July 2011
28 posts
Horseradish Road
Mountain Goats et al
The Mountain Goats - Horseradish Road
June 2011
39 posts
No Cease Fires (Crimes Against the State of Our Love, Baby)
Destroyer
Destroyer. No Cease Fire. from City of Daughters
Destroyer before they were really Destroyer. Before Streethawk. Before Rubies. This sounds like Dan in his bedroom, in Destroyer formation. But it isn’t. Not yet.
Nonetheless, it is a part of Destroyer canon I had never heard, & on first listen, I appreciate the lofi. None of the “la-la” or “da-da”. Mostly just Dan and an acoustic guitar, verse mildly slant, the unchorus, unexpected atonality. It’s already there. And so I marvel a little.
Because… I am humbled every single time I am privy to the vestiges of human souls. This is the gift of art & narrative of the artist. City of Daughters exacts its birth on its audience.
When my first child was born, in the same year as City of Daughters, I remember with single bell’s clarity how his eyes opened, staring directly into me, as if he knew my confusion & self-hatred. The intensity was unbearable. My own life had flashed before my eyes, like it does when you are about to die (not that I have died before, I have only read about this). Only I wasn’t dying. I had received a secret. My son, George, was born with a soul, intact & immutable. The truth of this soul had wounded me like gin & tonic. His brain was blank, but his soul was already a work of art. At conception. Its glory had revealed my fraud.
This Behar album foreshadows the glory of Destroyer & with rudimentary styling, reveals an austere counterpoint to what would come later. My boy is now thirteen, the ferocity of his birtheyes has never wavered. They are reflections into his heart, just as City of Daughters is the sparest Destroyer, before it even was.
CS Blancheflower *
Listen
California Stars. Wilco
From Beautiful Ordinaire & the first of the “Mermaid Avenue” records. This is old Woody Guthrie lyrics found in a chest after his death, assigned to music by the Wilco. A great song. Certainly, Guthrie would be pleased with its outcome.
“
My birthright I have traded for a petal dress
and a summer eulogy. I have pawned my soul
for this opal ring, the color of a pale, taxidermied eye.
If I could carry calla lilies on my shoulder once more
like an umbrella in daylight, I would lean them
on the cemetery gate and sleep until the groundskeeper found me.
For some of us, beauty is carcinoma.
The saint’s stigmata is god’s rose, bestowed
for forgoing a human lover, who will, of course, die.
I died last year. My mother made her tears into crystal
earrings and clipped them to my ears. “Son, you will
pay for your sin,” my father spoke from his throne of glass.
Stars burn a sharp, white nacre until they evaporate.
The moon’s flamingo unfolds her iodine wings over the broken city.
My necropolis. My teeth are the fruit of your olive tree
Man Of My Time
Baby Eagle
Man of My Time. Baby Eagle
The night is late. Will their be Kingdom & glory? Can you tell me here, now, secretly, whether my dreams are real? Bankers & Jailors & Sacred Dwellers. Goodnight for now. My eyes squint in exhaustion. The cold Newcastle seems unnecessary. -CS BlancheFlower
