The Counterforce No. 26
Motown, P.G. Wodehouse, Pharoah Sanders, Teeth Of The Sea, LFG, and more...
Back from tour and hit with a stomach bug that lasted over a week, the less said about that, the better. Also had some other writing to finish before I resumed this here newsletter, namely an excellent interview with Teeth Of The Sea for The Quietus. Love this quote from bassist/trumpeter Sam Barton: “There was something in the water in the early 70s, wasn’t there? Can, Funkadelic, and Miles Davis were all trying to rip up the rulebook of a genre that had barely just been invented. That music was so forward-looking that it seems stupid to try and make stuff that sounds like it. The best tribute you can pay is to do your own thing completely.”
Their latest record, Hive, is out next week and may well be their best. Check out this ‘head-frying piece of electronic psychedelia’:
The tour was great, three stops in Ohio, and my first time in Michigan, with two readings in one day. Hitting Omega Music in Dayton, Two Dollar Radio Headquarters in Columbus, where I read with Bela Koe-Krompecher, Culture Clash in Toledo, had a couple nice write-ups in the local papers there, Your Media Exchange in Ann Arbor, and Found Sound in Detroit. The average attendance was two people (plus the shop employees). But when those two people are as enthusiastic as these were, it makes for a really fun, meaningful time. On my day off I hightailed it to Cleveland and hung out with Aaron and Andrew at Visible Voice Books where I started the tour back on February 7th. It was nice to come full circle, as this was the last run of readings for The Ballad Of Buttery Cake Ass.
Exhausted and facing an 11 hour drive home, I’m so glad I nonetheless made the decision to stop at Motown while I was so close. The feeling was utterly amazing, unlike anything I’ve ever really felt before. I was overwhelmed with a sense of the sacred. The building was closed, of course, but I sat out front for quite some time reflecting on this wonderful music that has been with me my entire life. My mom playing me all those 45s ever since birth. And I thought about how in George Clinton’s autobiography he tells the tale of The Parliaments driving all night to go audition there. I left feeling so grateful for all of it, listening to Freda Payne’s ‘Band Of Gold’ over and over again (and of course the great Afghan Whigs version a couple times too)
Another fortuitous occurrence played a guiding hand on this trip too, which saw me listen to six, count ‘em six, P.G. Wodehouse audiobooks in eight days. I’m not sure what led me to borrow the Cocktail Time audiobook from my library service sometime in the middle of my cross-country trip in February 2020, when I was moving coast to coast to start a new life in Los Angeles and pursue stand-up comedy, which as Young Southpaw I had been giving quite a go to around the NorthEast in 2019, but I am so glad I did. Enamoured with Uncle Fred - still my favourite Wodehouse creation - I began to devour the audiobooks, which came in quite handy as the laughter waiting within would provide a great boon in the months that were to follow. And Jonathan Cecil’s voice really does justice to the wonderful prose (a few are up on YouTube, here’s Joy In The Morning). I wish I had the physical books in front of me - and maybe one day I’ll buy them, it is now my goal to, along with all the James Bond books, to read all 98 Wodehouses - so I could give examples. As it is, they are too funny too much of the time to quote specifics right now. And not only that, they are wonderfully written. Wodehouse was an incredible stylist. Every sentence has an impressive flow, fitting in with a greater flow overall. And all so freaking funny. The six I read were: Pearls, Girls, and Monty Bodkin, Hot Water, Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets, Love Among The Chickens, A Damsel in Distress, and Summer Moonshine. With the exception of Ukridge - perhaps my second favourite Wodehouse character - who appears in some of the Eggs… stories and whose sole novel is Love Among The Chickens, these are all pretty much stand-alone stories. Which is to say there are none of the usual arsenal - Bertie & Jeeves, Lord Emsworth and the Blandings Castle gang, Psmith, or any Mulliners. Not wanting to stop at six, upon returning home I started straight into Leave It To Psmith, which features the most complex Wodehouse plot and cast I’ve come across yet, with Psmith heading out to Blandings, and is a really excellent book. And yesterday I finished The Code Of The Woosters, before pressing play on Mulliner Nights.
It seems this month has just been full of awesome things. Pharoah Sanders’ 1977 album Pharoah contains some of the most beautiful music I have ever heard. And for the past four years or so since I discovered it, I have only been able to listen on YouTube. I vowed that one day, if I ever had the money, I would spend the $400 on Discogs for a physical copy of my own. But now, thanks to the Luaka Bop label, I don’t have to. They’ve reissued a lovely set, with two awesome live takes of album opener ‘Harvest Time’ from his 1977 European tour.
‘Memories of Edith Johnson’ is my fave, with its gorgeous stately gospel feel, pure emotion flowing through
Jarrod Annis wrote a really good piece for Aquarium Drunkard on the reissue. “Everything about Pharoah Sanders’ eponymous 1977 album is a gift. It’s a masterpiece of quiet mystique and joy that almost never was.”
I realized the other day that perhaps 20% of my social media feeds now have to do with women’s soccer. F*ck yeah. Looking forward to catching a Chelsea match when I’m in London next month. Mušović is a powerhouse - 11 saves against the US in the World Cup - and Johanna Rytting Kaneryd is incredibly fast. I’m also very impressed with the lightning of Trinity Rodman, especially lately with her and Alex Morgan being such a deadly duo. Watching Julie Ertz and Megan Rapinoe’s last international appearances were quite moving. And after Rapinoe’s final match, I decided to watch the LFG documentary about the US Women’s Team fight for equal pay. What a film! Highly recommended. All the shit these incredibly talented women have had to go through, and the US Soccer Federation’s arguments against paying them equally were moronic as well as misogynistic.
SEVEN SONGS
This week’s Seven Songs will be seven of my favourite Motown hits in honor of having got to sit within its magic
Freda Payne - ‘Band Of Gold’. Such a perfect song. Like a lot of these songs, I remember my mom playing them when I was very young and then them coming back into my life in various incarnations over the years, such as with Belinda Carlisle’s cover (listening now the production is so 80s) and then The Afghan Whigs’ killer version
The Supremes - ‘I Hear A Symphony’. Possibly my favourite Supremes song. This made a lot of mixtapes in the late 90s
The Four Tops - ‘I’ll Turn To Stone’. My mom used to joke about this song in reference to taking my dad’s last name, and thus it has always been around the family. I covered it at least once during my 2017 acoustic shows
The Jackson Five - ‘I Want You Back’. I often think this is the perfect pop song, the pinnacle of the genre
Brenda Holloway - ‘Every Little Bit Hurts’. I so fondly remember getting that Clash On Broadway boxset for my 16th birthday and being obsessed with Mick Jones’ version
The Temptations - ‘I Wish It Would Rain’. I adore this song, that plaintive piano, but then there’s a bounce to it as well, I love the way it moves
Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - ‘You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me’ . Just a great song. It was between this and ‘Tracks Of My Tears’. One of my favourite moments in Get Back is when John starts playing this
I’m also collecting all these Seven Songs lists here on a monster Apple playlist