind of slowed down a little bit. A whole lot.

What are your favorite ballads to play?

I like “Berkeley Square.”13 I feel like I haven’t played enough on it. Every time I play it, I try to play something different.

It makes me think of Coltrane’s “Ballads.” People were surprised by that record, because they didn’t think of him as that kind of player.

John always loved to play ballads. He played some ballads when I was working with him, when he kind of opened up more freely. On some jobs I did with him, he played a ballad every now and then. Then he got back in his spaceship and took off again.

That’s where he was. You never knew what he was going to do next until he did it. He just started playing himself, and we all just start coming in. Whatever time we felt like we were needed, we came in.

Do you still feel like that? Like you have no idea where you’re headed and are just going to see where the music takes you?

A lot of time I don’t know what I want to play. So I just start playing, and try to make it right, and make it join to some other kind of feeling in the music. Like, I play one note, maybe that one note might mean love. And then another note might mean something else. Keep on going like that until it develops into—maybe something beautiful.

[paulasmusicjourney-blog]

Just Like The Ocean Always In Love With The Moon Sketches For My Sweetheart The Drunk at 20

Kurt was fairly quiet and introverted most of the time. Jeff was the opposite. He was very much full of life and had a lot to say. He was somebody in love with experiencing everything. Within a very short time, he had all these famous old rock stars coming to his shows. Which put a a lot of pressure on him. People talked about his concerts the way they used to talk about Hendrix: they'd sit there, wide-eyed, telling you stories about him. He definitely had an aura. It's impossible to say what it is exactly a guy like that has, that is so attractive to other people. But he had more of it than anyone I had ever met. ~Chris Cornell, Jeff's friend and music director of Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. Sketches is anything except what you'd expect for the follow up to Jeff's debut album, Grace. Jeff would be proud of that. He began writing songs for the album he wanted to call My Sweetheart the Drunk and was recording many of these songs when he swam infamously into the Wolf River on May 29, 1997. He left behind many unfinished songs and recordings that had to be interpreted and assumed finished in the way Jeff would have wanted. Helping in that, at the request of his mother, was friend Chris Cornell. Sketches is two discs of ups and downs. There is a lot of scorn, the powerful, heartbreak, isolation, and acceptance. His lyrics show growth, chance, and not Grace part II, a leap Sony would not have been happy with for sure. Who knows what would have become of Jeff. The truth that music was his home - and that the music he wanted to create and enjoy. When you start to perform under fake names just to enjoy playing a small show for the sake of music...who knows how long Jeff would have survived the industry. Easier said then done now as opposed to the big label 1990's. Twenty years since we heard what was going on in Jeff's mind and heart. There was change going on within Jeff. The sounds he used to record Grace at Bearsville Studio differs greatly from the raw sound of the songs he recorded in Memphis and in New York City for Sketches. There is one eerie similarity between the two albums: Jeff's references to river, water, and drowning. Below, some lyrics from each track.

Disc 1 The Sky Is A Landfill The storm has ripped the shelter Of illusion from our brow This power is no mystery to us now. Leave your spirit genocide The cancer you won't remove We cast our funeral rose inside And bury the need to prove Our mutilation is to gain from the system Everybody Here Wants You I know the tears we cried Have dried on yesterday The sea of fools has parted for us There's nothing in our way My love Opened Once Just like the ocean Always in love with the moon It's overflowing now Nightmares By The Sea I've loved so many times and I've drowned them all From their coral graves, they rise up when darkness falls With their bones they'll scratch the window, I hear them call "Don't know what you asked for." Yard Of Blonde Girls Through the yard Through the yard of blonde girls Through the river and the sea Gold sharks glittering A tree of white Breaks the earth The streets where Lola played Witches' Rave You'd like to see him suffer For you fantasy and thrill He fell sick while we made love He's out there, somewhere, still New Year's Prayer Leave your office Run past your funeral Leave your home, car Leave your pulpit Join us in the streets where we Join us in the streets where we Don't belong, don't belong You and the stars Throwing light Morning Theft True self is what Brought you here, to me A place where we can Accept this love Friendship battered down by Useless history Unexamined failure   Vancouver We're where we belong It should end here Until the end of time Beyond the moment That ends our bondage I am your failed husband contender I'm your loan shark of bliss. You & I You and I Ah, the calm below that poisoned the river wild You and I Tears that dry on a rude awakened child Where you look down I've walked before Burning holes With eyes of liquid brown If we had only known In a way We wouldn't reach this ground You were my only home  

Disc 2 Nightmares By The Sea Stay with me under these waves, tonight Be free for once in your life tonight New Year's Prayer Stand absolved behind your electric chair, dancing Past the sound within the sound Past the voice within the voice Haven't You Heard Paranoia will write the world prayer Make sure that you fit in the right holes But when you take his offer, you're done for   I Know We Could Be So Happy Baby (If We Wanted To Be) We had a birthplace in common We had separate beds and lives I'll just sit here and glow Break out the oldest pictures Hand your ruined letters out to dry We had a birthplace in common And separate beds and lives And lives, and lives   Murder Suicide Meteor Slave Welcome down to paradise rock There is no single entrance With the stars to revolve around There is no real underground Back In N.Y.C. You're sitting in your comfort you don't believe I'm real, You cannot buy protection from the way that I feel. Your progressive hypocrites hand out their trash, But it was mine in the first place, so I'll burn it to ash. And I've tasted all the strongest meats, And laid them down in colored sheets. Laid them down in colored sheets. Who needs illusion of love and affection When you're out walking in the streets with your mainline connection?   Demon John Today or tonight Better get yourself together And transcend it, a burst of light Blaze stars into me While the love breaks through here and now Your Flesh Is So Nice Jewel Box Diamonds from the pavement Where a broken glass had been Just like these troubles that I'm leaving to the wind Like sapphires in boxcars speeding towards the end Like thieves, my bad luck grows Satisfied Mind (Cover) My Friends and My Lovers, I Will Leave, There's No Doubt But One Things For Certain, When It Comes My Time I'll Leave This Old World With A Satisfied Mind Gunshot Glitter [Bonus Track] Down to the sea out of the skies Of gold cards and casual tears I have only come to see you shine Feminine smiles the right side is wise, more than I. I wanna be your lover, Lipstick my name across your mirror. Blood red with flaked gunshot glitter And be one with all you disowned in your young life. You paranoia politician diva. You paranoia politician diva. Thousand Fold [Bonus Track] There ain't a star born that brightens More than you, you always should have known, I'll illuminate your question, Long time ago I'd died and gone. What has brought the question? Time has brought the question. Come and call the question, Oh, oh, oh. Here are the stars, same thing again

I am a railroad track abandoned With the sunset Forgetting I ever happened That I ever happened

[starryun-blog]

Hello lovely,I enjoyed reading what you wrote about what would be like to date saeyoung so if it doesn’t bother you could you write the same to the RFA?!

Its no problemo at all anon!

What it’s like to Date the RFA 

Yoosung;;

LOADS of studying dates

he always has flash cards, kahoots, etc just for the two of you

its rumored MC made him actually work since he saw she was

He also lets MC play on his LOLOLOL account

but if any guy tries to mess with her

you KNOW he’ll whip on those headphones and start yelling

even if it meant a 12 hour ban

worst 12 hours of his life

he loves cleaning his apartment for MC 

MC will just wake up and the smell of lemon 

and bleach

he calls you his muse

the reason he still puts forth effort for school

but yet it always seems like he seeks rika in yo

no matter how many times you alert him you are not rika

he still says you remind him of her

this has caused several arguements

usually one of you storming out of the house

but as you walk under that starry night sky

the moon giving its welcoming shine

you hear a brisk pattern of foot prints get louder and closer

your head turns to see

yoosung.

out of breath and tears streaming down his cheeks

“You’re all I’ve hoped, dreamed, wished, begged for, please forgive me.”

and you’re welcomed with a warm, snotty hug from you one and only.

Zen;;

“Wow dating the hottest man alive!”

Its something you receive a lot

There are frequent cuddle sessions

Its as if the two of you are inseparable

Constant making out

Constant hand holding

Constant PDA

The two of you just have it made

Let’s not forget to mention when you two lock eyes while he’s on stage

His body moving gracefully yet his eyes showing ferocious at the same time lovingly to you

you were the only one he ever would perform for.

The jokes about his beast became more serious when you two became serious

You always seemed to send photos at the ‘worst’ times.

You had a separate album for just the photos he sends you

and the same he did for you.

He was always your #1 fan and always wanted to support your hobbies

He’d skip rehearsal for any anniversary the two of you created

“It’s been exactly 2 months since our 3rd date! Happy 3rd Date, 2 month, Anniversary!”

But sometimes you couldnt help but feel jealous

all the gorgeous woman he’d have to kiss,

all the people who got to see him shirtless,

You almost didn’t feel special at some points

You were already having a terrible day

3 guests denied your invitation, one of zen’s future roles were put on ‘understudy’

but as you stood behind stag as he kissed the lover in his current show

hiding behind the curtain so no one could see you

you could feel your heart burn with anger and jealousy

A warm tear slipped out of your eye as you gave out an exasperated sigh

You couldn’t handle crying in public.

You raced out the stage door with a loud slam

causing everyone stop

but only Zen was the one who moved

He dashed to the dressing room to see it was closed

“Jagiya… I’m coming in”

He’d crack the door open to see you burying your face into your arms

Small breaths could be heard as you cried

“Jagiya…”

You rose your head, wiping the solemn tears

playing it off with a laugh 

“You know darling my heart only belongs to you, those women are no where as near as special as you are.”

He’d carry you bridal style as he planted a kiss on your forehead.

You felt yourself melt in his built arms

“Please understand that your jealousy is normal, but you have nothing to worry…

because you, yes you, are the only one I’ve brought on my roof…

because you, are my star.”

Jumin;;

He adores you

You were always on his mind, no matter the day

He’d find himself fantasizing about you while in meetings, dinners, anywhere where you weren’t by his side

You were his wife. His one and only.

He couldn’t picture his life with no one else.

Jumin always buys you everything you need

He has no shame buying all the monthly visit items, even if he has to buy pounds of chocolate at the same time.

He’s constantly checking your wishlist and pressing the ‘purchase’ button

But he still makes the cheesy gifts

He has a jar full of love notes from him for whenever he’s on a business trip

If it’s longer than 2 weeks, he leaves you notes around the house in every nook and cranny.

Once he learned how to skype

also taking short classes from v & you for photography

you best believe he skypes any free time he has.

You’re just watching TV?

Just position your laptop towards you and tell him the channel and he’ll watch it with you.

You coming with Driver Kim to pick him up were the best days he got, it was so welcoming to see you in person after a long week or 5 away from you.

But sometimes he’d become hostile

It took you awhile for him to allow you to go the other members of the RFA’s houses due to his skepticism of you being taken away from him.

It’s created several phone calls to end without a goodbye from him.

The remaining of the time there he can’t help but think of you and how he messed up

He’d remember his days where he wouldn’t let you leave, period.

Oh how he hated those days.

After one heated argument on you being allowed to go to Seven’s

He knew he couldn’t stay away any longer

He’d immediately return home

No questions asked by his employees as their boss sat in the plane seat

Anticipating his arrival home to his princess.

You knew his footsteps by heart

His feet clicking in a unique rhythm due to his shoes and his built

The sound always made you feel safe.

You’d race to open the door before he could

A smile on his pale face as he lifted you into a hug

Making sure to not even attempt to let go.

“You’re my precious jewel, I’m sorry I’ve been so selfish to show others your level of amazement that yet to this day still leaves me starstruck.”

You two never leave each other’s side that night as you sleep to his heart beat

the heart that only beats for you.

Jaehee;;

She always was (and still is) shy and timid

but if you wanted to try something new

she’d always try and join you.

The two of you always fantasized about opening a coffee shop so she could work on her own hours

She loves playing with your hair and singing you sweet lullabies as you watched zen’s movies

But yet it always seemed she was more focused on you than the shirtless scenes

the scenes that would always cause her to squeal in delight as she squeezed your hand

The two of you definitely have designated spa and massage days so Jaehee can let out your stress.

Also you both loved having the springs to yourself.

She’d always send you the goofiest pictures of her and Elizabeth

but at the same time venting to you about Jumin.

But sometimes it felt like you never saw her.

Like that dream coffee shop was slipping away 

She’d only come home tired and could barely work out a small good night before she’d pass out on the bed.

You’d sometimes never even see her for more than 24 hours

But one day you’d had enough

You stormed to the H&R and demanded Jaehee have a vacation

since it was obvious Jumin ignored your pleas in the groupchat.

Jumin was awed by your persistence 

but Jaehee was embarassed

That whole ride back to her house was silent.

“Why’d you have to make a scene…”

You’d feel your heart drop

she really viewed it as a scene?

She’d shake her head at your non-verbal reply.

She was too harsh.

“Im very sorry MC, I didnt know how to convey my emotions…

I am grateful you took the time out of your day to stand up for me.”

 A smile slipped onto your lips as she continued.

“I can’t wait to spend 14 days of absolute bliss with you.”

Saeyoung;;

That can be found here.

Thank you for being so patient with me! I hope you enjoy this anon!

[dablesretrospective]

2008 - Dables - Slacker Pop

This album should of never existed. I never planned for it to.   Towards the end of Closet Monster, in the Fall of 2008, I came home from work one day to my trailer that my cousin Kenny and I lived in off of White Horse Road in Greenville, and discovered that we had been robbed. They stole quite a lot of stuff from us.  They got pretty much every single piece of musical equipment I owned as well as lot of other stuff.  The only thing they left was my acoustic guitar (THANK GOD, because it was my first that was a gift from my Mom, and the one I learned how to play on), my drum machine, one effects pedal, and the cassette deck Tascam Portastudio which they didn’t steal because they thought it was just a tape player or something probably.  That was all that was left.  They got 3 guitars, my new Tascam 8 Track recorder, which had about 20 or so songs on it that are all gone now that I had only owned about 2 months, two amplifiers, my PS2, all the games, and tons of my roommate’s stuff. Not only were we robbed, but they TRASHED our place too. They took a tub of butter out of our fridge and spread it throughout the house for some reason.  The couches were smeared with butter. The walls, the floors, the carpet, my bed…Every single drawer was pulled out and its contents scattered. They tipped over our bookshelves and dvd cases and basically ran amuk throughout our house. We both worked third shift at the time, and we figured it was someone who lived nearby that noticed both our cars are gone 5 nights a week, from 11 PM-7AM, so we never recovered any of our stuff.

They didn’t get my laptop though because my room was so messy and it was buried under a pile of dirty clothes. THAT is the reason that Slacker Pop exists. Although I had been recording songs as Dables since 2005, I hadn’t “officially” released anything beyond a few random demos and mix cd’s that I gave out to friends, but nothing that I was comfortable with giving out to the general public just yet. But that didn’t mean that I wasn’t recording and writing like a madman still, trying to make something worthwhile that people outside of my personal group of friends would enjoy.  I was working on what would’ve been the first official Dables release, “Pretending To Be Asleep” as well as “Powerglove Bitchslap”, and I had made considerable progress but wasn’t quite finished when I had been robbed, thus bringing any music production or playing shows to a halt.  I sulked for a while and even considered just letting Dables end because I had been at it for 3 years and had made pretty much no real progress as a solo artist, especially since I no longer had any musical instruments and I was too poor to afford new ones.

But then I figured, since I still have my laptop, I have a ton of songs on it (some not quite finished or just demos) already done, the songs that would’ve composed Pretending To Be Asleep as well as several other albums, and I thought, well I could just make a compilation of sorts and put that out as Dables first album! So that’s what Slacker Pop is.  It is the songs that survived before the robbery, and it was finished and put online as my first official Dables CD, released on Christmas Day and was the third official release on Slackerpop Records, which at the time was still named EES Records (Everything Else Sucks), but obviously this album became the inspiration for the name change of the label that wouldn’t come for another year or two.

The title came to me when I was browsing through a local band from Charleston, Ko’s myspace. The band is now called Company, but they had under their ‘sounds like’ section: “strummy, jangly pop rock by lazy slackers”. Personally I don’t think that describes Company’s sound all that well but it made me realize that my music was essentially pop music by a slacker and for fellow slackers, hence a new genre that I dubbed Slacker Pop. A quick Google search showed there was no band or anything using the term and since it fit my sound so well, I decided to use it.  The cover of the album is a double joke that most people don’t get. Not only was it a stick figure drawing of me at the time, but it was supposed to resemble a lollipop. A slacker guy that looks like a lollipop. A slacker lolliPOP that looks like me and also describes the genre of the album.  I also made the cover just black on white because it used less ink to print out, so it was a little cheaper to make copies which I made roughly 100 of entirely by myself. Printed it at home, cut out the cover art with scissors so it would fit in a jewel case, and burned and labeled the CD-Rs one at a time. It took forever but it gave me merch to give away (I rarely tried to sell my hand made copies, I preferred to just give them away at shows and record stores or wherever for promotion).

I started saving my money, and thankfully since it was the end of the year a big tax return helped me to eventually buy all new guitars and recording equipment, and Dables got right back on track within a handful of months and in a weird way the robbery gave me the motivation to continue to pursue my music.

While I’m at it, I may as well answer the most commonly two asked questions about Dables. First off, it is pronounced “Day-bulls”. If it was different it would have two b’s in it like the actual word dabbles! Secondly, it is a portmanteau of the words “David’s Bullshit”…DAvids BULLShit…Get it? No? Ok…well in early 2005, for the very first time ever, I tried to record a few songs by myself using Sound Recorder, Free Wav Editor, and the truly crappy built-in microphone on my computer monitor. I had about 6 terrible, horribly basic, nonsensical “songs” that I burned on a CD-R. Not knowing what to call it, I just wrote “David’s Bullshit” on the CD with a sharpee. Gave a copy to maybe 3 or 4 friends just for a laugh. It wasn’t until my birthday on Nov 8 later that year (turned 19) that my then-girlfriend bought me my first cassette deck 4-Track Tascam Portastudio. Took me about a year to learn how to use it and by early 2007 I made my first demo called “I Want to Vomit on You” and I needed a name for the project so I thought it would be funny and oh-so-clever to combine the two words I wrote on the last CD-R I made, David’s Bullshit into one and spell it Dables. I made it official by then changing all my online usernames to Dables too lol. I remember really liking that it was a one word band name, both because I thought it could double as a stage-name for me and that it was a single word band name like a lot of my all-time favorite bands such as Ween, Primus, Devo, Gwar, Clutch, Tool, Nirvana…I loved that aspect of it so it stuck. I recorded an absolutely absurd amount of songs on that cassette tape 4-track and made so many demo albums but it wasn’t until Slacker Pop at the end of 2008 that I considered my music good enough for an official release. All the best stuff (and just as much god awful stuff too) from those cassette tapes made between 2005-2008 were eventually released to the public in 2018 as a 4 volume series called The Early Days. I’ll do a write up blog for those albums too eventually.

Either way I consider Slacker Pop the first official David’s Bullshit album...Or you can just call it Dables for short.

-------------------------- Released on December 1, 2008

Slackerpop Records 2008

All music written, performed, and recorded by David Walker Track #2 written by Ween Tracks #10 and #22 Alex Murray plays guitar

1.Welcome To The Record 2.Love Will Conquer All 3.Paint The Town Brown 4.What You Think I’ve Become 5.I’m Sleepy 6.Stardust Memories 7.Celebrity 8.Nightmare City 9.Everyone Loves God 10.Brain Vice 11.In My Dreams 12.Brown Eyed Angel 13.Yeah Ok 14.Livin’ in A Dream 15.Nothing Should Ever Be A Big Deal 16.I Still Love You 17.Szandora 18.Half Off Jesus Face 19.You Must First Understand Pain 20.Nothin’ But The House Rent 21.Who Are You? 22.Vodka Jam

Download this album for free at:

https://dables.bandcamp.com/album/slacker-pop

[todaysbiggesthits]

The Exam

Best Music Moment of 2020

Bin: Re-discovering 1990s alt-rock and listening to some previously unknown and/or forgotten jams culminating with discovering that Cherub Rock is an all-time track

Chap: Dancing to Frank Sinatra with my kids on NYE

Bronco: Started jamming with John on Rocksmith.  He pointed out that there was a multiplayer mode, so I ordered another cable and, lo and behold, we were both able to play.  He's starting to learn the bass while I continue to tinker with the guitar.  Pretty awesome to jam out to some Alice in Chains or some Mastodon with my 10-year-old son. Only two more years and he should be able to tour with Korn!

Code: - climbed up to the roof for 4th of july and brought the big set outside to jam at an ear splitting volume. Arden and i danced until we got almost too drunk to descend the ladder. that was major fun. - broke quarantine (and my smoking cessation plan) in late april to ride my bike to the lake and listen to townes van zandt while thinking of bobcat the wheelie king. - listening to shadowplay while closing out each opponent in a summerlong match play tournament. - watching the sun rise through the fog on an october morning while crossing the mississippi river with elliott smith's XO

JD: July: Sitting by the window watching a rainstorm with the Barwick album on the day it came out. October: A big spin of The Big Ship. November: Blasting “House of Jealous Lovers” when they called the election and turning it into a 2.5 hour club mix. November: jj having a violently negative reaction to a song by that Muzz band that came on shuffle and saying it sounded like Jason Mraz.

BC: Haphazard attempt at The Music Game over Zoom in April with last partiers standing - JD, Maddy, and I  "Live Drugs" first listen

Larse: Probably  streaming through YouTube Music's Top Indie 2020 on my Chromecast TV and seeing all of the music videos for the songs on a lazy weekday afternoon whilst I wasn't working over the holidays

Best Shows Seent in 2020

Code: pqc - 10th anniversary show (streamed) silver jews - final show (01/31/2009) a handful of live phish performances while facetiming with jonas, bc and geoff not a single in-person show attended

Nasty:"Dinner  and a Movie" series - Phish Youtube with BC, Code, and Dillon via facetime

JD: 1. Peel Dream Magazine at whatever they call Hi-Fi now on the day before lockdown 2. Real Estate busking on the sidewalk in front of closed record store locations in Manhattan 3. Parkay Boys’ 10th anniversary stream on my couch

Laser: Cirque du Soleil Michael Jackson One in Vegas in January…that was the only show even remotely related to music I saw all year

Bronco: Only seent one, and it was Cold War Kids with my wife.  Had a really good time.  It was nice to share some quality music time together, away from the kids for a night... basically the only time of this butthole of a year.

Chap: Ted Lasso

BC: Yeeeahhh right

Confession of 2020

JD: I think I engaged with Aerosmith music videos more than any new albums.

BC: Listening to new music often feels like a chore

Rotty: I played over 75 rounds of golf this year…another ample opportunity to listen to new music and I found myself just listening to Classic Pop/Rock Hits!

Codem: - i didn't even listen to taylor swift's album. - i listened to bob marley - live! for the first time in 20 years while driving my dad's car and i sobbed and sang.

Nasty: I'm a phish fan now?

Bronco: I'm still reading the book I mentioned in last year's Resolution for 2019 Status...such a slow fucking reader and this book is 1000 pages.  Kindle app says I'm 63% of the way through.  Jesus.

Biggest Disappointment of 2020

Nasty: Still Kanye...

NACK: Sufjan Stevens

Code: - no shows with my sweet one - no stones while waiting for the canons - i think i grew out of diet cig - i didn't put my heart into finding cool album art this year. 

Larson: JD's wedding being cancelled (editor’s note: sure hope you mean postponed)

JD: Don’t know if it was my advanced age, the lack of concerts, commuting, and hearing music in bars and restaurants, or the platform economy murdering my attention span and turning them all into yet more ephemeral ‘content,’ but the new albums really didn’t take this year.

Bronco: Kvelertak was okay, they changed lead singers and the new album was fine, but after their last offering that landed quite high on my list, this one was kind of a let down. Also, 2020.

BC: 2020

Most Overrated of 2020

Chap: Fiona

BC: I fully expect Fiona Apple to flood this answer.  But the correct answer is Waxahachee. 

JD: It’s hard to say given the way ‘institutional’ narratives feel mostly guided by risk minimization, but I always keep this seat warm for Run the Jewels.

Bronco: Any and all death metal.  It's all so samey. I have a hard time trying to get in to any of it, so I don't bother...and then it bothers me when it ends up on end of year lists like it's some revelation of sound. It's literally all the same.

Code: podcasts

Bin: The human brain

Laser: my golf game!

Make it Stop 2020 

Nasty: WOP (editor’s note: WAP?)

Larse: Having to talk about Politics

Code: "better off alone" - purity ring

JD: The impossibly grating contempo pop that’s always on the radio at the bodega down the street.

Chap: Covid? Trump? Celeb deaths? SNL? Murder Hornets? Talkin' tv models via email? Not enough exposure to pop culture to really get annoyed by anything.

BC: The raging pandemic. Seriously. 

Biggest TBH Regret of 2020

Laser: giving this the old college try and having just a shit list!

Chap: Only seeing one show in my 2.5 years in NYC

JD: Skipping Nap Eyes opening for Destroyer in February because I’d so obviously be able to catch Nap Eyes headlining a better venue later on.

Codem: i wanted that teenage halloween album to sound better because i loved the album artwork

Bin: Not buying Lilly stock

Bronco: No regrets to be had, couldn't do anything in this godforsaken year.

Detective Murtaugh of 2020

BC: My back giving out upon bending over to change a light bulb

Chap: Trying to give Taylor Swift the ol' college try. 

Larson: This damn pandemic!

Bronco: I'm too old for being stuck in my house all day, every day, listening to the rest of my family non-stop. I need this shit to end. I can't listen to my kids anymore... not all day. It's crushing me.

Code: now that i own a car again, my favorite pastime has become zoning out to a good album on a long drive and seeing if i can reach an arbitrary mpg number for my trip.

JD: I remember browsing the racks at Media Play and getting mad at every magazine that ranked Love and Theft ahead of Is This It? in 2001 and 19 years later I came thisclose to doing it m’self.

Bin: Arizona,  Pennsylvania, and Nevada taking their sweet ass time counting ballots

Resolution for 2020 Status 

Larse: None How It Went: More than likely it was related to being better at this and this year was probably the worst of all time…

Code: i'm making it easier this year.  catch ovlov, washer, EMA and colleen green live this year.  bonus points: see dom's much anticipated return to the stage. How It Went: ain’t caught but a one!

Bronco: Build a vinyl collection. I know I dumped on Brendon for suggesting he press copies of Carpet Affair, but my kid's getting way into music and listening to it on his own (via Alexa in my bedroom which is super fucking annoying), so we're getting him his own record player and I think it's going to be a cool activity to go record store diving for whatever classics we can scrounge up. How It Went: Started the vinyl collection.  Went record store diving with John at the beginning of the year.  He picked up Ride the Lightening.  And I've got an original pressing of Back in Black on its way, didn't make it in time for Christmas.  I decided on purchasing that album, then a day or two later John said, "I think I know what I want my next record to be...Back in Black".  Sad it didn't make it in time, but psyched I was able to predict it.

Chap: Eh I'm cool How It Went: Ironically, reading back it contradicts what it says

Bren: See Phish in 2020 How It Went: Phish tickets purchased and ready

Bin: Send an email about music on the TBH! thread. How It Went:   Ha!  Set the bar low! Finally. Send an email about music? Check.... "can you  believe Trump plays Fortunate Son unironically at campaign events???"

JD: Get to more shows. Take more aimless strolls spinning tunes. How It Went: Turns out I did a lot of sitting around inside this year.

Resolution for 2021

Bronc: Get vaccinated.

BC: Get vaxxed up and return to normalcy 

JD: - Massively reduce my ‘news’ consumption to free up more time to spin tunes and smell the roses. - Get vaxed and get partying.

Code: see a live music concert

Nasty: I'm going to be ambitious. See a show with JD. Coward move to shy away from this in 2020.

Nicky: To start earlier. It takes me longer to get into new stuff. I didn't even like my top 4 until at least late December, but now I feel like they could compete with most years.

Laser: Be better at this! If anything, the pandemic should have allowed me to listen to more music whilst at home working, but it seemed to have the opposite effect…

Most Anticipated of 2021

BC: TWOD

Bronco: Mastodon, and live shows... not sure I even care which ones.

JD: Dry Cleaning, Park Hye Jin, Viagra Boys

Larse: No clue…

Chap: It's way too early!

Bin: Freedom of movement

Code: it seems like there should be a buncha new cool musical ideas to come out of this time indoors. something like this era's disco?  a big celebratory sound that makes us all smile and move.  in other words, the next dom album.

[kekoaskorner]

A few weeks ago I had the honour to interview KARAVANN for my blog. Please click here to read the full interview. Luckily I was able to attend yesterday’s concert at the Stadtfest Rapperswil-Jona which was very special to everyone since they grew up around there and locals came to support their very own.

When I arrived there I started to check out the 3 stages and I could not believe it. The organisers assigned the smallest stage to their best act. Throughout the night I had a look/listen to the other acts on stage 1 and 2 and believe me they were nowhere near KARAVANN. I think stage 3 was kind of a secret jewel. The hard rock band and also a newcomer common habits who played before KARAVANN were actually quite good!

But as a band who is only just growing to be famous I guess you have to take what you are given and make the best out of it – AND THEY DID! They had by far the most audience and the people were dancing, clapping and singing! Overall it was a brilliant atmosphere and a superb one hour gig.

sdr

dav

They started off with “Carry your Universe” their biggest single so far and everyone was singing along. I love that they sang it at the beginning and not as an encore. It shows that they want to get the crowd going at the beginning and they are confident that the other songs are just as good. With “Feel free” and “All we need is us” they backed the first song up. What a start!

Their remix of Lilly Ahlbergs Coop single “Love is like” was next before my highlight song “Gimme Love”. And by now they have proven everyone why they don’t belong on the small stage! They covered “Mad World” by REM and I have to give credit to Ryan Sanders’ voice. I liked it just as much as the original! However I like the original of their 2nd cover “Human” by Rag’N’Bone Man better since I have already seen him three times this year and you just cannot compete with the intensity of his voice no matter how good you can sing. Don’t get me wrong it was still very good and loads of singers would have failed to sing this as good as Ryan did.

KARAVANN treated us to a sneak peek of their new music coming later this year which is called “2083”. “Angels in the Sky”, “Funk with you” and “Yes We Can” turned the first few rows into a dance floor. I would have loved to hear even more of their own songs of their latest album “Desert Tunes” but the 5 musicians left the stage only to come back to a frenetic applause to sing two beautiful covers. First up was a slower version of “Habits” by Tove Lo and their final song “Brother” by Matt Corby who is also one of their musical influences.

Unfortunately they had to stop after an hour so the gig finished just a little before 1 o’clock and the venue was still packed at that time of night! Well done KARAVANN and I think you added not just me to your KARAFANNS! 🙂 If you want to see them live you have the chance on 2nd Sept in Uster at the SLM Musik und Sport Festival. Please follow their social media accounts for more upcoming info on their newest music and on their fall gigs.

Homepage: www.karavann.com

Instagram: @karavannmusic

Facebook: @karavannmusic

Twitter: @KaravannMusic

YouTube: KARAVANN

Tickets SLM: slm-festival.ch/ticket

      If you missed out to buy their album yesterday click here to download their music from all the common music platforms.

Were you at their gig? Let me know what you thought in the comments below!

  KARAVANN @Stadtfest Rapperswil-Jona 19.08.17 A few weeks ago I had the honour to interview KARAVANN for my blog. Please click here…