Japanese babY [CIC] hails from Krasnodar, Russia. Here they are with a live version of “Твое солнце.” No, I don’t know how to pronounce that. The sound’s a little raw, as you might expect from a live club recording, but the riffs are tasty.
(Note: The old version died, so I found another, and I don’t think the sound quality is as good.)
Influences seem to be Jesus and Mary Chain, Sigur Ros, and maybe just a tiny hint of Laibach.
Austin’s Single Lash was one of the bands playing at that Luscious Heaven show at Cheer Up Charlie’s. I only managed to catch one of their songs, but I thought the lead singer was really good. “Bitemarks” may or may not have been that song.
Bob Dylan, the brilliant, iconoclastic musician who has for decades defied people’s expectations, was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday morning.
Dylan was awarded the prize “for having created new poetic expressions within the American song tradition.”
One of the most prominent musicians of the last half-century, Dylan had long been rumored to be considered for the prize, but literary watchers considered his name among those in the running a novelty. He is the first American to win the prize since Toni Morrison in 1993.
The room of watchers at the Swedish Academy seemed shocked by the announcement, one calling the decision “radical” when asking Sara Danils, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, about the choice.
She compared Dylan to the poet Sappho, and then suggested the interviewer begin with Dylan’s record “Blonde on Blonde.”
Blink.
Blink.
I never put any stock in the Nobel Prize in Literature (or Peace, for that matter) and can conceive of worse choices. But I was unaware that Jack Black’s character from High Fidelity was on the Nobel Prize committee.
So here’s the opening track of Blonde on Blonde:
Perhaps the lyrics offer a glimpse at how the committee came to its decision…
Hope you like drone rock with a repeating riff played for an extended period of time, because that’s what Austin’s own All in the Golden Afternoon is laying down in “The Long Goodbye,” which reminds me of Talking Heads’ “The Overload.” The ubiquitous Ulrich Schnauss was evidently involved in this as well.
All in the Golden Afternoon is one of six bands that will be appearing at Lucious Heaven, a night of shoegaze bands at Cheer Up Charlie’s on October 15, 2016, which is a mere $5.