perfidy

Eminent smarty science types maintain that the one thing that truly separates us from all the other animals on the planet is our cleverness. That, and thumbs, but definitely cleverness.

And while there are some things which can hardly be improved upon that have endured unchanged for centuries, even millennia (the wheel, beer, the music of Slayer), that doesn't stop people from trying to perfect the already perfect. Get that? That's perFECT the already PERfect. The written word is such a blunt instrument.

A good friend of mine, an enterprising and endlessly creative cook whose inventiveness, whose cleverness never fails to astound me, found something in the endless wastes of the internet that's so shockingly creative, so incredibly clever, and so far beyond even his most inspired moments, that I just have to bring to your attention.... season shot, the shot made of seasoning.

Cook a game bird in one piece
No shot left in the bird
Season on impact
The answer: Season Shot

Season Shot: Ammo with flavor

Hot damn. It's environmentally sound, potentially quite tasty, and totally safe on human teeth as well. Let's see a dolphin come up with that! Boo-yah!!!!

The Slits were one of the more interesting stories to come out of the great first wave of London punk bands in the late 1970s. Indeed, they are only incidentally 'punk,' in that the teenaged founding members (all female) began their careers as musical incompetents of the "bashed guitar and screamed vocals" school. But by the time Cut, their debut album came out in 1979, the group had moved far beyond the strictures of formal 'punk,' integrating reggae rhythms and dub production into their arsenal. Their second (and last worthwhile) album, 1981's Return of the Giant Slits deepened their commitment to experimentation, adding world-music gestures to their already wide-ranging sound. After these two achievements, the band broke up as its members began to work in other ensembles. They joined bands like X Ray Spex and The Raincoats as legendary pioneers of independent-minded feminist punk, but for the next two and a half decades didn't record another note together.

The closest comparison I can make to the Slits' classic albums is to Public Image Ltd's Metal Box LP, which merged reggae, rock, punk, scratchy and sketchy guitar work, and (let's say) "interesting" vocal performances) in a similar manner. If you're not familiar with that record, then all I can say is that the Slits' music was difficult, catchy, bassy, super-feminist, creative, and off-putting in equal measure, and they deserve the reputation they have as one of the most pioneering and essential British punk bands. It's not necessarily anything that every person on the planet needs to have in their collection, but people who are into PiL, Neil Young's noisy and angry side, Lou Reed, or post-punk of the Mission of Burma/Sonic Youth school, really need to get their Slits on.

And now The Slits have re-formed and seem intent on recapturing the old magic. Last year, core members Tessa Pollit (sometimes Pollitte) and Ari Up (sometimes Upp) teamed with Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook, Adam and the Ants guitarist Marco Pirroni, and the daughters of Cook and The Clash's Mick Jones to record three songs for a newly released EP, Revenge of the Killer Slits.

I'm not quite sure what to make of it. Revenge is either a nostalgia trip or a bold new offering, or it could be both. I can't tell. The lead track, "Slits Tradition" is a clattering and edgy mess that merges their old blocky punk-reggae sound with 2006 hip-hop beats to decent musical effect. However, the lyrics aren't anything special, featuring Ari Up boasting about the Slits' greatness in a faintly embarrassing dancehall accent. It's a little good, a little not-good, faintly embarrasing, but deeply intriguing.

The second track is more straightforward; an old-school punk workout called "Number One Enemy" that was written in 1976 and belongs completely to that era. From the Sex Pistols-y guitar to the one-note vocals, this is 100% nostalgia trip, albeit a pretty good one.

It's the third of three that's worth the price of admission. "Kill Them With Love" is a dubby and spare drum-and-bass track which puts Up's vocals (which influenced Siouxsie Sioux and Bjork, to name just two) right up front. Although it's not exactly the greatest thing I've ever heard, it does promise good things from a more permanent Slits reunion. It indicates that Up and Pollit still have some of the old magic and possibly some new mojo too, and are not just adults who still think they can relate to kids these days. If nothing else, the fact that they are trying as adults to revist what they did so very well as teenagers suggests they haven't lost the boldness that made them great.

There's a lot left unsaid by this three-song EP. The original Slits were stunning partly because they were so consciously political, so consciously feminist, and so musically fearless. The risks they took and the rules they broke paid off in spades in 1979, and whether that's because they were too young to know better to too young to care is beside the point. But the Slits are now in their forties, and it's too early to tell whether that crazy-ass energy that made their original work so thrilling and creative has left them, or merely matured into something new and thrilling.

It's hard to overstate how much, as a pimply and earnest teenager from Ohio with a serious jones for escapism, heavy-duty philosphizing, and wailing guitars, Jane's Addiction meant to me. By 1991, I'd gotten pretty far on my own, crawling past Warrant, Poison and Def Leppard to artier stuff like Zep and Tull, and finally discovering Nine Inch Nails and Ministry. By that time, the creepy din of Trent Reznor and Al Jourgenson had my adolescent mind primed and ready for the decadent racket of Jane's.

I remember the winter of 1991-1992, driving around in cars with my friends. Shawn had the treacherous old Chevette with no floorboards he'd gotten for $35, and Tom had the tiny Toyota truck and then the boat-sized woodpaneled station wagon. We'd be tooling around the barren back roads of Northeastern Ohio, tuning the radio obsessively, searching for another dose of "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

No fooling, when Alternative Rock hit, it was like the dawn breaking through a permanent midnight. Sure, we already had what we in my area called "progressive music," our Information Society, Depeche Mode, Cure, Violent Femmes, and so on. But as good as that stuff was (and is), the incurable Britishness of most of these bands failed to really connect with something primal inside me. As a red-blooded briarhopper (that's 'flatland hillbilly') my need for rock (the same primal urge that fuels my enduring love for NASCAR, demolition derby, and NFL football in the rain and mud) just can't be satisfied for long with synthesizers and doggerel about blisters in the sun.

Rising out of the same trashy, glammy El Lay scene that gave us Motley Crue, Black Flag, X, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and even The Eagles, Jane's Addiction combined parts that just should never have worked together into one messy machine. Stephen Perkins was a clattery, sticky drummer who played like he'd be as much at home in some tweeked-up bebop band, Eric Avery's bass was just a little too metal to be funky, Dave Navarro was a metal guitarist with an amazing head for dissonant rhythm parts and bluesy leads, and Perry Farrell was... well, what he hell was he? An androgynous little walking id with a thin whine of a voice who keened and snarled and bled lyrics that in anybody else's hands would have been painfully earnest, high-school jottings somehow given dignity through sheer force of will and questionable sanity. They were like Guns 'n' Roses' arty little brothers, hanging out smoking pot in the high school art room while their big bro lurked behind the school beating up nerds.

Together they made two absolutely classic albums, 1988's Nothing's Shocking and 1991's Ritual de lo Habitual that threw together art-school pretension, metal, a few nods to prog-rock, and a heavy dose of Mexican mysticism.

And then they were gone. That was the end of the road for them. Three albums (counting their rarely-heard debut) and gone. Perry Farrell threw his energy into the diminishing returns of the Lollapalooza festivals, and into his next musical project Porno for Pyros. He seemed to be trying to throw his arms around the world and give everyone a big patchouli-scented Los Angeles hug. Dave Navarro retreated into a sleazy demimonde of drugs and prostitutes, eventually shacking up with Baywatch babe Carmen Electra and engaging in some legendary feats of debauchery while cutting himself off from the world. Just like in Jane's Addiction, his darkness and rock energy pulling in the opposite direction of Farrell's utopian guttery poetry. Avery and Perkins launched projects that few people seemed to want to hear. But between their music and Farrell's brilliant idea for Lollapalooza, Jane's Addiction did as much as anyone to usher in the sea-change that overtook popular music in the early 1990s, the decade or so where rock was young again.

Frankly, I can't think of a single band in the world more deserving of a best-of compilation than Jane's Addiction, and I'm shocked that it took until 2006 for one to show up. I'm also shocked that it's goddamn fantastic. The good people at Rhino, who must surely rise every morning amazed that they can do the work they do while drawing pay from their resolutely mainstream masters at Warner Brothers, have put together Up From The Catacombs: The Best of Jane's Addiction, a seventeen-song retrospective of the band's history that actually manages to do justice to their legacy.

I can't believe it: everything works.

The song choices are practically bulletproof, with the highlights of both the big albums present, plus a couple choice tracks each from their debut and 2003's "comeback" album, Strays. Wisely skipped is the fairly awful and decidedly inessential Kettle Whistle, a 1997 stopgap (Janes' own The Spaghetti Incident?) that did more to tarnish the band's legacy than could ever have happened if Perry Farrell, say, had suddenly turned up in Vegas doing lounge versions of "Jane Says" and "Had a Dad."

The sequencing is inspired too. The first three songs progressively raise the ante, skipping from the clattering "Stop!" (the lead track on Ritual) to the huge drama of "Ocean Size" (the lead track on Nothing's Shocking) to the metal attack of a live version of "Whores" (an early favorite). We then detour to the bad hangover of "Ted, Just Admit It...," a disjointed and, I suppose, arty offering off Nothing's Shocking that ably showcases that side of the band's identity. After a couple more heavy rockers (including the unjustly ignored "Just Because" from Strays), the compilation veers into the contemplative almost for good. Here is where we find the eight-minute epic of "Three Days," the pastoral lurch of "Summertime Rolls" and the quiet devotion of "Classic Girl." The comp ends (naturally) with the snarling "Pig's In Zen" (which closed out Ritual) and an absolutely fantastic live version of the band's signature "Jane Says."

Absolutely anyone who doesn't have any Jane's Addiction already in their collection should run right out and pick up Up From The Catacombs. Actually, anyone who doesn't already own them should pick up both Nothing's Shocking and Ritual de lo Habitual, but since I can't tell you how to spend your money, I suppose all I can do is tell you that ownership of either the best-of or the two great albums is more than just highly recommended; it is required. I'll be checking.

Tomorrow I will be using the ticket that's been hanging on the front of my refridgetator for months... the black slip of poster board that will grant me access to the Return of the Belgian Beer Festival in Boston.

Here's the list of beers available for the Saturday sessions.

I feel like Saruman standing on top of the massive obsidian plinth of Isengard, holding out his arms in the classic DRAMA pose, intoning in a stentorian voice, WE HAVE WORK TO DO. Let's get it on!!!

Soul legend Solomon Burke's latest album, a set of country songs redone in his inimitable style called Nashville, was released on September 26. I interviewed him by email on October 10.

What music are you listening to these days?

I'm listening to india.arie, Christina Aguilera, Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch. For the guys, I love Usher, Bruce Springsteen's latest cd, Alan Jackson, Eric Clapton. I also am enjoying the Foo Fighters, the Raconteurs, the Wreckers and anything by Merle Haggard.

Who selected the songs for "Nashville"?

The songs were selected by [album producer] Buddy Miller, [executive producer] Shawn Amos and me. We all listened to a ton of amazing songs - together, probably over 200 songs. There were certain songwriters whose points of view were important to interpret, in our minds, so that helped us narrow down the list and focus… and then just trying to see what shape the various combinations of songs took that would be a respectable body of work. It was really tough to let go of certain songs that I loved, but that's a part of the process.

You do Springsteen's "Ain't Got You" in a nearly bluegrass style, there's some nods to Billy Shirell-style strings on "Atta Way To Go," and the rest of the album covers all the territory from honky-tonk to country blues to soul to gospel. (Yes, there's a question in here somewhere.) The arrangements are definitely a departure from what you've been doing recently, and (in the good way) definitely not what I would have expected. Who was in the driver's seat when deciding on arrangements?

Buddy Miller was very much the driver when it came to the arrangements. But the beauty of how Buddy works is that his arrangements left me a lot of room, and he brought together such amazing musicians that when I "turned left" on a song, the entire band turned left with me. It was a great feeling.

On the last album you covered a Hank Williams song, and this time around you cover a George Jones song. Between them, they're two of the most iconic singers of the last 50 years; how do you go about singing a song that belongs completely to someone else, and make sure it's not a mere tribute? How do you take the George out and put the Solomon in?

Well, first off, I love Hank Williams and George Jones and I love their bodies of work. For me, there are a lot of songs that I would never ever try to sing, for that exact reason. But if I can feel the song inside of me, then what I sing is a tribute to the original artist as well as the writer, but mostly it's a tribute to the listener. I think we all try to reach out to people and if a George Jones song, sung by Solomon Burke and Emmylou Harris is going to be the way to get a message to one person who would have otherwise missed the message, then we are all successful and the story of the song is richer for it. Along these lines, I just want to mention that I have never experienced such graciousness from songwriters and artists as I have on this project. Their generosity in allowing me to sing their songs freely was overwhelming and in my career, historic!

There's a few great duets on the record, with Dolly Parton, Gillian Welch, and Patty Loveless, among others.

Thank you!

This is, if I'm told correctly, is the first time in your career when you've done duets. How much collaboration was there between you and your duet partners? Did you have the opportunity to sing face-to-face, to vibe off each other and work out your arrangements together?

Actually, I did a duet with Zucchero ("The Devil in Me") and with Junkie XL ("Catch Up To My Step Up") in the last few years. Let's go ahead and mention each lady who sang with me: Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Patty Loveless and Gillian Welch… I am a lucky, lucky man! Each duet on this cd was as unique as the artists with whom I sang… Buddy did all of the arrangements and really had it set up so I could come in and sing without worrying. He accommodated every artist that came through his door as a friend coming to his home, and that was the vibe of the entire session. My experience with the duets was so personal, I treasure each day, each session, each recording experience of this project. I received so much love and support from the ladies who "duetted" with me, as well as from the songwriters and musicians. What I received from this project was far more that what I was able to give, and the lessons that I learned in Nashville are lessons I carry in my heart.

Do you have any plans for future collaborations? I've read that you'd love to work with Willie Nelson, and that you'd even be willing to work with KISS...?

Heck, I'm 66 years old. I'm just happy to get a gig these days! I'm still reeling from working with Buddy Miller and his wife Julie. But once I start looking toward the future, I would love to work with Willie Nelson… Would love to work with Vince Gill and Kid Rock. I met Jerry Lee Lewis on stage for the first time in our lives, and it felt so good… I would love to do more with the Killer. I don't think it's a question of my being willing to work with KISS… It's a question of them being willing to work with me. I love those guys - I'm a huge fan. My dream is to perform with Aretha Franklin. We sang together briefly in Cleveland last year and I still get chills thinking about that night.

What made you decide to do a country album? Considering that when you started out, there wasn't much of a difference between a country song, a soul song, and a gospel song (and didn't you chart on the country charts a few times?), it certainly makes sense. Have you always listened to country? If so, who are your all time favorites?

My first song at Atlantic was "Just Out of Reach of My Open Arms" which was a country song. I have always loved country music and it has always been my desire to record country. It took me a while but I think this was meant to be at this time in my life. When I was a little boy, it was Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Still is - my alarm clock wakes me up to "I'm Back in the Saddle Again" every morning. Later on, it was Patsy Cline, Porter Wagoner, Loretta Lynn, then Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette… and the list goes on.

You've made a number of gospel records over the course of your career, and preaching has been an important part of your live since you were young. Now that your career seems to have entered a new phase and you are reaching an audience who doesn't necessarily know anything about gospel music, do you have any plans to make a gospel album in the same vein as the last three records? How about a duet with Mavis Staples?

Wow, you know, this whole thing about country music and soul music and gospel music just wears me out. The truth is that for me, these are all separating categories that do a disservice to music. Because if you go back and listen to my work through the years, you will see that regardless of the category, it all comes down to a message of love which is the most Godly thing there is. I would love to sing with Mavis. It would be an honor. But regardless of who I sing with, the most important thing is to find a new way of reaching out to people, so if they maybe missed the message in one song, they're going to get it in the next one. I'm going to keep on singing and working towards that message "'til I get it right."

I hear you used to be famous for making fried chicken for your touring partners, or at least that's what Peter Guralnick claims in his biography of Sam Cooke. Can we have your recipe for fried chicken?

No, but you're invited over to try it out for yourself!

In Dream Boogie, Peter Guralnick's fantastic biography of soul music innovator Sam Cooke, very few people come off completely well. Cooke, for all his genius and generosity was an avid womanizer with a boundless ego. Sometime tour-mate Johnny "Guitar" Watson often slagged off touring because pimping paid better. Little Richard, well, the less said of his freaky-deaky exploits the better for us all. Better to think of him as the king of "R&B uptempo! R&B uptempo! WOOOOOOOO!" than as a tortured soul with poor impulse control and a Bible whose margins he filled with scrawled records of his sins.

One of the only figures in the entire book who seems like someone you'd trust with your house keys is soul-gospel-blues singer, "The King of Rock & Soul," Solomon Burke. A religious man (he was preaching from the age of twelve) he (according to Guralnick) was more famous for cooking up fried chicken for his tourmates than for any epic feats of sin and dissipation.

Burke was one of the yeomen of the early soul period. He racked up a number of hits and a great deal of respect among his peers in the late 1950s and 1960s as a performer and singer of gospel-country-soul-blues raveups and confessions, but he never quite cracked the upper reaches of the pop charts. Although his career never reached the critical mass of a James Brown or a Ray Charles, he continued releasing albums throughout the '60s, '70s and '80s, and also returned to his roots as a minister. And although his popularity waned over time, his albums remained, if not inspired or inspiring, refreshingly free of self-parody or outright desperation.

A few years ago, Burke signed with the good people at Fat Possum Records, one of the keepers of the true flame of the deep blues, and released what turned out to be a comeback album, 2002's Don't Give Up On Me. For that project, Burke was paired with young indie rock producer Joe Henry, who (yes, just like Rick Rubin did with Johnny Cash) sat Burke down in a comfortable chair with a batch of songs by top-notch writers, and made sure that Burke's own church organist was sitting in on the sessions to boot. The result was a landmark career revival, as good as any of Johnny Cash's comeback records, Loretta Lynn's comeback record, or that of any other formerly neglected rootsy legend you might care to name.

Burke's latest album is Nashville, a collection of country songs, reintepreted in his own style.

But I need to interrupt these proceedings to talk a little about what that means, "country." What is "country?" One answer is, "it's what's on the country charts," but I don't mostly like that answer. What's on the charts is crap. Another answer is "anything that Hank wrote." That's a pretty good answer, but limiting. Another answer, according to Solomon Burke himself in an interview I did with him recently is, "[T]his whole thing about country music and soul music and gospel music just wears me out. The truth is that for me, these are all separating categories that do a disservice to music. Because if you go back and listen to my work through the years, you will see that regardless of the category, it all comes down to a message of love."

That works for me.
Solomon Burke has some seriously high-profile fans. Don't Give Up On Me featured songs by Tom Waits, Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Nick Lowe, and Van Morrison, and Nashville is just as studded with talent, including songs by Tom T. Hall, Dolly Parton, Gillian Welch, George Jones, Bruce Springsteen(!), Patty Griffin, Don Willams, and more. Moreover, many of his female song contributors (Parton, Welch, Griffin, Patty Loveless and Emmylou Harris) actually appear as duet partners on the album.

From the first notes of the opening "That's How I Got To Memphis," a country standard written by Tom T. Hall, Burke infuses each song with truckloads of expression and emotion, bending his voice into a whine, a howl, a barely veiled sob, wrenching every bit of meaning out of the words he's singing. The result is probably the best album I've heard in 2006, an amazing set of performances by an artist who's old enough not to give a damn anymore about how much he's going to sell, but deeply concerned with making music that hits the spot.

Highlights (from an album full of highlights) include "Valley of Tears," which is a plaintive and ragged duet with Gillian Welch, the aforementioned saga of misplaced devotion, "That's How I Got To Memphis," the love-gone-bad lament of "Does My Ring Burn Your Finger, " written by producer Buddy Miller and his wife Julie, the quiet devotion of "Up On The Mountain," with a deeply affecting, nearly wordless duet contribution from songwiter Patty Griffin, and a stunning performance of "Atta Way To Go," a Don Williams song that Miller produces in the ornamented style of George Jones' hits with Billy Sherrill, and which Burke takes from an intimate chat to an over-the-top cry of anguish without apparent strain to his considerable vocal gifts.

And what a gift! Burke's voice has burnished with time, and at 66 he is in total command of his instrument. He can growl, whisper, moan, plead, cry, laugh, even give an evil cackle without breaking the musicality of his singing, and he has a flair for the dramatic and the theatrical that doesn't ever descend into mere melodrama. His performances on Nashville are thrilling, and his ability to adapt himself to the style of his duet partners is a welcome treat.

However, the single weak spot on the album is in Emmylou Harris' wan and marginal vocal contribution. Though he tries mightily, Burke can do nothing delicately enough to keep her from practically disappearing from sight. This might be a simple matter of song choice, as Burke and Harris are paired on the George Jones-Tammy Wynette classic "We're Gonna Hold On," and Harris is a far, far lighter singer than Wynette ever was. But regardless of why, in an album full of inspired performances from all parties, Emmylou Harris is, surprisingly, the only weak patch.

In keeping with Burke's stated disdain for genre titles, the styles represented on Nashville run the gamut from bluegrass (on Springsteen's "I Ain't Got You") to countrypolitan to country blues to gospel and beyond. "Country" is a concept as hard to pin down as "soul," or what the Spanish call "duende." To play flamenco music you have to have duende - you either have it, or you don't, and you can only tell it's there when you hear it, but without it flamenco music is just some fool playing the guitar really, really fast. Same with soul and country. You know soul when you hear it, and you know country music when you hear it (in everything from Travis Tritt to Tom Waits, from Kitty Wells to Neko Case), and what Burke's got on this album is the Platonic idea, the eidos of both of those things in spades.

At age 66, Solomon Burke is at the top of his game and deserves a fuller dose of the belated success that has come to him in recent years. Nashville is a spectacular album, and he can be proud of what he's done. People spend so much time talking about the ridiculous exploits of artists, searching for evidence of genius in dickish behavior, that it's easy to believe that a man who's good at making chicken, whose day job is looking after souls, couldn't possibly possess that same secret flame. Well, crap to that. Solomon Burke is the real deal, and Nashville is God's honest proof.

Is up here. This week's theme is easy and great weeknight dinners for the colder months. Check it out!!

It is said that there will always be an England. In the grand geological sense, that's as true as it gets. Britain is situated on the far trailing edge of the Eurasian Plate as it slowly crashes into the Pacific Place, meaning that barring calamity, asteroid collision, or devastating attack by giant space robots, Britain is the closest thing the world has to a permanent feature. As long as there is a world and humans to live on it, there will be will always be an England, full of old gaffers in tweed caps, shaven-headed football hooligans and their pasty girlfriends, Sikh cabdrivers, old sheep villages full of amusingly skewed Tudor homes, cul-de-sacs full of quiet little old ladies with razor tongues, milky tea, Bovril, and people leaping behind the couch at the first sight of Daleks.

And if the English and the cockroaches do ever manage to prevail as the only remaining multicellular species to walk the blasted and parched face of the Earth, I guaran-damn-tee you they will still hail every tousled and precious power-pop band to come down the pike as the saviors of all humanity.

The latest in this long and occasionally distinguished line of rakish English popsters are the Kooks. And like their forebears the Beatles, the Who, the Kinks, The Dave Clark Five, Badfinger, The Small Faces, The Monkees (yes, The Monkees), Suede, XTC, Blur, Oasis, Pulp, Supergrass, all the way up to this year's heavily promoted Arctic Monkeys, they make raffish and occasionally gorgeous pop music with a distinctly British form and flavor that crosses echoes of the Victorian music hall with crunchy rock, symphonic flourishes, and a typically boozy and distracted demeanor.

The Kooks are young. The Kooks need shaves and probably a bath. The Kooks have floppy hair that hides their eyes and surely moistens panties from Norwich to Newcastle. The Kooks slouch endearingly in promo shots, grinning diffidently or striking halfhearted rawk poses that they are clearly a generation too young to take seriously. The Kooks could have been put together in a laboratory or- better yet- a focus group.

The Kooks have sold out four tours on their own in the UK. The Kooks have opened for the Stones. The Kooks have charted five singles and sold over a million copies of their debut album, Inside In/Inside Out in the UK, an area that is home to only 60 million. The Kooks have been hailed, as were Blur, Oasis, Supergrass and The Arctic Monkeys, as champions by MOJO and the NME.

So are the Kooks are a thrilling story. But are they any good?

Sure, I guess. Why not?

Inside In/Inside Out begins with a bit of Ray Davies-ish rococo songwriting called "Seaside" that lines up the hooks one after the other, bang-bang-bang, as lead singer Luke Pritchard croons about vacations at the shore. For thirteen more songs (only five of which last more than three minutes), the Kooks deliver winsome pop that at times recalls every one of the bands mentioned above, plus a few others. The songwriting is definitely competent, the playing is good, and production flourishes like the reggae touches on "Time Awaits" keep things from smearing together into an undifferentiated mass of goo.

I listened to Inside In/Inside Out cold, without reading any of the band's press releases, without looking up any of the fevered praise they've garnered from the UK press, and without even bothering to find out which songs were the singles. Over the years, I have fallen madly in love with plenty of bands, crushed on them like crazy for a week or so, and then suddenly realized that everything they had was in one pretty good song and a bunch of repetitive fluff. Since then, I've learned to play albums by wannabe popsters until I'm good and sick of them, because only then do you figure out what's what.

After all this, I am happy to report that Inside Out/Inside In contains exactly no songs that verifiably suck, and at least seven songs that could be mistaken for lead singles. On the other hand, none of those seven possible singles are particularly distinguished or memorable - the minute the album ends I find I can't recall any hook or melody - and the same diffidence that makes the band so very cute in promo shots robs the music of any enduring qualities.

Their biggest singles, like "Eddie's Gun" compare favorably to golden-age-of-powerpop British hits like "Starry Eyes" by the Records or "School Days" by the Starjets. However, Oasis, the Arctic Monkeys, and especially Supergrass have already done this revival to death. At this point, it's not enough to write winsome pop songs you can sing along to; I now find myself asking Britain's musicians, en masse, "but what have you done for me lately?" In the USA, It's easy to see the Kooks becoming a college hit and selling a bunch of records, which is good for them and their label. But it's also easy to see the album ending up in a couple months on the shelf next to Bush's Sixteen Stone and (just to prove it's not Britain's problem alone) the Strokes' first album as a mildly interesting reminder of that one band, who had that song, that I could probably sing if I could just remember how it starts.

The Kooks are trashy and huggable. The Kooks write incredibly cute pop songs with competence and just enough attitude to make them seem more dangerous than the boys from 'N Sync. But unfortunately, the Kooks are a little boring, too. Inside In/Inside Out is just fine, but 'just fine' doesn't get me hard anymore. If your personal kink is for young and attractive British sensations, or if you're new to the cycle of hype-and-bust, then by all means check this out; it's as okay a place to start familiarizing yourself with Britpop in the '00s as any. But if not, you're probably better off picking up The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society and the Supergrass album of your choice.

The Smoking Gun has the tour rider from the latest Iggy Pop tour.

I daresay, without reservation or levity, that it is the finest piece of literary writing I have read in the last twelve months. The roadie responsible has seen it all, dealt with it, and mastered every sort of fuckery from shitty tom toms to the worst dressing rooms in the world.

I'm not kidding; a tour rider that contains references to Pepys, Santiago de Compostela, midgets, the Insane Clown Posse, and more discursions and asides than Pynchon, Sterne, and Emo Phillips put together. Go and read, and try not to laugh out loud. Frigging sweet.

Robert Anton Wilson (no introduction needed, I'm sure) is dying, and is facing eviction from his apartment. Boingboing has the details.

I don't know about you lot, but even though I read the Illuminatus! trilogy while drifting in and out of a flu coma, and even though I didn't "get" half of what the hell was going on (thanks, again, to the fever-pain), in the ten years since I read it, things keep bubbling up that could only have originated in the wild mind of Robert Anton Wilson. At least half of what I come up with for this very website is deeply influenced by his madness, and I owe him a huge debt of gratitude. I wouldn't be the same dude without him.

The Boingboing link has information on where to send checks or paypal payments. According to friends, Wilson as of a couple days ago only has enough money to cover one month's rent, after which he spends his dying days homeless. Not cool.

All the best to RAW, and here's hoping things go his way for a change.

[wik] [Update] There is a later post, also on Boing Boing, that tells us that the donations were coming in, so much so that

Anyway, this morning Bob's daughter showed up at his house in tears because she had checked his PayPal account and found money for next month's rent plus more. Bob called me to say that he couldn't believe people would care so much about him and as we talked (which isn't easy for him at this point) he was overcome with emotion more than once. He is so touched and RELIEVED at the possibility of staying in his home. He kept repeating to me his deep felt appreciation and disbelief that people would care so much about him. What a humble and sweet man.

Which is all to the good. I am sure that continuing medical expenses and everyday bills will quickly deplete that, so continued giving is indicated. For those who can't stomach giving without receiving, there is this, a place where you can buy a nifty tshirt, and for each one, $10 will go to RAW. [- buckethead]

[alsø wik] I just noted that the tshirt link above is to, of all things, Giant Robot Printing. Everyone must buy a tshirt to help RAW. I am frankly stunned, though, that they have no tshirts featuring giant robots.

In a development that will have thousands nationwide tearing their garments and gnashing their teeth in despair, the Yakima (WA) Herald Republic reports that fully 4% of the US hop harvest this year went up in smoke when the warehouse they were being stored in burned to the ground.

There's just one thing for it, of course; drink more vodka until the shortage is alleviated. Stiff upper lip, all that.

I'm sure that people who invent new kinds of robots all have perfectly well-adjusted social lives, play some ball on the weekends, take the kids to the movies, get together with friends and cook up a big batch of corn smut chili. I'm sure that's the case.

I've heard of robots that learn, robots that walk, robots that build cars, Real Dolls, robots that turn into cars, robots that act as companions to lonely people, and even teledildonics. All very exciting developments in the world of technology, except for that one of those things is incurably foul.

And I'm sure that the minds that came up with the innovation of making robots with soft, human-like skin are perfectly together people with sane minds and clean habits who have never even heard of that one incurably foul thing and thought that it needed to be a robot.

I'm just saying. I don't know what's creepier; a killer robot that mimics a person, or the weird shit that lonely people in their basements are thinking right now.

I think I need to go take a walk. And a shower. And a brain enema.

A good buddy of mine (who, it should be noted, would be amused and bemused if I were to say to him, "10-4, good buddy," for he is not the sort of person to whom such an address is naturally directed, but still believes himself so in his more delusional moments) has hatched a biennial tradition that I'm proud to be part of.

Two years ago, for reasons unknown, the phrase "chicken cheesecake" became current among my good buddy's crowd, mainly to refer to someone whose skirt (metaphorically speaking) was too long for them to successfully complete a manly task. A puss. A pansy. A milquetoast.

The phrase stuck around in my good buddy's head long enough for him to decide it'd be a great idea to actually make chicken cheesecake and have a bake-off.

Blech.

I came in last in that competition, because I chose poorly. I made a nice three-layered Italian-style ricotta cheesecake, the bottom layer flavored with sundried tomatoes and herbs (basil, thyme, oregano), the middle layer being diced sauteed chicken, and the top layer flavored with a basil and spinach pesto. It was a nice red-and-green cross section that actually looked appetizing on the plate. Tasted pretty good too. Unfortunately, Italian-style ricotta cheesecake has a grainy texture very different from the smooth cream cheese New York model, and that texture in a savory application with big flavors absolutely killed me.

The winner was some poor schlub who'd made a poundcake with cream cheese and a couple pureed chicken breasts whizzed into the eggs and milk; you couldn't taste no chicken in that! The runner up, my good buddy, made a yellow cake and festooned the top with shake and bake chicken strips. A cheesecake? Only in the broadest possible sense.

Clearly, I wuz robbed.

This year, the big event is a chili cookoff in which 40% of the score is original and creative use of ingredients. I feel pretty good about my chances; I've got one hell of a secret ingredient; corn smut.

Better known to the Azetcs and their Mexican descendents as "huitlacoche," corn smut is a grey-black fungus that infects ears of corn (maize), growing in and around kernels into distended blobby mutant shapes that look like a particularly malevolent cancer. I hear it tastes great; smoky, woody, sweet and corny.

And wouldn't you know, you can get it through Amazon.

My plan for Corn Smut Chili

1 lb stew beef
1 lb pork butt
1 lg onion, roasted
2 bell peppers, ditto
2 poblano peppers, ditto
much garlic
vegetable stock
beef stock
beer
1 28-oz can tomatoes
1-2 Tbsp chili powder
2 Tbsp cumin
1 Tbsp dry mexican oregano
2 tsp dry thyme
1 tsp dry epazote
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cocoa
1/2 tsp allspice
1 tsp coriander
3 Tbsp chipotle peppers in adobo
3 cups roasted frozen corn
1 lb dry black beans, cooked
1 12 oz can pozole (lime-cured whole corn kernels)
2 7.6 oz cans huitlacoche
2 dashes liquid smoke

I may also try to find room for two cups of blueberries in there, because why the hell not? That all sort of depends how the master recipe comes out.

I plan to bribe the judge by serving the chili with a garnish of fresh pico de gallo with plenty of cilantro, a side of corn chips, and a tequila shooter in a hollowed-out lime that's been rimmed with salt.

[wik] I won! Oh yes, I won. And this may have been the best pot of chili I have ever made. With or without the corn smut (which did add some very welcome flavor nuances just as I'd hoped) this is a dynamite recipe.

I'm not sure what's going on. Either New York slide-trumpet player and bandleader Steve Bernstein is getting better, or I'm coming around (maybe both). Bernstein, who with his band Sex Mob have been making reasonably amusing and background-filling albums for the better part of a decade, never really clicked with me. His music seemed so insubstantial, so resolutely finger-poppin' hey-daddy ironically-detached aren't-we-cool hipsterish, that I never gave it much of a chance.

In retrospect, I think that's a shame. Because behind the wide-lapel cheapo porno shtick he's peddled is a bandleader whose guiding purpose in life is to make music for people to have a good time by.

That skill of making good-time music doesn't seem to get a whole lot of respect. All the music critics swoon over Brian Wilson's brain-fractured experimentation, and ignore the sweet and fun stuff. They flip out over the far-out stylings on Smile, but what about "Surf City?" "Surf City" is a perfect song, a summer song, a song about good times and scantily clad ladies cavorting on a white sand beach. No respect for "Surf City."

All the nerds (all the world!) swoon over Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band for some silly-ass reason, and while they acknowledge that the early stuff sure is some crack songwriting, the concensus seems to be that drugs and four hundred hours of studio time somehow trump, you know, attention to extraneous cruft like melody and lyrics. A song like "A Day in the Life" demands to be appreciated, like it was hanging in some museum, but there ain't a damn song in the world that sums up the innocence of young love more than "I Want To Hold Your Hand."

And, okay, yes, over the years I have spent a lot of time talking up music that's more intellectually rewarding than aesthetically pleasing, I won't deny it. How could I deny it? Y'all got Google. And yes, I haven't always cared for Sex Mob. I always thought they were more gimmicky and clever than actually good. And I stand by that assessment.

But recently, Steve Bernstein's been on a hell of a tear. He recently turned up on drummer Bobby Previte's outstanding Coalition of the Willing project, a Bitches Brew for the new millennium that cuts an atmosphere of Miles-esque darkness with generous slices of rock, thrilling improvisation, and twisty, funky soloing from Bernstein.

And now, his new project, the Millennium Territory Orchestra is a bold yet frivilous tribute to a gone and nearly forgotten era in American popular music.

In the 1920s and 1930s, 'territory' bands plied circuits all around the country. Minneapolis bands would play from Madison to Kansas City. Cleveland bands would range from Detroit to Pittsburgh to Yellow Springs, bringing that era's freewheeling proto-swing sound to dancehalls, honky tonks, and bars. Many if not most of these bands vanished without a trace, remembered only in faded photo albums and in stories swapped in nursing homes around the country. Few made recordings, and those who did released three-minute 78s to a market that was not yet national, that did not yet have any mechanism for preserving their work. Little wonder, then, that not many people remember a genre that's not quite Dixieland (tied to New Orleans, a city very good at remembering) and not quite swing (whose rise coincided with the rise of radio).

Forty years later, groups like the territory bands would be playing psychedelic lunk-rock and being collected in lavish four-disc box sets with hundred-page booklets chronicling the history of every one of them in loving detail. But for the territory bands there were no box sets, there was no national FM radio network. There were just dance floors, open roads, and the occasional chicken dinner.

Steve Bernstein recently came across some recordings from this great lost era in American music, and heard something he liked. "I was getting really fascinated with this music and wondering what would happen if you played this music live again. Because any version of this musc we have is like a three-minute bad recording. We know what it looks like, because ther's all these great pictures of guys in tuxedoes holding their instruments. But it's almost like there's more pictures of the music then there are recorded documents of the music. I wanted to bring this music back to life."

In 1999, Bernstein first brought together a group of New York's finest improvisers to play some of this music. Since then, he's been periodically soaking in it, so much so that on Volume 1, the first album by the Millennial Territory Orchestra, he can graft the sound and style of the territory bands, with their hotchachacha big lapel black bottom crawling style, to both original compositions and modern adaptations of Stevie Wonder's "Signed, Sealed, Delivered" and Prince's "Darling Nikki" without batting an eye.

Volume 1 is a great party record, a serious slab of frivilous good time music, full of hot jazz, nasty soloing, and juke-joint funk replete with banjo and saxophone that somehow captures the atmosphere of a long gone era without sounding like a mere tribute. It helps that all nine players in the ensemble contribute exuberant solos as well as loose and crafty ensemble playing, strutting their stuff like a Dixieland band while coming together like a big swing group. From the light and carefree cover of "Pennies from Heaven" to the deconstructed crawl of "Darling Nikki," the band capture the vibe and sound of Kansas City 1933 while retaining the snap and polish of New York 2006.

Steve Bernstein's music might not be monuments for future generations of critics to fawn over, but that's really, really OK. I haven't listened to either of Radiohead's past two albums, because I just don't have the patience for that much artsy-fartsy seriousness from what is basically rock and roll music, the same genre that gave us "Louie, Louie" and The Bloodhound Gang. Steve Bernstein and the Millennial Territory Orchestra throw a hell of a party; what else do you need?

It was only a rumor. A legend.

Spanish cured ham so silky, so toothsome as to practically defy description. And one terrible side effect of our nation's rules and import barriers was that the Food and Drug Administration prohibited its import. Like many raw-milk French cheeses, the unfettered and wild processes of bacteria, enzymes, and sheer time presented a horrible spectre of infestation to the crabbed pencil pushers who thronged its halls.

Like, come on! The whole point of curing meat or milk is to render it impervious to rot or infestation. Why the hell can't it come into the country? It's only been three thousand years since mankind perfected the process!! Am I to believe that a raw-milk Camembert is, on the face of it, more harmful to the good of America than Mohammed Fucking Atta? Who they let in the country?? JESUS CHRIST!!!!

Shit.

Where was I?

Right. So there's this ham they make in Spain, from pigs from Castille that are fattened on acorns and whose loin is rubbed with a combination of herbs and spiced before being painstakingly cured with great love and care in the gentle Spanish breezes. Salt and bacteria do their thing. The enzymes in the cells of the loin of pork do their thing. The spectacular alchemy of man and nature coalesce in a transcendent display of pinnacle of the art of charcuterie. And you couldn't usedta get it here.

But not no more. It's here. Yesterday when I bought some it was $99.95 a pound. Today it's $199.95. A pound.

Some dudes eat a pounda steak as an appetizer.

So I bought some. I'm a big fan of European cured meats. There's this French stuff they make out of pork that sort of smells like a urinal but tastes like God himself came down and put the taste of manna on your tongue. The Poles make dry kielbasas that don't so much fill the stomach as feed the soul (many props to Mrs. GeekLethal!). And I'm the kind of asshole who, when staring face to face with a piece of a dead animal that has been through a process and a series of trade barriers that renders it as costly and valuable as good-ass weed, I have to try some.

I say again: I like meat that smells like bum piss. That's some amazing stuff. Silky, smooth, sweet, salty, subtle, astonishingly good. That stuff is about $15 a pound. Is meat that today goes for ten times that price ten times as good? Can anything that eventually becomes shit possibly be worth that much money?

I'll tell you.

I bought twelve paper-thin and translucent slices of fine Spanish ham. Just north of one ounce for $7. Took it home. Laid it out on a plate. Absorbed its aroma. Savored its flavor. I ate twelve paper-thin slices of fine Spanish ham all on their lonesome, and I'll tell you.

Ehh, it's pretty good.

The following was published at blogcritics.org as a supplement and companion piece to my review of Pere Ubu's Why I Hate Women:

Over the past decade and a half, I have probably written a couple hundred reviews of albums by artists from Sam Cooke to Samhain. When the PR firm handling the fifteenth album by the formerly Cleveland-based new wave band Pere Ubu, Why I Hate Women, asked me for a review, I agreed to give it a shot. I'm a big fan of Pere Ubu frontman David Thomas, and his last couple projects have been right up my alley. But as I sat there staring at the blinking cursor on a blank field of black, I tried to write a straight review and found I just couldn't do it.

What I turned out instead was (very kindly) kicked back to me by an editor, who asked in essence, "um, this is very nice... what is it?"

Well, long story short, I love music, but I'm damn sick and tired of writing music reviews.

The usual formula goes as follows:

"Band X formed in Year A and influenced Y1, Y2 and the incredibly obscure Y3, who had one single on the Kankakee, MI based Fancypants label. Their newest album, X', is a (adjective) non/departure from their previous work. Adjective, adjective adverb quality assessment, subordinate clause hedging previous assertions. X' is recommended to fans of A, A', and A'', but is not as essential as classic album X''. "

There's a lot you can do with that basic template, and a quick glance back through my Blogcritics archive will reveal a number of (if I do say so myself) pretty good variations on that classic theme. Unfortunately, templates are limiting. If you'll permit me to disappear up my own bunghole for a thousand words or so...

The novel form was stale as long ago as the 1760s, when Laurence Stern broke all the rules of narrative and continuity in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. Ever read that book? It's awesome. Ostensibly the autobiography of Tristram Shandy, the 900-odd page novel only gets up to recounting the events of a few hours after his birth before Shandy (Stern) gives it up and quits.

The entire book is a sort of deconstruction of the novel form, as well as a very smart parody of the eighteenth-century penchant for flowery apologies. I mean, the first four or five chapters are an extended explanation-by-way-of-apology for his parents' moods at his moment of conception, followed by a chapter following young sperm-Tristram on its journey to meet egg-Tristram!

The rest of the book is a study in digression, with fake-but-accurate musings on noses, names, women, and tragic groin injuries, and every so often an entire chapter apologizing for not ever getting to the point of writing about his life. That book was written a good hundred years and more before Dickens and Hardy would perfect the English novel, and already the form was done!

The modern record album review dates from - what? 1966? That's when Paul Williams published "How Rock Communicates" in the inaugural issue of the rock-zine Crawdaddy, which was just about the first time that anyone took rock music seriously as a worthy subject of critical examination. Only five years later, Lester Bangs was kicking back against that staid and hoary 'tradition,' writing first-person-heavy rants and love letters only thinly disguised as "reviews." That's less then five years between the genre's inception and jumping the shark.

So little wonder that, after writing a couple hundred-odd album reviews, some of which are perfectly normal and some of which have merely nibbled at the boundaries of what a review normally is, I've gotten dangerously bored. As if you care.

Here's the trouble. I think many, if not most, of the people who write about music for Blogcritics would agree that it's impossible to be perfectly objective about music. Part of its attraction, after all, is the intensely personal reaction that it evokes in someone. That is, part of music's appeal is its subjectivity - how it makes you feel.

Long ago, I gave up trying to be The Voice of Authority. What the hell do I know that other people don't? Nothin'. So, I figure the best I can aspire to is to relate to music fans and prospective buyers what exactly a certain album does for me; yep, how it makes me feel. Whether or not someone else will encounter a song or album the same way as I do is a one in a million shot, but still I can't see it any other way.

I can't possibly imagine for the life of me why my good friend Ron doesn't think Wolf Confessor Brings The Flood Neko Case's is the best album of the year, and I have no idea why anyone thinks the Black Eyed Peas have made a half-decent single since "Joints and Jam" in 1998. So, all I can do is make sure when I write a review, that the reader understands where I'm coming from, because that's as important as what I say about the music. But how do you make what you feel about the music relevant to the album, without tipping too far over into mere masturbatory autobiography?

When I sat in front of that blinking cursor trying to write a review of Pere Ubu's new album, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't bear to write another X-Y-Z review, especially of a band that has spent nearly three decades deconstructing rock music. That would just be weak. So, instead I ended up with a short story (or something) that summed up how the album made me feel. By a stroke of luck, the lyrics (which I hadn't even really absorbed by that point) matched the story in my head pretty much exactly, so in they went.

Was the result a review? I guess, but only at a remove. My wife read it and opined that she never ever wanted to hear any album anything like what the story described, and she's right. It's totally not up her alley. So, success! Okay, what I wrote won't tell you whether Keith Moline's guitar work is reminiscent of Robert Fripp (sure it is, why not?), but that's not really as important as knowing whether the album is going to make you run screaming, and I figure a story can do that just as well as a sober transmission of data.

Anyway, after all that hoo-ha and bullplop philosophizing, if you still hunger for a more straightforward review of Why I Hate Women, here you go.

The press release I have describes Why I Hate Women as "a disorienting mix of Midwestern riff rock, 'found' sound, analog synthesizers, falling-apart song structures and careening vocals," and that's about right. Having had someone already write this is a load off my mind, as I don't have to struggle to come up with the appropriate metaphors on my own. I really am sick of writing descriptive music reviews, even about such a disturbing, fascinating, and very nearly brilliant piece of post-rock.

Pere Ubu frontman David Thomas (a bearish Clevelander who now makes his home on the English coast) has spent thirty years tearing at the fabric of rock music. His first band, Rocket From the Tombs, wrote songs that were for the time (the early 1970s) and place (Cleveland), practically from another planet. His singing voice was then (as now) a strangled whine that seems to emanate from that part of the chest that clenches when you puke (Neil Strauss of The New York Times describes it as "David Byrne with a plugged nose,"), and the lyrics to Rocket From The Tombs songs like "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" and "Final Solution" toyed with the outer reaches of suicidal disaffection with a surprising amount of wit and grace. Even before there was such a thing as punk rock, Thomas and RFTT band members Peter Laughner and Gene O'Connor (better known as Cheetah Chrome of The Dead Boys) seemed to be trying to move right past it to the next thing.

Thomas has made fourteen albums, with Pere Ubu, none of which I'm incredibly familiar with. But I do know Rocket From The Tombs, and I do know Pere Ubu's reputation for making difficult and stand-offish music that attempts to reinvent the wheel to varying degrees of success. How could I write a straight review about a band fronted by a guy who was postpunk before there was a punk to be post of?

All of this was in my head when I gave Why I Hate Women its test spins. The first time I listened to it through, I didn't like it very much at all. Nearly every song on the album features a heavy dose of Theremin (the electronic instrument that gives cheesy old horror movie soundtracks their noooWEEEEoooo factor), and through my bargain-basement earbud headphones, listening to the album was like taking a power drill to my eardrums. Upon repeated listens through better speakers, the music took on more focus and balance, and the underlying attractions began to show through. Jackhammer guitar riffs alternated with queasy atmospheric soundscapes, and Thomas' nasal vocals lend a suitable sense of dread and foreboding to his elliptical and impressionistic lyrics.

Thomas claims that Why I Hate Women was written with an overarching story in mind: "the back story is more or less detailed and peopled with characters. The purpose of the album then becomes to capture a specific psychological moment from one of those characters." I figured, why not take a shot at that story?

David Thomas has compared this album to a Jim Thompson novel, and I can see his point. Thompson was another stylistic innovator, a crime writer who wrote pulpy and disturbing novels from the point of view of the unredeemable killer rather than the rugged and flawed (but likeable!) detective. Although not easy, the album does bear repeated listens, in the same way most people have to experience Frank Zappa's music as unpleasant twaddle a few times before things finally click and his approach begins to make sense.

So I wrote a story for a review. Have I jumped the shark? Have I inaugurated a rich new genre of music writing that will sweep the world in the weeks and months to come? Or, in the immortal words of Mel Brooks, am I just jerking off?

It gradually dawns on you that the drive from Vermont to Cleveland probably shouldn't have been attempted at night, especially given the circumstances. Tarry highway coffee can't beat back the buzzing behind your eyes and the vile taste of exhaustion rising at the back of your throat. The last time you looked in the mirror, the bruises around your neck had blossomed from faint red suggestions of violence into splendid purple and blue memorials of the last hour you'll ever spend in that town. You need a shave and a transfusion probably wouldn't hurt either.

You reach down to press in the cigarette lighter, and as you look away from the road the edge of your eye catches sight of the furry... thing... driving the white panel truck as it blows past you on the right. What the hell?

Later, pitching the dead end of the same cigarette out the window, you swear the trees furring the black hills to the north suddenly resolve themselves into a gigantic man-shaped figure rising out of the woods against an inky Berkshire sky and striding off to the west. A second later, you pass a tractor-trailer. When you are able to look back north, there is nothing there but trees and sky.

As the exhaustion creeps deeper into your chest, you drift in and out of awareness, the center line a punctuated commentary on the tedium of driving through upstate New York. You climb that line hand over hand, every mile one mile closer to Cleveland. The radio cuts in and out, a jittery melange of classic rock, bad country, and paranoid ranting about God, UFOs and government conspiracies.

It is some time before you realize that the whirring you hear is the car's front wheels grasping blindly at mud. You open your eyes. It is some time before you realize that you aren't driving any more, and that you probably shouldn't try to move in case it makes the pain hurt worse. It is some time before you realize there had been someone in the car with you, and you don't remember where they came from. You wonder what could be making that thrashing sound in the brush down below you.

The night is getting colder, and over the occasional whoosh of passing cars on the highway above, the radio is playing again, a curious mixture of agitated rock, stealthy nightmares, and electronic squealing that echoes the buzzing behind your eyes. There's a theremin playing like a demented steel guitar, and the singer's disembodied nasal voice hovers just above you like a wisp of fog, intoning cryptically about lost luggage, two slices of white bread sealed in a ziploc bag, and bars where the beer don't walk on him. He's got a job for life. In your head -- in my head is a white room where all the good things go. A man with a bag walks in, drops it on the floor and he goes. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

I gotta get out of this place else I swear my head will crack - crack!
I gotta get out of this place else I swear my head will crack
What will you do for me?
Johnny Two-Toes says to Betty Groove

I wait for the dawn but I fear the dawn will not come back
I wait for the dawn but I fear the dawn will not come back
What will you do for me?
What will you do?

There's something that's closin down on me feels like a hand grabbed round my throat
There's something that's closin down on me feels like a hand grabbed round my throat
What will you do for me?
Johnny Two-Toes says to Betty Groove
What will you do?

I gotta get outa this town for I swear this town will be the death of me
I gotta get outa this town for I swear this town will be the death of me
What will you do for me?
Johnny Two-Toes says
What will you do for me?

Sleep finally overcomes and the night is split by the red pulsations of emergency vehicles. The activity comes nearer, and the man and the electronic buzzing sing together just for you, with the infinite love of a father for his helpless newborn child,

My eyes are growin tentacles for to grab you
My eyes are growin hand grenades for to have you
My eyes are growin tentacles for to grab you
I live in a house without any windows

My hands are growin spectacles for to grab you
My hands are growin half the night for to have you
My hands are growin spectacles for to grab you
My hands are growin spectacles...
I live in a house without any windows
I got a 40 watt bulb to light up my life.

As the music grows to a stormy climax and abruptly fades into the busy sounds of an upstate New York freeway night, it gradually dawns on you that Cleveland is going to have to wait a while.

When my parents drive out to visit goodwyfe Johno and myself, they usually bring a giant haul of goodies; vegetables from their garden, blueberries or apples from their bushes and trees, and jams, jellies, and pickles. Usually, they bring more than we can possibly use.

Two weeks ago my parents came to town, and when they left, our refrigerator and pantry were bursting: leeks the size of baseball bats, summer squash of every size and description, tomatoes, cucumbers, and green beans, dozens of yellow onions tasting of the Ohio earth they grew in, enough shallots and garlic to see us through to spring 2008 (at least), and a good eight pounds of blueberries.

Now, my parents' blueberries are spectacular. Some of them are gigantic and mellow specimens, but others are much smaller and a little tart, but absolutely full of flavor.

And me being me, the first thing I thought this year when faced with eight pounds of berries, was "hey - I can make beer out of that!" (Of course, that's what I think every time I see a potato, pepper, bag of kaffir lime leaves, cherry, apple, or old shoe, so it's not like I'm exactly making a leap here.) Many, if not most, blueberry beers are made with blueberry essence or extract, which imparts the flavor of blueberries without turning the beer purple. Unfortunately, blueberry extracts tend to behave a lot like imitation vanilla - if buried way down in the mix as part of a recipe, they work great and do the job of providing acceptable flavor for a minimum cost. However, once they take center stage, their shortcomings (mainly the one-dimensionality of their flavor) become apparent. And although I could certainly come by canned blueberry pulp or several kinds of extract from a beer supplier, here I am with fresh berries and an overzealous desire to do everything the hard way.

So I say, "nuts to all that!" If my beer must be purple, so be it! I have fresh berries to use, and as God is my witness, they shall be beer!

Brew #11: Buckeye Blueberry Ale

1 Munton & Fison Export Pilsener kit, hopped liquid malt extract.
1 lb honey (in this case, wildflower honey from local bees, because I'm like that.)
2 lb frozen Ohio blueberries
EasYeast European Ale Yeast, liquid

For this recipe, which was going to be a blueberry wheat until my supplier didn't have any wheat malt, I used for the first time a can of hopped malt extract that does not require boiling before fermentation. To make an all-malt beer, you need two such cans, but since I'm after not only a light-colored but a light-bodied beer, I went with one can of malt extract, one pound of honey both for alcohol and for a dry finish, and whatever sugar turns out to be in the berries.

Since this recipe didn't require boiling, this was an ass-easy brew.

Brought two gallons spring water to a boil and added the berries in a gauze bag. Held for 15 minutes at 160-180 degrees to pasteurize. Added the malt extract and honey and held at 160-180 for ten more minutes to pasteurize the honey, which was probably not necessary but the safe thing to do.

Removed brew pot to an ice bath and reduced to 75 degrees. Added three gallons of room-temperature distilled water to fermentor and added contents of brew pot, including the bag of berries. Poured the wort back and forth to aerate. Pitched yeast at 72 degrees and fitted airlock.

At pitching, this is a pale beer with a dramatic orangy-pinky-purply tinge from all the anthocyanin pigments released from the frozen berries. You ever peed the morning after eating a lot of beets? My beer is that color. Cool.

I don't really expect that very much berry flavor is going to survive the primary fermentation - it's probably mostly going to fly out the airlock with the gases. As such, I'm considering adding another pound or so of berries at the end of primary that will macerate in the young beer and replace the lost berry flavor. This will also kickstart another small fermentation as the yeast eat the fresh berry sugars. If I can figure out a way to pasteurize the berries (maybe by heating them to 20 minutes and cooling them in a sanitary environment?) I'll try this. Or, I might just let it go and see what I get for the minimum of effort.

It's a bit of a mystery as to whether this beer will turn out well. But, if I did everything right the first time, I'd never learn anything.

[wik] Very light body with a orangy-purple color and a light pink head. Flavor is very light, almost watery, buy crisp and tart from the faint berry flavor. Not a home run, but nicely engaging as a glass to drink. I'll need to double the fruit and add in some light crystal malt next time in order to make it really good. On the other hand, the yeast is really nice and I want to see it in something darker for sure.

Persuant to my stalwart coblogger and mickle companion's imprecations against the frequency of my posting these last few months, I offer the following trenchant observations and piquant nuggets of indepensible wisdom and weakass excuses:

• I've been real busy baby. Working late at the office. You know how it is, baby. I want the best for us. You understand, don't ya, baby?
• You don't want to read what I tried to write anyway. With this new job I'm in sucking up half of my available time, and my increasingly obsessive research into - no shit - the effect of enzymes in wheat cells on the starches in same in varying hydrations and over varying time-frames occupying much of the rest, everything that's spurted forth from my bewithered pen these last many weeks has been, ineluctably, 100% inside baseball.
• Good to see my vocabulary is prodigious as ever. Most propitious.
• Suck it, B. This makes up for all those months where you were practically absent. What? What you say? You were busy having sons and daughters? Well, uh... erm.... Crap.
• There's this distillery in northern Vermont who make vodka out of maple sap, that will blow your mind. Shaken with ice and poured into a martini glass, it's smooth, faintly sweet, and spectacularly delicious.
• A fundamental insight into the nature of casinos: they're precisely the same thing as nudie bars, except with different vices. That, and except for the fact that blowing $50 on some bored woman to wiggle her coochie in your face for twenty minutes, is waaaaay more fulfilling than blowing through $50 in half that time on the cheapest blackjack table you can find in Atlantic City. I know. I've tried both.
• On the other hand, if you're only there to buy cigars and beer, you can make a really good night out of that $50, with bus fare left over. Everything in Atlantic City is cheap except the tables.
• A fundamental insight into the nature of gambling: The fun of poker isn't in the gambling. It's in knowing you've got everyone else in the table by the nuts and it's only a matter of time before they fuck up and give you what's theirs. The fun of gambling is... what's the fun in gambling, exactly? Chance has no nuts.
• The champagne room is a goddamn ripoff.

"... and so the Munchkin said, 'follow the yellow dick toad!'"