I meant to have these be more regular but since the end of January I’ve been dealing with a concussion. I slipped at work and cracked my head against a wall. I didn’t lose consciousness, thankfully, but there was a lot of blood. And I was carrying a coffee pot full of water to go heat up at the time, which shattered, making it impossible to tell if the floor was wet anywhere beforehand and that was why I slipped. The whole thing was almost comical as, sitting there in the chair my boss helped me into after the fall, I was completely soaked, bleeding into a towel, with bits of glass in my arm, as I waited an hour for a ride to the hospital. Where they told me they weren’t worried about my head but x-ray’d my right knee cause I cracked that on the tiles too. But oh man when the shock wore off, I started noticing a lot of weird stuff, and had vertigo quite bad, necessitating another trip to the ER where they did actually diagnose concussion. Thankfully the CAT scan and chest x-ray didn’t show any internal damage. I’ve been off work for a month now and, let me tell you, brain injuries are the worst when it comes to occupying your time. I have to be careful about getting overstimulated and not having too much screen time. I feel if it were a broken leg or something, I could at least be getting a lot of writing done. I have been playing guitar like a mofo though. Like the music bypasses my brain and just comes right out my fingers. My cognitive skills are mostly good - I did put my boxer shorts on the wrong way around one day, making for quite a surprise - but my motor skills still a bit weird. And I really don’t feel like myself. I’m seeing a neurologist and a chiropractor, who really helps with the vertigo. I’m getting Workman’s Comp. Very thankful about all this, as it adds up. Still, it’s only 60% of your paycheck. If anyone would like to help out, the Nick Cave’s Bar story show is only $5 on Bandcamp or I’ve got a bunch of stuff on Discogs. There’s plenty of other stuff on Bandcamp too - The Love Conspiracy, H Bird, Eiscafe, AUNTIE, and of course all the Young Southpaw stuff.
The one upside to having a concussion is you listen to lots of Eno, and ambient music in general, and calls for this stuff on Twitter and BlueSky pointed me to Eluvium (above). Gorgeous sounds, just what I needed. And I love that cover art with the rabbits. I want a t-shirt of this.
I did finish Mark Mordue’s amazing bio of Nick Cave’s early life, Boy On Fire. Mordue did a really excellent job with this. Childhoods are always my least favourite part of biographies, including auto- ones. I read them with a feeling of ‘hurry up and get to the good stuff’. Boy On Fire details Cave’s birth right up to the time the Boys Next Door rechristen themselves The Birthday Party and depart for London. Interestingly crossing paths with Bon Scott’s corpse on its way back for burial in Australia. But this time around, I found the whole book fascinating. There was a good helping of Cave’s entire oeuvre and the book as a whole is really great look at the scene the Boys Next Door spearheaded. Mordue talks to nearly everyone involved, making a real wide-reaching story. Lots of contributions from Mick Harvey and Phill Calvert, the latter of whom I’ve always wondered what he got up to post-Birthday Party. And recuperating I listened to two very good lengthy podcasts with him, filling me in on his entire body of work. Lots of good stories and insights into his time with The Birthday Party too. The Known Pleasures podcast , which also talks about the great BP documentary that I mentioned last time, and Conan Neutron’s Protonic Reversal. I highly recommend Conan’s podcast in general. Great guests, I really dug his conversations with Guy and Ian from Fugazi.
Looking for something non-taxing to read, I picked up the latest Asterix adventure, Asterix and The White Iris. And then pulled out Peter Kessler’s The Complete Guide To Asterix, which gives a lot of cool info about what went into all the books. All that wordplay was such a delight to my younger self, and still is now. The interview with Asterix translators, Anthea Bell and Derek Hockridge, was really cool, the insights into how much humor there is the books and the challenges of rendering that into English, if not word-for-word then at least in spirit. I love how they insisted upon having as many total gags per book as the original, even if they weren’t in the same place. Also listened to a cool podcast talking about the puns in Asterix
This all got me thinking. If you know me, you know my love of puns and wordplay. I argue that there is no such thing as ‘a bad pun’. For some reason, that’s the only phrase I ever see. I never hear someone talking about ‘a good pun’. I see this a lot in Pynchon criticism, people using the term ‘bad pun’ because the phrase in question somehow offends their intellect. But to me those puns in Pynchon are a thing of joy - ‘the check is in the mayo’ or that in Gravity’s Rainbow, Pirate Prentice’s batman is Corporal Wayne. And let’s not forget the Scooby Doo one is Bleeding Edge about Scooby Goes Latin and ‘those Medellin kids’. I was also listening to a lot of Martin Amis interviews in my recuperating time, and came across his Clive James ‘Talking In The Library’ episode, where James says in regard to puns something like ‘and anyone can do them’. But surely - in a world where there is so little that connects rather than separates us - anything that brings us together, and especially with joy, is a thing to be celebrated rather than derided?
SEVEN SONGS
Harmonia & Eno - ‘Welcome’. I have listened to this A TON since the concussion. Such a gorgeous piece of music. And someone told me it was used in ‘The Bear’. Definitely up for watching that again, that show is so so good.
Can - ‘Bel Air’. RIP Damo Suzuki. I was listening to Future Days one night and the next day I woke up to the sad news of Damo’s passing. What an incredible spirit. And on a walk recently I was wondering if Buzzcocks consciously took that vocal melody for ‘Sitting Round At Home’?
Petra Černocká - ‘Saxana’. About 15 year ago, I was on a big Czech film kick. Daisies, still one of the best films I’ve ever seen, The Party & The Guests, The Firemen’s Ball… I never got to see the film of this, but I was psyched when Finders Keepers put out the soundtrack. Fun 60s pop song
Cracker - ‘Something You Ain’t Got’. I recently binged Love on Netflix. I wasn’t so keen on the first episode, seems like first episodes are often pointlessly graphic, but then I got really into it. It was a bit triggering for me, as I spent a lot of time waiting for Mickey to come clean about her infidelity, but on the whole I really enjoyed. Esp. the incredibly catchy theme songs for films that don’t have them. And this Cracker song was playing at the bar in one episode. I had missed Greenland when it came out but there are some good songs on there
Rowland S. Howard - ‘Autoluminescent’. Lots of great stuff on Rowland in Boy On Fire, including this wonderful quote about songs - “A song, as I see it, should be like a dream that you can hardly remember and they spark off something in the back of your mind, a series of half-familiar images.” I totally agree with this. ‘Autoluminescent’ is a beautiful tune, and the doc on Rowland’s life bearing the same name I highly recommend
Tanya Donelly - ‘Pretty Deep’. I’ve always been a huge Throwing Muses fan - ‘Not Too Soon’ is one of the best pop songs of all-time - and loved those Belly albums - ‘White Belly’ and ‘Stay’, so gorgeous - but I’m not as familiar with Tonya’s solo stuff. Taking steps to rectify this and this one has been on my stereo lately
Kraftwerk - ‘Europe Endless’. Another song I listened to repeatedly in the early days of the concussion. Pretty much exactly what I needed. I have such fond memories of buying this cd at Secret Sounds in the early 90s, my introduction to Kraftwerk, and loving it
As always, these Seven Songs lists are collected here on a monster Apple playlist
Get well soon, amigo!