Eclectic
Seizure
20 November 2002
yo, william,
hey, my pain pill hangover was lifted by the news about the upcoming
radio
show
seriously, i'm honored
some quick responses to your queries:
i'll see if i can track down a copy of the original abr essay, though
the
entire text is included inside the "White Noise" essay
bruce, let's
see, of course, there's a zillion options, depending on the
context but here are a couple of recommendations:
"lost in the flood" (killer vietnam song presented in vbruce's
early
"experimental" psychedlic collage method, with lines like
"nuns run bald
through vatican halls, pregnant, pleading immaculate conception")
or the
sheer strutting exhuerbance of "it's hard to be a saint in the
city" (key
line: "with my black jack and jacket and hair slicked sweet,
silver star
studs on my duds, like a harley in heat, when i walked down the street
you
couild feel its heart beat" (both songs on his first album, GREETINGS
FROM
ASBURY PARK, 1973)
"i'm on fire" (most people know this song, or think they
do, and haven't
really noticed that just beneath they hey-hey-baby pop veneer lurks
a child
molester (key line: "sometimes it's like somebody took a knife,
baby, edgy
and dull, and cut a six inch valley through the middle of my skull")
it's
on BORN IN THE USA (did you see the new rolling stone issue with the
simjpsons album covers, featuringt homer on the cover of born in the
usa?
there's a great cover of this song by johnny cash on BADLANDS, which
has
covers of all the songs on NEBRASKA.
if you want meta-rock, check out his felinni-meets-dylan early masterpiece,
"Uncle Billy's Circus Song" (on THE WILD, THE INNOCENT--which
is the album i
believe i referred to the most in "White"), great extended
tyreamtnet of the
rock-band as circus performers motifr (key line: "hey son you
wanna try the
big top? all aboard nebraska's our next stop"--this song appearing
a decade
before bruce wrote the songs for NEBRASKA)
or if you want topical, check out the goregous, middle-eastern flavors
(with
Pakistani singers, etc. and killer guitar solo) of "World's Apart"
(on his
recent 9-11 extrvanganza (THE RISING).
your palimdrome has arrived safely, with no vocabularial fuck ups
i'll file a complete report on this and much much more once sinda
and i get
back from loreto (on the gulf side of the baja, way way down there,
it's
supposed to be faculous), a little vacation trip (complete with Leonid
Meteor shower) that we're doing partly as a way to officially celebrate
my
recovery
which is going great, by the way, as you can probably sense
i'm going out for hikes every day now
hey, make a copy of the radio show for me if you can--would love to
hear it
stay tuned, william--appreciate your sticking with me through the
past few
months
onwords, upwords,
larry
ps. you really NEED to do a show devoted to terry allen, the last
great
undiscovered genius of american music (now that tom waits has pretty
much
been adopted by yuppies)(that isn't preventing me and sinda from going
to la
next month to see waits perform his blood money soundtrack to that
play,
wozniak (?)
pps. if you don't already have a copy, go out and immediately get
coover's
master avantporn novel, the adventures of lucky pierre , 30 years
in the
making, in which bob somehow manages to get his walking-talking dingdong
to
do and say just about everything a dingdong might do or so, in this
world or
any other...
see if you can l
on 11/15/02 10:27 PM, William Gillespie at gillespi@uiuc.edu wrote:
>
> Dear Professor McCaffery,
>
> My next radio show will feature your essay White Noise White
Heat with
> glitches and lots of musical interruptions from bands you cite.
I'll send
> you a cassette, unless I forget, but I'll probably remember.
>
> 1. Is the original ABR article available anywhere?
> 2. What Bruce should I play? I don't think I have a single Springsteen
> record but I might be able to find a song. Maybe two. I've got
plenty of
> Zorn though.
>
> I sent you a palindrome. I hope that stuff I mail to Borrego
is able to
> get there this year. I imagine that mail is packed in on burros
down
> there.
>
> My radio show is called Eclectic Seizure:
> http://spinelessbooks.com/eclecticseizure
>
> ONWARD!
> W
>
>
>
>
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