Category: Towards the Within

  • Gimme Some Truth (cover) | The Wonder Stuff

    “I’m not a Beatles fan, but I am a John Lennon fan.”

    I'm sick to death of seeing things
    From tight-lipped, condescending,
    mama's little chauvinists
    All I want is the truth
    Just give me some truth, now

    I've had enough of watching scenes
    With schizophrenic, egocentric,
    paranoiac, prima-donnas
    All I want is the truth, now
    Just gimme me some truth

    No short-haired, yellow-bellied,
    son of Tricky Dicky
    Is going to Mother Hubbard soft soap me
    With just a pocketful of hope
    Money for dope
    Money for rope

    Amazing, isn’t it, how topical this song is 50 years later?

    Stuffies doing their cover of the Lennon song.

    That song was always a blast to busk in downtown Minneapolis around 1989.

    Did I mention I occasionally did “air guitar performances” while singing (sic) with an empty guitar case? I took great efforts to carefully put the “guitar” back into the case when I was done with my performance.

    Okay, singing was probably a bit strong of a word to use here. You get the idear tho’, right?

  • Zombie Love | Morticia

    We can live for eternity
    We can live for eternity tonight

    Dress of black, face of white
    Lips of red, what a frightening sight
    Are you ready to try zombie love?
    Zombie love

    Back in the peak of my 80s “goth” phase, there was an admission I was willing to make — should anyone ask or care to enquire. It was no grand secret:

    I did not think that the subculture should be taken too terribly serious.

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  • Voyager | PJ Harvey

    New music by Miss Polly Jean was released yesterday. Different than her “usual”, which just means different.

    last note, last sign
    Neptune, Triton
    fading signal
    choose light...choose love

    Voyager, look back
    at a pale-blue dot
    all we don't know
    a flake of snow

  • Echo and the Bunnymen

    First time seeing them live in about 40 years tonight. Hope it is mind blowing as the first time I saw them.

    It should be interesting, either way.

  • Towards the Within — New Model Army, “Vagabonds”

    We are old, we are young,
    We are in this together
    Vagabonds and children
    Prisoners forever
    With pulses a-raging and
    Eyes full of wonder
    Kicking out behind us again

    Out planting trees a few weeks ago, I had a portable speaker on my beltloop and streaming music on it. I hadn’t listened to Justin and Co. for a spell and decided it was time to remedy that omission via giving the album “Thunder and Consolation” a spin (if that’s what you call it when you stream music and not put a record on a turntable).

    Talk about earworming… Vagabonds is one of those songs that easily to sing the chorus with the band on, once you know the lyrics (see above) and NMA have been firmly stuck in my head since.

    I came to NMA late in the game.

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  • The Milkman — Mice feat. Julianne Regan

    Hey isn't this neat
    But we've got to be discreet
    'Cause something this supercalifragilistic
    Can get sado-masochistic so quickly

        So if you want to know me
        Well you'd just better take things slowly

    Man, I sure miss the tongue in cheek saccharine-laced snarky sugar pop of albums like this. A little more over-the-top than Strawberry Switchblade (who were more polka-dot laced bubblegum goth), but I loved this shit.

    As you might recall from a few days ago, Julianne sang for the more folksy-hippie-goth All About Eve. Yeah, I’m in a J.R. mood this week.

  • And… Billy Bragg is with us, too

    Now, Billy Bragg is a folk musician I do listen to. He wrote a classic tune for Minneapolis in the past few days as well. If you haven’t listened to Billy Bragg before, I recommend you remedy with that below.

    When they came for the immigrants
    I got in their face
    When they came for the refugees
    I got in their face
    When they came for the five-year-olds
    I got in their face
    When they came to my neighborhood
    I just got in their face.

    I will bear witness to terror
    I will bear witness to tyranny
    I will bear witness to murder
    I will bear witness to fascism.

    For reference, a five-year-old was used for bait by ICE to arrest his father. They wouldn’t let the young boy go into the house, and then they took him to Texas with his father against judge’s orders.

  • Towards the Within — Citizen I.C.E., Dropkick Murphys

    Too scared to join the military
    Too dumb to be a cop
    Citizen I.C.E.

    This is an old song of theirs, formerly called “Citizen C.I.A”, and lyrically reworked to reflect current events. The rest of the lyrics are in-video.

    I have to admit, I should probably listen to more Dropkick Murphys than I do, and that will probably change in the coming weeks. Every time I encounter news about the band, I see them in an increasingly positive light. I don’t have to like every song a band writes to know them to be stand-up folks that deserve my support.

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  • Towards the Within — Sólstöður, Kælan Mikla

    A little Icelandic darkwave in honor of the upcoming solstice, perhaps?

    Á sólstöðum í svartnætti tunglið geislum grætur
    Vetrarnótt; við erum þínar sönnu svörtu dætur

    Winter solstice in the black night
    the moon cries its beams
    Winter night; we are your true dark daughters

    Of course you may have some, my darkling dearies. Enjoy.

  • Towards the Within — Succulence by Foetus

    J.G. Thirlwell, also known as Clint Ruin, Frank Want, and Foetus (multiple variants of the name), among other pseudonyms is an Aussie musician that has been putting out albums of an experimental nature since the early 80s.

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