2009 Was The Sort of Year That Passed In One Month Increments

Music For Infants: My preliminary field notes indicate that babies, by and large, don’t give a shit about music. However, there are two exceptions in Vashti Bunyan and David Tibet, particularly Sleep Has His House. Weirds me the hell out, it does. Not because Sleep is a bad album, or because it is rightfully considered one of Current 93‘s finest works and this indicates supernatural prescience, but because it’s about a dead father, sung by his living son.

But it soothes the savage beast, and so I worry not.

This past year was one of preparation and rediscovery. Health and Death and yet another triumphant Boredoms experience. Throbbing Gristle, set in motion during my own infancy, played “Discipline” in an old Masonic Temple and drew a circle around what I imagined my youth to be. Will Oldham demonstrated extreme American exceptionalism while millions inexplicably mourned a dead pedophile; Antony showed an overwhelming capacity for international superstardom, hemmed in only by being a beautiful woman who doesn’t look like one.

Fuck Buttons – Tarot Sport

Go hit their myspace and listen to the 7″ cut of the opener, “Surf Solar”. The whole album is like that, but longer and better.

Adding Andy Weatherall to produce was a good choice; this recording is a lot cleaner, at least in that there’s a lot more room for dirt. Plus it’s, like, mad techno-y and shit. Techno-esque. Technatic!

Fuck Buttons maintain their straight ahead and never look back approach to songwriting, in terms of both progression and overall length, but outside of a few questionable moments at the end of album closer “Flight of the Feathered Serpent”* where things get a bit too much live jam’d, there’s not a wasted moment here. Yeah, it’s all prom songs from the end of the world. And yeah, it’s pretty repetitive. But they learned a lot from Weatherall and Mogwai and even a bit from Coil, I think. The “noise” aspect is severely diminished, though it was never that strong to begin with. Having a lot of distortion isn’t necessarily noise, just noisy. It’s the difference between liking a Reverend Horton Heat album and dressing like a roadie for one of those alt-country types who likes heroin and puts punk rock stickers on his acoustic.

I challenge anyone not to like this stuff, even if they can only like it when no one else is looking because of “fucking hipsters something something something something” or whatever their hangups happen to be. I’ll be chillin’ in a rented tux at the end of time and they’re welcomed to come with.

* Yes, everyone really must get all pre-Columbian Mesoamerican exploitation flick for the next few years. Fucked if I know why.

Mogwai + Fuck Buttons @ Terminal 5

“AH’M AHN EPILEPTEEEK!”

“AH’M AHN EPILEPTEEEK!”

The short drunk Scot (“a wee cunt”?) next to us continually mooed this particular phrase for a good ten minutes before lapsing. Theories abound as to why, but I’m no expert. Hell, I’ve barely seen more than 20 minutes of Braveheart. Maybe it’s an attempt to compensate for the overall dourness of the Brit with a peppy, can-annoy attitude. Maybe he had his kibbles fondled by a soccer* coach as a child. Perhaps he has a tiny penis that, even when excited, can barely be seen from six inches away.

We will never know.

Joe had a good point during the cab ride back – such things are part and parcel of the “live experience”; crowds of people, in addition to being a slew of crowdy, pushy bastards, tend to do things like that. But it just seemed like last night’s crowd was shittier than usual, from the pushy young ladies who are too young, pretty or short to punch, to the short guys and the old guys respectively – or in combination. I’d hate to see these guys at a Low show; it’d be a bloodbath!

Maybe I was just cranky? I don’t think so, because Fuck Buttons rocked my socks off.