Our Lady of Perpetual Hell

Many thanks to John Sakamoto for the tip-off on this beautiful version of MGMT’s song, Kids, by Ben Lee.

Oracular Spectacular is one of my favourite albums from the past couple of years but, honestly, I pay more attention to music than lyrics these days so I never really thought much about what they were singing. I’d blahblahblahblah along with what I thought they were saying, but without thinking about it. Ben Lee’s solo acoustic version turns the song on its head for me–with the lyrics front and centre.

When I listened to it for the first time on Saturday morning, I burst into tears.

I have found that music is a real trigger for sorrow in recent weeks. It doesn’t even have to be something as complex as lyrics that set me off–sometimes, it is just a chord progression or the key the song is in that is enough to squeeze my heart.

For the first week or two after Tristan died, I didn’t dare try to listen to any music. Gradually, I started to allow it back into my life. At first, just a little–listening to the radio (which is unheard of for me!) during my commute.

Then I listened to a few disks I’d picked up at a local record store–feeding the nostalgia that had been hovering around me since last fall when I reconnected with some friends from university… music from my past.

Later, at my request, my sister gave me a bunch of Tristan’s music–CDs, home-made mixes, and his iPod. A lot of it is rap and hip hop and metalcore but every once in a while, in one of his personal mixes, I’ll get a surprise–f’r'instance, Stayin’ Alive knocked me for a loop and a laugh one day, sandwiched between a couple of metalcore songs. Listening to his music hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be but the way it is hard is not in the way I thought it might be… What’s hard is hearing one band and wondering, “would he have liked this other band?” Because he’s not around for me to ask.

I keep running up against that subject here–regret, I mean–and I continue to step around it. It is the hardest thing I am dealing with at the moment.

All things (read: “my history”) considered, what would Christmas be without an appearance by Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl and their cheerily sodden “Fairytale of New York”, hmm?

Miraculously, Shane is still alive and will be celebrating his 51st birthday tomorrow. Happy Birthday, Shane! Happy Birthday, Baby Jesus!

Nostalgia seems to be the theme of my life recently. Fitting, then, that I post a Christmas song (a medley, actually, in this case) by Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet. When I was picking through my 7″ singles for something to illustrate this post, I discovered that I still have the t-shirt transfer that came with “Explosion of Taste”. I wonder if it would still work… (I also had the version that came with the Jiffy Pop. I seem to vaguely recall I actually tried to eat the stuff one very drunken evening. Alas. Prolly tasted like vinyl.) See those shadowy men behind Brian, Reid, and Don in the photo? I decorated my basement apartment on Jarvis @ Isabella with a series of those guys on the walls. I think it was originally for a party and then I just left ‘em up. When I worked at Wheels, Reid and Don–both such sweeties–always brought in an extra for me when they were putting up posters for their shows and those went up on my walls too. That apartment was Shadowy Chic. There were many sweaty, beery nights spent at Shadowy gigs in the back room of the Rivoli. Ah, memories. Those guys put on a helluva show. R.I.P., Reid.

From their album, Stocking Stuffer…

While I work on something else, here. Lissen to this.

I got the tipoff on “The Fear” from John Sakamoto’s Anti-Hit List on Saturday and it immediately went to the top of my playlist. Lily Allen’s new album is called It’s Not Me, It’s You. As you can see, a few songs have been leaked to the web but the whole album will be out in February. Can’t wait to hear the rest of the tracks on it!

I have been neglectful of this blob recently… mostly due to the internet connectivity problems that kept recurring from the beginning of August onwards (bad enough that I cancelled my DSL service and am now surfing via cable)… No Fun writing a post and then having it eaten up when the internet connection goes kerflooey. Much swearing, as you can well imagine… More than usual, I mean.

But lookee here: cy did my work for me this weekend, by writing about the new Okkervil River album so’s I don’t hafta: my stand-in for The Stand Ins, as it were.

Here’s the new song mentioned in the article’s sidebar.

(BTW, I noticed that Snapdrive deleted all my files a couple weeks ago, so the music players in my older posts no longer work and neither do the downloads for those songs. So no, it’s not your computer that won’t play ‘em. It’s just that they’re gone.)