Today was rather interesting. I woke up feeling slightly chirpy, so decided I was going to take the money I earned selling books on the internet and put it to good use. The plan was simple: hit the trifecta of record stores in NYC (Academy Records, Other Music, and Kim’s) with some stops for food (and more records) in between each destination. Z didn’t want to tag along because he had to be in Cranford for something this evening, so I suckered Ilya to come along.
The rain was coming down steadily as we parked on 13th Street and 5th Ave, a decent location considering where we were trying to hit. Up on 18th Street Academy offered a rich bounty of cheap second hand music, including Spiritualized (Lazer Guided Melodies), Flying Saucer Attack (Mirror), Et Sans (Par noussss touss les trous de vos crânes!), Stereolab (Dots and Loops), Nirvana (Bleach) and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly soundtrack. Total cost: $40.
With the rain coming down much harder, with the sky now black, we marched down fourth fifth and fourth avenues on our way to East 4th street and Other Music. By the time we got there, the rain drenched Ilya and my umbrella was starting to show signs of imminent failure. I threw it on the ground at OM and we went inside to look around. I found a cheap copy of a Neil Young vinyl (American Stars and Bars), Pavement (Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain) and Yo La Tengo (I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One). Total cost: $23
When we were starting to leave, a kid noticed Ilya and he struck us up in conversation. He was passing out copies of some newspaper that preached super far-left politics. Ilya looked at the cover and read aloud the headline for some article that bashes Ariel Sharon. Not missing a beat I replied, “Nice job, kicking a man when he’s down.” After some laughter he mentioned he was performing in some improvisational showcase at a venue on Church Street. As Ilya penned his name on an index card, the kid asked if I played music. I replied “sort of,” to which he asked, “what kind of music?” I said, “knob twirling.” His response was, “Like… mixers? Or pedals?” When I said pedals he said that the show was totally open to anyone who wanted to sit-in, and that we should come and perform with them. We said we would, but, as it turns out, we didn’t. Sorry, guy!
Burritos at Chipotle and talk of culture and girls. At Kim’s I ran upstairs and found LPs by Tower Recordings (The Galaxies’ Incredibly Sensual Transmission Field of the Tower Recordings), P.G. Six (Well of Memory) and Oneida (Secret Wars). Downstairs there was a copy of an Okkervil River album so I got that, and the day was over. Kim’s cost: $44. Daily total: $107.
It was pouring now, so we decided to run over to Starbucks and sat there for a while, making various comments about society, neuroses and other existential topics of interest. I think by this point I was kind of out of it, and I uttered with a completely straight face, “I am like a raindrop in a puddle.” Don’t ask me what it means.
It was still raining harder than before when we left, and the wind had picked up. The temperature had dropped into the low-30’s. At least four times, my umbrella blew itself inside out, and outside a Blockbuster Video near 8th Street I pounded the umbrella into the pavement. Some people watched, but if I had waited thirty seconds or more I could have destroyed the umbrella in front of a much larger crowd at an intersection.
The drive home was painless. We went to Jersey City and jammed for a while, eventually deciding to record a song. Once we pressed the “record” button I just started playing a song I wrote back in the day called Countess. This isn’t like, VH1 Storytellers or anything, but Countess is about waiting for someone to come to their senses. It’s told in narrative form. The rough take Ilya and I recorded sounded decent enough, so I overdubbed a bass line and Ilya added a backing vocal track. It sounds much better through headphones that it does on my computer speakers right now, so hopefully you’ll be able to hear everything and the vocals won’t be muddy or dwarfed or anything. I think either my vocals aren’t panned enough or Ilya’s voice is louder than mine… So, just in case, I’ll post the lyrics with the file below if you want to download it. When he goes back to Jersey city I’ll make him crank it up a bit. Since every “project” of ours gets a silly name (Swan Fungus Orchestra, Musky Taint, Black Horse Music, Stars Fallin’, Magic Space Cowdogs, etc…) we christened this new incarnation “The Buffalo Sex Singers.”
At some point it started hailing or sleeting, and the roads became a mess. It took almost 90 minutes to drive ten miles. I’ve never feared for my life that much since the wild thunderstorms I drove through in New Mexico over the summer. Holy shit was that intense.
COUNTESS (DOWNLOAD THE MP3)
A window watcher spies the future below
Passing cars leave scars on the veins of the walls
Rain slicked the street reflecting lamp posts
Driving slanted toward earth
An apparition cuts through the fog
Making its way to the old house
It stops in the doorway
“Invite me in,” the ghost asked
You know I can’t
“We could have re-written our ending.”
I gave it my best
“Your best?”
These are the words of a practical man:
I’m trying as hard as I can
I spend all my time trying to forget
Then you show up and make a fool of me
