Radio from my heart/mind/soul, for the best music found. Music is the Highest Common Denominator. Writing about music is like Dancing To Architecture. Free-Dance your exceptional, expectation-defying stories. Listening to: Rock Soul Punk Pop Blues Folk Reggae R+B Jazz Latin Americana Psychedelia Outmusic New: ~Jersey ~York ~Orleans ~Wave ~Music Lovers Players Adventurers Singers Songwriters Queers To Inspire Discover Appreciate Engage Contact Bill via gmail at bearealman
Martin Swinger In Concert in New Jersey in August!
Especially excited to announce the August 15th performance at GAAMC!
Friday, August 12, 7 PM
Front Porch House Concert
Martin Swinger solo show! Admission $15
308 Meadowbrook Rd. Robbinsville, NJ 08691
Contact Maggie Marshall 609-443-0577
Sunday, August 14, 5 PM
Carmel Retreat Center
Martin Swinger solo show! Admission $15
DINNER AND SHOW: $30!
1071 Ramapo Valley Rd, Mahwah, NJ 07430
Call 201-327-7090 to make reservations.
Monday, August 15, 7:30 PM
Morristown Unitarian Fellowship
Martin Swinger solo show for GAAMC ~Gay Activist Alliance in Morris County! Donation $6!
21 Normandy Heights Rd, Morristown, NJ 07960
contact Info@GAAMC.org or call 973-285-1595.
More about Martin Swinger
"Some songs are great to dance to, and some feel good to cry to, and others are fun to sing along to.
But sometimes you discover songs that simply invite you to stop and listen. Martin Swinger sings Songs Worth Listening To."
The most recent Imperial Teen album is The Hair The TV The Baby & The Band
"Imperial Teen is back! With sly style and knowing sass, Will, Roddy, Jone and Lynn return with their trademark infectious hooks and impeccable pop sensibilities. Let the party begin! The Hair the TV the Baby & the Band is the first Imperial Teen record in over 5 years, but it never misses a beat. It’s a career defining album for sure. On first listen you can just feel how much fun these guys and gals are having making music together. From the upbeat shimmy of “Shim Sham” and “Sweet Potato”, to the more reflective cool of “Room With A View” and “What You Do”; from the full on romp of “Everything” and “One Two”, to the seductive vamp of “Fallen Idol” -- every song seems pitch perfect. You can sense that this is a band that is comfortable in its own skin. Recorded with longtime collaborators Steve McDonald (Redd Kross) and Anna Waronker (That Dog), The Hair… captures the raw spontaneity and chemistry that make Imperial Teen such a unique group of friends and musicians. The members of Imperial Teen have kept themselves busy since last we heard from them, as the title of this album references. But there is no denying that when these four come together, they are more than the sum of their parts. They are a family, and the joy that they share in making music is infectious. So put on your best party shoes and come along for the ride. It’s guaranteed to be fun. Give this record a listen. We think you will be impressed." [--provided by artist reps]
According to Swinger himself, "Gravity [was] inspired [by] driving on Route One from Houlton, Maine to Presque Isle, following the large scale model of the solar system. And a difficult phone call... My sweetie and I worked it out and are still together celebrating 25 years!"
It's as beautiful a song as you're bound to hear this year.
I'll have plenty more to say about M O O N in the days ahead, but for now enjoy "Gravity" with the knowledge that, in my not so humble opinion, it's not even one of the three best songs on the album. That honor goes to the three songs that conclude M O O N -- "Wooden Boy", "Betty Boop & Buddha" and "Music In The Rafters". Together those are the three strongest songs at the home stretch of any album I've heard in more than a few years.
Martin Swinger's website features the story behind the song "Wooden Boy" and much more. MartinSwinger.com
Architecture In Helsinki: Their perpetual subtle and explicit moments when what-went-before is not the same as what's-happening-now lend a delectable taste of invention to most of their recordings.
"Contact High" continues their tradition of inventiveness, but with an air of sophistication that is inspired.
Previously, AIH were tribal wildlings, barely honing magically coincidental moments of order out of a chaos that seemed derived from whatever was hanging around and useful. Then, as I understand it, band leader Cameron Bird moved to Brooklyn, and here now they have this unique, savvy, contemporary dance-floor compatible sound that floors me as I want to find a piece of rug to cut.
What, I wonder, happened in Brooklyn?
Soapbox time: If anyone still believes (the reason for this Soapbox will become clear shortly) that Gay folks love Disco, Club music and Broadway (and to a slightly lesser extent the European Classical traditions) because of some innate genetic predisposition or cultural imperative -- GET OVER IT. Gay folks generally still find themselves attracted to those styles because the momentum continues almost as strong as ever, following decades when those were the musical styles most open to Gay folks either being Out or being most able to push their digits out of the closets. Rock and Roll, by comparison, has had its Glam Rock, and The Kinks' "Lola" and the androgynous aspects of The Beatles and The 'Stones, plus a few threads of gentler music and artsier types that wove around, but even today few people acknowledge Gay and Bisexual people behind every kind of mainstream rock from Little Richard to the Four Seasons to Judas Priest to Pink. Whether the credited front-of-the-stage, album cover artist or someone essential behind the scenes, Gay people are everywhere as creators of Rock and Roll -- But we're more often pushed into a closet there or self-repressed and recriminated there throughout its history than we are within Club music or Broadway. And that extends to Now.
Which (and here we go) leads to the incessant, continuous, ongoing guessing game of dealing with musicians whose art and image causes one to wonder "So are they Gay?"
As much as anyone, I wish this was a nearly-boring question, on the par of "So are they married?" I don't ask out of prurient interest. (Though I'll admit I'm only human, and musicians who are Gay and who I find are attractive men capture an extra helping of my attention.)
I ask because it should be more common-knowledge information.
(And here we really are getting to the point(s)):
The video for "Contact High" is a treasure trove of gaydar-inducing images.
The lead character is androgynous. Short sideburns and some facial hair is not much to go on to establish male gender. But that's all we get.
Sure, it's a men's suit. But a woman with a similar appearance and not-large breasts could fit those clothes.
The hands have painted fingernails. But by being disembodied, they put extraordinary weight on fingernail polish as a secondary indicator of gender. One could perhaps be being deceived -- playfully, as part of the pleasures of confusion.
Confusion itself - the sense that something is not quite right - is part of the video's underpinnings. It's a confusion that heightens desire. It leads to giving in to a kind of mysterious pleasure.
And yes, alright, I'm behaving highly analytical about a fun, beautiful video, one I have no desire to ruin. But, to me, it sometimes would be satisfying to learn whether an artist or musician is merely using Queer images, imagery that (in the language of the academic) is not hetero-normative, or whether a person, especially the musicians, especially the musician with the lead vision for the music, is simply telling us something about their sexuality.
If there was no video, the song "Contact High" comes with a vague bit of business possibly not intended as but conceivably a clue too: the several tiny moments when the falsetto male lead vocal sings "boy / you". Set in a song-style both similar to the spirit of AIH's past but with much more clean, "artistic" appeal, one can determine that the vocal is treated at those words to make the word "boy" both a little clipped to cause it to almost sneak by, and to make it pop.
I have never heard anything stating that anyone in Architecture In Helsinki is Gay or Lesbian or Bisexual or Trans or Queer or what - or Hetero for that matter (though I may vaguely recall I may have read about a band member's wife or girlfriend).
But I have to wonder -- aloud, in this instance -- whether Cameron is writing about a same-sex experience, something more or less new to him, in "Contact High".
Or perhaps it's just an interpretation with which I would like to enjoy it. Anyone with insight (or other comments) are welcome to respond.
Still, finally it remains, well, weird and bizarre are the only words for it, that in the vastness of what is broadly termed Indie Rock -- all the hundreds, no, thousands of bands and musicians percolating at levels that tend to barely dent the pop charts if they appear there at all, all these amazing creative folks, outside of a handful who identify as LesBiGayTr (and usually cultivate part of their fanbases among Queer folks), and another handful of Out Queer musicians who have done the right thing and mentioned the truth about their sexuality (whether they market themselves as such or not) -- there are not vast lines of Out Gay musicians stretching as far as the eye or the iPod can see.
Come Out, Come Out, wherever you are. Please.
Meanwhile: Architecture In Helsinki are about to go on the United States & Canada leg of their tour. Dates below (the second digit : the ".06." : is the month, June) are taken directly from their website.
01.06.11
Henry Fonda Theater• Los Angeles, CA
02.06.11
Great American Music Hall• San Francisco, CA
03.06.11
Slim's• San Francisco, CA
04.06.11
Wonder Ballroom• Portland, OR
05.06.11
Venue• Vancouver, BC
06.06.11
Neumo's• Seattle, WA
09.06.11
Varsity Theatre• Minneapolis, MN
10.06.11
Lincoln Hall• Chicago, IL
11.06.11
The Mod Club• Toronto, ON
12.06.11
La Tulipe• Montreal, QC
13.06.11
Paradise • Boston, MA
16.06.11
Webster Hall• New York, NY
17.06.11
Black Cat• Washington DC
18.06.11
World Cafe• Philadelphia, PA
Anyone who could score this poor-boy (financially) tickets to their New York or Philadelphia gigs, please contact me! (See up top, at the end of this blog site's header.)
Galactic: An amazing, underrated band with guest vocal by Irma Thomas, an amazing, underrated, veteran R&B master.
"Heart of Steel": My theme song for the day, one of them for the year -- the newest addition to my list of life songs. [Remind me to share that list some day.]
√ Check the groove. √ Check the multi-tracked vocals. √ Check the lyric.
¿ Wonder how something this brilliant didn't rise to the top of charts around the world.
