Giving up?

Alright, this thing is dead to me for the time being. I blog at thesecretmirror.com and Feeding the Hungry Ghost, the latter of the two being my new (mostly) food-related blog.

I’m Overdue, So I’ll Be Brief: Short Songs, Part 1

I promised myself that I'd keep Dalliance up to date when I started it, and I've honestly totally slacked off! Anyhow, I'm getting a new batch of stuff for you all to enjoy. To keep you from waiting much longer, I decided to give you a few things to whet your appetites.

The first is a track by the gay Dutch punk band from Nijmegen, Tedje en de Flikkers, who unfortunately have only a very minimal web presence on account of their relative obscurity. Their recorded output seems fairly sparse, with only a self-titled LP and one compilation track to their credit. Much of their material is fairly simple and keyboard-driven, yet arguably not-synthpunk, like the tortured and dissonant music of queer bands like the Screamers or Nervous Gender.

Secondly, I have a track from the Ann Arbor mid-90's band Galen, that at points along the way contained future-luminaries such as Aaron Dilloway (ex-Wolf Eyes reel-to-reel/axe menace and continual Hanson Records magnate) and Fred Thomas from twee-soulsters Saturday Looks Good To Me. They rocked the skronky, angular stuff while in high school that kids with stupid hair poorly emulated eight years later when "no wave" became popular again. How many bands like that had an oboe player? To my knowledge, just one – Galen.

Finally, I offer a hymn sung by the congregation of Laurel Regular Baptist Church, taken from the excellent Children of Heav'nly King compilation, put together by the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress. This compilation features music sung by "Primitive" and "Regular" Baptist congregations as well as sermons and interviews with preachers. It's an incredible document of the religious traditions entrenched in southern Virginia and northern North Carolina.

• Tedje en de Flikkers: "Stukje Lul" – Tedje en de Flikkers (Spina Bifida, 1979)
• Galen: "Video Gizzard" – Galen (Hanson, 1995?)
• Laurel Glen Regular Baptist Church: "Doxology" – Children of the Heav'nly King: Religious Expression in the Central Blue Ridge (Library of Congress/Rounder, 1978-1979/1998)

Love’s Got A Ghetto: The Wisdom of Franklin Bruno

I figured I choose a long-time favorite for my initial post. Instances of Franklin Bruno's razor-sharp wit and resilient voice have made wedged themselves deep into the salvos of mixtapes that I've sent far and wide. He was one of three brave men that led the quirky pop beast called Nothing Painted Blue, whose most recent album, Taste The Flavor, was released today by Shrimper Records. Known for both his solo work, that with ØPB, and his collaborative efforts such as The Extra Glenns (with the Mountain Goats' nerve center, John Darnielle), Bruno has knitted a pleasantly fibrous mass of lyrics and plaintive melodies riddled with glancing references at mathematics, local industry, and unadulterated goofiness. He treads the thin wire of sentimentality with the grace of an aerialist, never falling into the net of sappiness, often saved by his own cleverly amusing and mildly self-deprecating lyrics. Former Simple Machinist Jenny Toomey admired his songcraft so much that she, under his auspices (as he guested on piano and other instruments), completed a cover album of his works from his unified oeuvre.

Beyond his career as a mainstay of the indies from the Inland Empire and beyond, I'd venture to argue that he's a veritable polymath, managing his double life as an indie musician and recent completion of his doctorate in philosophy from UCLA. Advised by philosopher of language and mind Tyler Burge, his dissertation was entitled The Role of Intentional Action in Artifactual Representation. Beyond musicianship and philosophy, he writes for publications such as The Believer, and his book on Elvis Costello's Armed Forces LP was recently published as a part of Continuum's 33 1/3 series. And, naturally, like any upstanding member of our rampantly digital society, Bruno has his own blog.

This week I bring to you two versions of the same track, "Clean Needle," from two chronologically distant recordings. The first is from a cassette compilation on Shrimper Records during the prehistoric days before "lo-fi" was a critical platitude. Although my mind is failing me in my old age regarding the compilation on which it appeared, I do know it was faithfully reissued approximately twelve years ago on CD as part of Abridged Perversion: A Shrimper Compilation of Shrimper Compilations. The voice sounds ever so slightly alien compared to the robust tenor that is so distinctly Bruno's. The other version from his 2000 release on Absolutely Kosher, Kiss Without Makeup. This embodies more of his familiar solo forays, characterzing his adventure into the disturbingly calm and odd territory of off-kilter lounge. Despite how easy the listening is, Bruno seems hardly at risk of losing his edge.

Franklin Bruno: "Clean Needle"

• Abridged Perversion compilation version, Shrimper, 1993 (3.1M MP3)
• Kiss Without Makeup version, Absolutely Kosher, 2000 (4.4M MP3)

Both for sale (along with many other recordings) from Absolutely Kosher.

About Dalliance

Dalliance is an MP3 blog that I had been thinking about starting for quite sometime. I had already thought of a few different songs I decided to name it after the song by The Wedding Present, which I thought was suitable. MP3 blogs only give you a chance to flirt with new things. Anyhow, I'm not sure what the scope will be as my taste tends to wander all over the map, but it'll be somewhere along the lines of those that I visit often. These include my friends' blogs Trigger Cut, Vociferous Slam, and The Selector, and others that I've become frantically obsessed with, like Music for Maniacs and Captain's Crate. I'll be posting some occasionally interesting goodies like my own field recordings, too, so stay tuned.

NOTE: All audio files posted here are for evaluation purposes only. As such, files posted here will generally be available for only two weeks. If you represent an artist or a record label that has content posted here, please contact me and I will gladly remove it.