Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Ain't there one damn song that can make me Break down and cry? [¿No hay una canción maldita que me puede hacer romper a llorar ?]



SELECTED YOUTUBE COMMENTS ON KLAUS NOMI'S 
‘VALENTINE’S DAY’ [2008 from 'ZA BAKDAZ']
before someone [maybe our friendly distributor?] had it removed along with all these gratifying comments [to a co-creator comme moi] ...
THERE WERE NEARLY 1/2 MILLION VIEWS OF THE FAN'S VIDEO

You might imagine the seeming-semi-founded hope that maybe DB did his own surprise version when the titles & song lengths were announced for THE NEXT DAY
[Smiley face, tears]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwA4fFY66nI

-If I had to describe a field of brilliantly colored tulips to a blind person, I would play them this song.
what a heavenly song  …you are an angel my sweet nomi !!!
·  jsennstrom
-It's weird, can't think of another adjective to describe this music, but very beautiful and addictive.
-amazing....he was not only a great singer, but also a great composer . K. Nomi is one of the finest pop artist ever
·  futuristfood
-insanely great.. thanks for posting.. thought i'd never have anything new from Klaus .. this is magic.. thank you!
·  ddhhdd807
-I love this song ; wonderful always, thank you so much Herr Klaus !
-this is beautiful piece of psychedelica. I thought about the end result of life and wild montains. Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsburg were there. I'll sen d this out to my six friends and lovers who od'd
·  kaching64
-Sounds a bit like Knockin' On Heaven's Door... cool
·  samandy1110  -I really do like it though. It's so simple, and it actually makes sense. Not to mention how much talent was put into this.
·  LaQuishmia
-oh god, I don't normally cry whenever i think about celebrities dying and stuff, but when i heard this song, i couldnt help it. :'( Now i can't listen to this song without crying. RIP
-So beautiful
-Christ. Eyes always water...
-wouaoww... exellent i love
-stunning
·  ratayska
-j aime trop
·  grayinu
-to beautiful for words
-So, melancholy, funny, lonely, beautiful, like his life, like mine.
-Pretty cool stuff - pure music
·  HMLSLLC
-Well I'm not gay and I like Matalica and System if the down but I like this song.
-KLAUS NOMI IS GOD.
·  ratayska
- moi aussi il me fait pleurer ,beaucoup d emotions et du bien..me too it makes me cry, a lot of emotions as well’
-He makes me happy,he makes me cry.!!!!
·  dutereq
-very powerful song
-eerie...but very beautiful..........
-this song is very calming if you've had a bad day
·  taniarebel
-i love the beat and the piano in it!
-This song is sad in a very good way.
-Beautiful man, beautiful song. Bless his heart.
-Oh my god that was beautiful
-What a very unique song. It leaves one speechless.
-This is such a hauntingly beautiful song, most likely written & performed late in Klaus' life.
-Beautiful. Manly tears are being shed ;_;
-My eyes are moist too...
·  OWRBtheo
-This is just wonderful. Wonderful, almost brings tears to my eyes it does.
·  Boompass
-I cried.
·  hyarke
fucking trippy
fucking beautiful
I cried
-What a wonderful song...
·  Larz9220
-wow this music sounds so nice <3
-nie wiem co to ale piekne =
‘I do not know what is beautiful, but ...’
-Endless... it climbs over the sky!
-I actually kinda teared up at this video...
·  ZeroCorpse
-Za Bakdaz is a nice final album for Klaus, and this song is truly beautiful. I love it, even though it's a composite of his real vocals and samples, it's just plain lovely and odd
-Is the wordless cry in this song a mourning of a dying person, who doesn't want to go yet, or is it angel's singing about happiness and peace he found after death?
·  666oddi
-Es gibt viele schöne Stimmen. Aber Klaus Nomi hatte eine FANTASTISCHE...!!
·  PitxiYo
-One of the most important songs in my life.
·  hispula
-I hear angels singing...
-zawsze na tym płaczę, ciekawe dlaczego... :*
‘always cry at this, I wonder why.’
-oh my god!!!!!!!!
·  majallica2
-WOW...THIS IS JUST WOW .. :)
·  hispula
-I didn't know about Klaus Nomi before but today I have a new idol... Thank you You Yube!
·  alxazazel
-Totally previously unreleased and totally beautiful! If only Klaus had lived longer... Klaus was an unique talent way ahead of his time and this song will surely become a classic in the future !
-True genius! His electro pop was ahead of the times, but this song is from 1983 and sounds like mellow, reverb, 90's bands like the magnetic fields or galaxie 500. AMAZING!!
-i think it sounds better...
- A timeless beauty - the song and the person!
·  333vasco
-The guy was born a millenium too early. This song is rather contemporanious. This is gonna be one of those to listen to, over and over and over.
-A priceless treasure..
·  Lunoki
-I can't help but think of David Byrne and Brian Eno's album, Everything That Happens Will Happen Today, when I hear this song. Just shows you how ahead of the curve Klaus Nomi was when his songs sound so reminiscent of music that came out only a few months ago. What a great tune.
·  bobbyluy
-This makes me cry, its lovely we miss you klaus,
-this song is so beautiful so fantastic , please , please send me this song please
·  vettae
-a big Nomi fan? I can't even describe the trip I'm on, or what goes onin my brain (and heart :) when I see him or listen to his voice. No other human being has ever made such an impression on me in 29 years. It's going to be my birthday and I guess I will find some Nomi albums ;-)

-So beautiful..... I very love it song...

-i have found something new to obsess over, thanks
It's over?....Already?...But...but.­..I don't want to go back to real life!!
holy shit! some Klaus Nomi I've never heard ... and so beautiful! Best thing I've ever heard him do! This guy should have been bigger than Jesus... so sad... what a beautiful man he was!



Thursday, April 7, 2016

TO TALKING HEADS 1975 poem





TO TALKING HEADS
Off top 9:45 Oct. 1975 Sat.

I woke up laughing & all my body was
Rooting for itself
Hands like pom pom girls
No struttin feathers for boys
The elastic band of wellwishers
Going it & get carried away
Radio wires was gone down
That didn’t keep us from dancing

“It was from fear that all other
deviations and evil arose” it said
from this book.

Slipflower second and it’s got a
Magic moment, recollection of the magic
The door was flat and they
Left it open, the reason was near it on the floor. Their
Odors and parts of them wanted to
Mingle, that old book when it
Fell off give each 3 a clip at the same time
Fingers was drawn on wall
To point at victims & victors & all
who was in there it meant
the same different thing. They took
it a commune for health of
their new kids, them Xs of powder
for some bug’s kids.
Yah no
Yah no
-found it to be a luvin’
freedom & (fun)
They get diff things, them
All going in from the flesh out

-the fat one w/ little digits sticks
‘em down to the cooler sand & thinks
their hands can feel it enough
to look right. (They can’t see
and it needs a different expression).
They is loved & lovely in that
Light they can’t see, like them
had brains hanging out to
get fumigate. We go “all right” to
them funny smells and look
to them with slow love.

Them caught clips of misunder-
stand it on the fuel to the fire
and they was have a ladder from their eyebrows touch the
floor. When they keep moving, if
they was alone, they’d go
swayin’.

What was it? Goes like: a dumb
Open mouth is the root of chaos.

Stole it then tries to say
what it mean.

My bro. go it w/ a arts ‘n’ crafts
Belt for me

Keep that synapse in the brain
Choose yer diction, that reality

Post yer bill shit on head of eyes

Break it over a clip

He can’t keep the beat He can’t keep the beat

Send it trace thru black
Beam of the charge what
come thru
you put it on a side
It get ready for expression
That thing come thru violent
You get so berserk inside
-It would clip you & fall
For them ax grinds?

He go it like a fighter
We put a snake in
He die slow, she slip in innocent
River meet a blob of concrete
Them expects too much, take
floor, go it to piss,
Then back for more.

Move it thorough & stir
That kind of dense action
Sweet meeting
Get them animals

Them got to smell it, touch it
Pick it like a flower

It’s $ cuts
Pull back near a card
They call some office.
To put our identity past them
Offerings, they chose our
Sex different

It an ornery fucked head
& drone ________________________

Talking H.
Them need rep
Need them flowers
Them got fast
Has it to be got

Money $
You poke around for it
Gives you a cut
You find it
You go and do nothing w/ it
You give $



-dedicated to TALKING HEADS
I just unearthed the notebook this was scrawled in…
I wrote this spontaneously in a friend’s vacationing friend’s apartment on East 1st Street Manhattan (a stone’s throw from then-new CBGB’s on the Bowery) where I met, became fast with ze Heads... and left them a copy at their loft before returning to Denver ahead of my move to 7th St. dreams in the head of becoming the 4th Head, with luck!

That longago weekend in an uptown club basement dressing room I was offered some pure cocaine which seemed to rewire my brain & mood for days, reflected in adopting certain novel speech/language patterns as above! so b'low

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Bowie Cover 'Slip Away'

https://holycontour.bandcamp.com/track/slip-away-bowie

~ ... ~ ...
[contribution to Bowie songs blog/forum]

Some Riffs on the Uncle Floyd-Slip Away Diffs:

So I entered the world of this stellar tune pretty distractedly, last summer downloading an unknown-about Toy from a forum for free and alliteratively, and what hit me most on premiere listen was that accelerating snare fill at 5 min. mark, and not the many other facets subtly screaming at me: “Masterpiece here, bud!!”
Then on Toy the hook of his updated ‘Baby Loves that Way’ & life distractions crowded out memory of ‘UF’ many weeks…when, post-passing, the Heathen ‘Slip Away’ version became known and captivated me to the point of covering it [which can oft result in a sick-of-it saturation diminishing all the magic/attraction one feels for a song, but not this baby yet] and actually had me timewarpedly buying a physical CD!–surprise used copy found at local shop [naturally cut 3 skipped into cut 4, so returned dang thing]…and now I’m happily exploring the POVs of the perceptive contribbers here and comparing for pleasure the 2 versions for their distinct alchemies!
Must I choose? but I refuse!
The classical appreciator [which DB was also it seems] in me admires the structural niftiness of holding back the ‘twinkle’ chorus til so late as in ‘UF’, making it a little like ‘Hey Jude’ where having the ”Naaa-na-na’s” as long coda –not a repeated chorus– has a sublime symphonic logic [there are ways one could make it a chorus repeating, but such not its fate–a genius-stroke just as it is].
Yet as Chris pointed out ‘SA’ brings that moving chorus in twice as early which creates its own structural strength, and plants seeds of hope for its inev. return–from a competing popsong-craftedness POV. [sacrificing the quirky left-field Cpart quality for more trad. hooky repeating chorus sense.]
‘UF’ thus also appeals to the eccentricity & weirdness-lover/commerciality-hater within,
with its musty attic-conjuring toy keyboard intro-outro and honkytonk old piano and lofi vocal beginning. The understated guitar break-breather on the F-E7-Gsus-F chords gets chopped for ‘SA’—-perhaps a necessary sacrifice IF trim one must, & Levin’s heartwrenching fretless bass filigrees added in ‘SA’ once heard will become integral. But the also integral spoken characters intro [bemoaned aptly above] kind of infuriate when repeating ‘UF’ but one should hear it a few times that way, whilst tripping it is hoped. The backwards-sounding blips and whooshes at fin make for nice touches in ‘SA’ …
So,
For quirks, a touch more cinematicity, originality-experimentalism, symphonic vs pop dynamics…mundane-as-cosmic, trifle-as-treasure objet trouve meets studio balls: UF
-but for anthemic, songcrafted perfection, fitting swan-song status, studio production magic, fewer chances/more labor-of-loved into existence: SA
,,,,,
coda
[it’s a candy mint AND a breath mint]
In all, what a swell double-headed achievement! -as a tribute to this obscure lo-budget quint-american fanboy [‘get home in time to watch and turn on!’–or viceversa] nostalgia trifle/treasure immortalized, mingled with its Lennon-fellow-expat-new dad in Gotham echo, and a busted-up nursery rhyme to make it half-familiar to most all ears from 1st listen…tis quite the wondrous toon.

'…what would YOU do?…'
-Oogie

Monday, January 11, 2016

Us Lads Insane

On David Bowie: a Big Bro to me and I'm sure to many!

Was my first exposure to him in the Penn. University
daily paper review of MAN WHO SOLD THE WORLD?
I was a freshman or sophomore psychology major
and it opened: "Schizophrenia is 'in' this year..."
which piqued my interest especially, my brother
having been recently so-diagnosed as he nosedived
from exclusive law school 

[Scalia's alma mater + where Bill met Hillary] studies to mental wards and the company of ghosts and invisible ill-advisors...

So I think I bought that album then, but 'Hunky Dory's
appearance and sound had me getting hooked
and by 'Ziggy' was 1/2 ready to get some glitter,
platforms and tights and wave 'Bowie rules'
banners in the streets... thankfully my girlfriend
also could dig the musicality of the guy, was
majoring in Organ [not just mine]. By the time I 

was hunting down the only-one-in Denver
[I'd transferred to U of Colo.]
copy of 'All the young dudes' 45 and playing that upon
waking all week, she might have started wondering:
'Is this guy goin' fag on me??'

So the DB albums of that next era were: Aladdin Sane, Pinups,
Diamond Dogs, David Live, Young Americans [from memory]
-not a bad string; I had in this era begun seriously learning & performing originals & covers of out-there folk-rock songs accompanied on my trusty 0018 Martin. The Bowie song I did was "5 Years" --a campfire crowd-jerking tear-pleaser if we do recall myself... and also writing reviews of albums & concerts for a couple college papers and a Boulder Arts magazine. My biggest passions of this era was Bowie though along with Roxy-Eno and many of those Island artists so nutty-great...separating me taste-wise from most conservative Coloradans, and beckoning me back to NYC after a visit there when I met Talking Heads in '75 at CBGB...
[By the way the summer before leaving I had attended the 2nd Telluride film festival --I worked at the trendy Denver theater owned by the hosts of the Fest.-- where Buck Henry was in attendance, and who'd just shot the MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH flick starring now scary-skeletal Bowie, directed of course by my main man Nic Roeg... I asked Buck what the movie was like and he said "Weird!" I also met/lent a hand [later tattooed] to Kenneth Anger the undergound filmmaker-magician that weekend, and I tried to sell Jack Nicholson some dope and tried --you gotta, after all-- to offer Milos Forman's date Aurore Clement some of Gerald Ford's valium for her toothache... didn't we tell that tale before? -yes on old website]

So living on east 7th Street a few blocks from CB's and the Heads' loft just below Houston was grooviness and cheap then although I was holding a job at movie advertizing agency for a year or 2...during which I was able to attend the agency screening of MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH which was kind of a not-hot property, being so weird, but our client Cinema 5 eventually did release it. I'd say my mission-ready enthusiastic review after the screening to a couple account executives [most the audience was looking round, scratching their heads; here was this wild-eyed/-haired bohemian from the Traffic Dept. clapping, raving "Masterpiece!, Bowie's a-MAzing!"] had a certain % manifesting effect there in the scrolls of realities-possible... Plus the cover art for 2 of Bowie's greatest albums 'Low' & 'Station' were both done in our ad agency's Art Dept., by nameless dudes just doing their job whom I saw & joked with daily...

The next album to enter our lives then in '76/7 was LOW!!!   yeah baby---E-fuckin-NO! and Bowie together!! Forgive the shameless 'rainy day feelin again' rip, it was a gas
--that album was what our newformed band COME ON seemingly had on oftenest during rehearsal breaks at PW's loft. He & I were the only real musicians, the other 3 pretty amateurish in a new wave no wave way prevalent-possible-fashionable then...we were pals with & impressed by the example of the Heads.

Me & PW went to Mad Sq Garden for one of the soldout Bowie shows
--hey wait this story is told in full here:
http://web.archive.org/web/20071008200524/http://www.heliocd.com/nys06.html

Meanwhile on the first day COME ON had gelled into
a session recording songs w/ band --coincidentally,
my brother had died in a fall from a riverside
mental hospital high window or roof in Maryland,
perhaps tripping-trying to fly, perhaps a victim of foul play
[& not fowl-play haha], perhaps snuffing a demon that had
possessed him...
[from DB's bio:]
"Bowie's half-brother Terry Burns* was in the hospital called
Cane Hill near London. He attempted to kill himself by
jumping out of one of the hospital ward windows,
but he survived [Cane Hill had some wards that
were three stories high], some time after this failed
attempt he was successful in managing to escape
from the grounds of the hospital and arrive down at
South Coulsdon station, where he threw himself in
front of a train." http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=9385

-Weird! we both are nutty-brotherless... but as many
here gather I am to this day drawn to-intrigued by
the reaches and boundaries of madness & creativity.

...So Bowie famously befriended and featured Nomi and
mutual pal Joey Arias on his Saturday Night Live appearance [1979] http://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/fred-armisen-pays-tribute-david-bowie-saturday-night-live-n498131

-fine with me because I was working
with Nomi as songwriter, and the connec. was
bigtime action likely to benefit all concerned!
Our drummer PW was also Nomi's manager a while
and accompanied the German to a rehearsal for SNL
---Bowie's drummer was sick/absent, so the thin
duke turned to PW and said: [having seen our band
at CB's] "YOU'RE a drummer, how about sitting in?"
which he did and has a cassette of the songs
from that day [TVC15, Boys Keep Swinging, etc]
to prove it...

Now the tragedy of Nomi's early death from the
AIDS is well known, and threw us all for a loop
and made DB seem prescient for [it seemed callously]
abandoning Nomi after their tv slot, never to
work with him again before his death. [rip]
The Nomi Show, friends and mimes however
evolved into a band called STRANGE PARTY,
with me as musical director and PW on vocals
now & percussion & art direction. After a gig or
2 we met Steve Elson, a California Funk master
sax and flute etc player who became a valuable
SParty member....until his being borrowed by...
you guessed it! -that
heft-challenged white count or baron or whatever he was!!
Yes, Bowie saw us [SP] at Danceteria and soon
had enlisted Steve as his horn man [+ bari sax
of the Borneo Horns w/ Lenny & Stan] on
Let's Dance and Serious Moonlight album-tour.
Steve and Dave became friends, housemating in Canada as I recall just the 2 hornmen together rehearsing-recording
in 'Serious' era... and he was featured many years
later on THE NEXT DAY on his great big cool bari sax.

I'll be writing him this week to see how
prepared he was re 'the sad news today oboy'...

So, David my [adoptive...musical] brother,
thanks for your example and inspiration and
good taste in whom you borrow from, creatively and forgivably,
having given so much... natch! 'nuff said

[[almost]]

my favest DB:
Ziggy
Hunky
Low
STATION
DDogs
Aladdin
Baal, Brecht songs!

.......discovered AD: the masterpiece 'Slip Away'

Least: 

[chalk up to the negative "side effects of the cocaine"?]
Lets Dance

Tonight
Scary

Lodger--Can a whole album be spoiled by 1 touch? 
--'the hinterland the hinterland...', anyone?
the later ones
but NEXT DAY = pretty good

....
PS:
Almost forgot this funny east village tidbit:
must have been '84 or '85--
I lived in a building where on the first floor
was a long minimal bar [REDBAR] that
became pretty trendy-successful as an
art space/architectural
statement as much as tavern, designed by
the bassist of Come On's German friend, and
i ended up opening and stocking it from 4-6 daily.
One Sun. night I let the next tender a
young German woman take over; I go up
to the top floor where I lived and twiddle my thumbs while down in the bar
at 615 she looks up to see a famous customer enter 

the empty room---
that Duke, neither fat nor black! He'd heard of the place all the
way back in Berlin where he'd been hanging
that decade...but chose to pop in minutes
after my shift where i'd have gladly supplied
him a Becks --sur la maison-- and said,
'remember COME ON, young fella?, do you KNOW ME?
Seen Steve lately?' or played it low-key-cool more likely.



------------------------------------------

coincidentally my [only] bro-in-law's name is ....Burns