Wow, look at all the dust!

Ok, it's been a while. Let's see if I can get this stuff off the ground again.

Just for fun, here is a list of albums I always want to have a hard copy of in today's digital age of uncertainty.

(not particularly in order...)

Moody Blues- Days of Future Passed. (on a side note I have to wonder what the lyrics to this would be like were it written in today's society)

Tom Waits- Nighthawks at the Diner (actually his entire catalog, but...)

Morphine- Cure for Pain

Santana- Caravanserai

Dr. John's Gumbo

Frank Zappa- Sheik Yerboutti

Johnny Cash- Live at Folsom Prison

Marty Robbins- Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs

The Cramps- Stay Sick

anything by Fela Kuti

...ok, that's enough random thoughts for now.

later

Lux Interior R.I.P

Lux Interior, the awesomely ghoulish frontman for sleazed-up New York rockabilly OGs the Cramps, died today in Glendale, California, as the Daily Swarm reports and an official statement confirms. He suffered from a heart condition. UPDATE: Though various publications list different ages for Interior at the time of his death, his publicist confirms that he was 62.

Interior, born Eric Lee Purkhiser, formed the Cramps with his wife, Kristy "Poison Ivy" Wallace, in 1976. Although the band played CBGB a lot and was a part of the whole NYC birth-of-punk thing, but they didn't really fit in with pummelers like the Ramones and the Dictators or art-school types like Television and Blondie. Their sound was a slow, deranged, almost sensual take on 50s rockabilly: lots of guitar fuzz, no bass, tempos slowed to a slithery crawl. Before even the Misfits, the Cramps jammed their songs full of allusions to trash culture and long-forgotten B-movies.

The chemistry between Interior's halting, insinuating growl and Ivy's snakey surf-informed guitar lines remains one of the great iconic pairings in American underground rock. The Cramps even coined the term "psychobilly." Their 1981 sophomore album Psychedelic Jungle is a very serious must-have.

Onstage, Interior was always a proud member of the Iggy Pop school of self-sacrificing showman: climbing all over the stage, stripping down, rolling on the ground, generally showing no regard for his physical well-being. But he also had absolutely nuts timing and some truly great, theatrical facial expressions. He was a showman, not a performance-artist. And no less an authority than Ian MacKaye has often named a late-70s Cramps gig at a DC college as a hugely formative influence on the DC hardcore scene, even though those bands really couldn't have sounded more different than the Cramps' greasy throb.

Over the Cramps' three decades years of existence, Interior and Ivy plowed through a small army of supporting musicians, always remaining as the band's center. Against all odds, the band remained active up until very recently, though they weren't playing live shows too often anymore.

(Thank you for the pic Rev. Frost)

What I have been doing lately...

Besides form coming down from my second favorite holiday (I want another Thanksgiving), and having a birthday a couple weeks back. 34 now...halfway to 68. Hooray! I have been working (as usual) and playing my bass. (love it!), but my latest thing has been the purchase of a 75 gallon fishtank. I always loved keeping fishes, and the largest tank I ever had was a 15 gal. one. I always wanted a huge tank, and this was the largest one I could find. In a few years I may try to do a saltwater tank, but for now I am raising African Cichlids. These are a fish I always wanted to try keeping. Given their variety and bright colors, they resemble a saltwater fish, and the way I have the tank set up it looks like one now. ...so anyway I got 10 of them the other day, and we are having a great time watching and feeding etc. them. Van loves it when they come over to say 'hi' which this type of fish will do with very little prompting.

The Alphabet Meme

The Rules

1. Pick one film to represent each letter of the alphabet.

2. The letter "A" and the word "The" do not count as the beginning of a film's title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don't know of any films with those titles.

3. Return of the Jedi belongs under "R," not "S" as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy; all that followed start with "S." Similarly, Raiders of the Lost Ark belongs under "R," not "I" as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Conversely, all films in the LOTR series belong under "L" and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under "C," as that's what those filmmakers called their films from the start. In other words, movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release. Use your better judgement to apply the above rule to any series/films not mentioned.

4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number's word. 12 Monkeys would be filed under "T."

5. Link back to Blog Cabins in your post so that I can eventually type "alphabet meme" into Google and come up #1, then make a post where I declare that I am the King of Google.

Attack of the Clones
Brazil
Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death
Dawn of the Dead
Escape from New York
From Hell
Gone in Sixty Seconds (no the Nicholas Cage one)
Hell Comes to Frogtown
Ice Pirates
Justice League of America (like they'll ever get it together enough to make it...)
Kull
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
Mad Max
The Neverending Story
Once Upon a Time in America
Planet of the Apes
The Quick and the Dead
Rushmore
Sin City
Taxi Driver
Underworld
The Van
Watchmen
X-Men
Yellow Submarine
Zulu

A Capella Wars

This is great!

Characters of Deadwood: Al Swearengen, Dan Dorrity, and Dolly the whore.

One of the best characters on the show, Al Swearengen, and his right hand man Dan (complete with knife). Also Dolly the whore is in this picture... if you know what I mean....

On a side note, I wasn't completely happy with this one, as it was my first one, so there will likely be another picture of Al in the future.

Characters of Deadwood: Doc fucking Cochran

One of my favorites, Doc Cochran. Expertly played by Brad Dourif.

This drawing in particular shows one of my influences... R. Crumb.