Do Houses Breathe?

Do houses breathe and in breathing whisper secrets of their existence? Do houses register their ghosts? The sublime and the ridiculous? People arrive, proudly posing with their keys,their moustaches and dinky cars on the drive, and then children and then noise. The cacophony of life reaching crescendo and then fading as dereliction looms...and the house falls into disrepair, over run by little creatures and weeds. Slowly it falls into a silence which echoes across history. Is that how it happens?

In time nothing remains leaving us wondering if it hasn't been a Derren Brown illusion after all?

And, what has it all been for? Eh? Tell me that Mr J in your new Wimpy home...

Friday the 13th

I am, probably, about the least superstitious person you could meet. I did notice that today was the 13th and it was a Friday and there is another one in June. So what the hell, it's only life, and who knows what can happen? Sometimes, life meanders along, with nothing exciting happening, which is most of the time actually and then something comes at you straight out of the blue, so it becomes lively for a time and then it dies down into yet another anti-climax.

It also struck me that Friday the 13TH might be a great name for a band and there probably is one by that name out there, I don't know. It also struck me that 'Late For The Universe' might also be a great name for a musical gathering of talented performers. 'Late For The Universe', I like that it's kind of catchy, you agree?

Truth About Axasha

Okay, hands up, I do envy Axasha's wonderful knowledge of art. I can't pretend to know half as much as she does, but everytime she posts, for me, it's an education. There, thought I would be self-indulgent, and I mean it Axasha. Just wanted to say Axasha, that your knowledge is appreciated. Hopefully Janaki might take a look at the blog, and might comment, or might even decide to post.

I Want To Hear What You Have To Say

I just think this is a great little track from a great little band. 'I want To Hear What You Have To Say' by The Subways, a three piece UK busk suite.

It's generated with a smashing - furtive - little energetic uber-urch which drags the plaintive and poignant girl/boy voices out to the every edge. Rasping guitars, layered on top of the initial undulating jumbo acoustic give it that sort of pzaz schlock that all great sounds need. The rhythm is insistent and driving, but the clinching feature is that it resonates with the audience, and, in that sense it is TV Smith punky.

It has the dynamic of sweet strawberries, the axe hidden behind the double cream, the bitter-sweet appeal of an angst-ridden beast from a very dark forest, in an soulful kind of way - James Brown meets the Small Faces dubbed by The Clash. It reminds me of those dark heart lost boys days of existing only for the weekend in an idiotic sort of way...oh and, of course, its unpretentious...!

Norman Wisdom on steroids

Sergio,

Being as the blog's just thee and me at the moment, a bit of self indulgence...


Right. You’ll love this track. It’s really, really funny. A great song and a clever and visually quite Lynch-esque video.

Rammstein are East German and, unlike a lot of bands in notoriously juvenile “metal” music, Rammstein are grown-ups.

Ich Will - I Want - talk about a dark, dark, darkly comic comment on the absurdity of the media and our clambering for our 15 minutes of fame?

So, fame, celebrity, dying for your art…? Heh!

My fav’s Richard – the guy who “drops” the bank teller – but as I say, I really like Till too. A big, scary guy and onetime (almost) Olympic swimmer – he reminds me of Norman Wisdom. A humongous Norman Wisdom on steroids to be sure…

The leg brace is real btw, he’d not long been in a terrible car crash on the autobahn along with Richard (and their kids I believe! Till’s a single parent btw. What a man! >sigh<).

Check it out at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AapNrXJVjIA

Or, live at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03Su-AMyiyw&mode=related&search=
Flame-throwers! Wheee!

Tell me what you think! The quality on YouTube’s muy crappy but I have this cd single if you want to borrow?
What can I say? I’m a sucker for pretty boys and power chords! :D

Can I post your comments on The Shuttered House? They were so good.

Axasha.

The here and now

Been fighting a headache that keeps threatening migraine proportions but ever quite gets there (never quite goes away either, worst luck.). In between feeling sorry for myself, I’ve been mulling over the imagery from “Last Star in the Kosmos” – forests and moonlight. Then there’s The City, which seems to encompass both, “dark and brooding, like a forest at midnight”.

So I was thinking… forests and moonlight, forests and moonlight, forests and moo…and then it struck me.

Of course! Kate Bush. Sensual World.

That wonderfully song, with Kate’s wonderfully fleshy lyrics. That beautiful video, staged like some beautiful naïve fairytale but with it’s bloody pulse banging in our ears. (Always very literary with her lyrics, our Katie even quotes Blake here! “Arrows of Desire” How could I not love it? Yay!)

Sergei, you asked me recently to name someone I thought was stylish and I couldn’t. Well then, Katie. She’s been a heroine of mine since childhood. A genuinely unique person, multi talented (singer, song-writer, musician, director, actor, dancer) and beautiful. I mean I wanted to BE her. I had the hair, the make-up, the crushed velvet (yikes!)…

This song is about sex to be sure (:D), but this song is also of the moment; of being so ALIVE in the here-and-now. Hmmm, yessss.

So for a “sensual” version of the “forest in the moonlight” tableau follow this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Lwk-YVNl5Q


And now, the flip side of the coin, may I present Alec Empire.

How to describe him? West German Techno-Punk/DJ? He’s hardcore, also multi talented, a bit of an anarchist (you should like him then Sergei!), very political (left wing) and very angry.

Check out the next YouTube link for Ride – here (for me) is Sergio’s “gargantuan and sprawling” city, with it’s urban decay and existentialist angst.

You have to watch the (very rare) video to get the full impact of Alec’s tirade (he’s so cute when he pouts!) and you HAVE to play it LOUD!

I LOVE this track.
Tell it like it is, Alec! This song keeps me here, in the moment…
[WARNING: Explicit lyrics]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv0zN6oiNdc


Axasha.

The Shuttered House

The Shuttered House by William De Gouve de Nunques is an intriguing painting with eerie overtones, which I like. In many ways it reminds me of Edward Hopper's Gas, where the road running past the petrol staion disappears into the darkness.

In the forefront of the work, the house is lit upstairs, though a slender tree partially obscures the view we have. The house is bright, though the downstairs appears to be in gloom, and the effect is brightened by the fact that the house is painted pink. To the left, however, and in contrast to this bright side, the house is in darkness, save for one solitary light, swamped by the blackness which surrounds it and obscures. We can with the help of this single light just make out the shape of the rest of the house. But it is the blackness which draws the eyes to the heart of this painting. Is the shuttered house at the front the mask we give to the world, while taking attention from the real darkness of our souls?

What I really like about this painting is what appears to be a shower of stars above the roof of the part of the house in darkness. I was trying to work out what this might be, but, to be honest I am not at all sure. It could even be a flock of seagulls???

So, a house, and do houses breath? The silent vigilance of the insomniac ediface, ever watchful, it sees the people come and go, it witnesses all the dramas of those who inhabit its inner sanctum, yet never yields their secrets. And what is the figure in the bottom left hand corner of the painting. TBC, I have to do some more thinking.