Invisible Hands
Now Playing: Zoltan Kodaly--"Song" from "Hary Janos Suite"
Saturday morning, I went to say hello to my friend and former coworker Jenee, now morning chef at the Earle Uptown. Jenee's someone I really admire, and not just because I used to have a crush on her. She has a fantastic attitude towards work and life that I'd do very well to emulate (and to be fair to myself--never difficult--I often do). She does what she does and she tries to be a good person and doesn't feel bad about it. Having recently overcome some serious health issues, she's back in the saddle at work, making the wheels turn and getting her life back on track. Jenee, if you ever read this, you're awesome and I think the world of you.

While at WRAP, I managed to get some work done on the library (finally starting to sort out the nonfiction section) and heard some nasty tales of homophobia and harassment at the local homeless shelter downtown. I've thought about volunteering there for a while, and wonder now whether I'd be welcome there if the people in charge knew I also worked at WRAP. Definitely a matter I'll have to explore further. I also made up for missing the all-day Adams House music show in Ypsilanti by investigating the local music scene via myspace. The computers at WRAP have sound capability and I was finally able to check out a number of wondered-about bands.

Wanderjahr: This widely talked-about Lansing band has a likably boozy early 70s feel, reminiscent of Grand Funk Railroad or the Allman Brothers (Friday at Aubree's, "Jessica" came on the music system, and I forgot how much I missed listening to them), although I can see how live performances might pose a danger of interminable Edgar Winter-style jamming. I like to think of Wanderjahr as the Nixon-era, burntout, post-Blow incarnation of
Starling Electric: These impeccably dressed Ann Arbor lads (one or more of whom always seem to be in the library computer lab when I arrive there--except, um, today) play the kind of sunshiny 60s-style psych-pop that someone once suggested should appear more on this blog (they've been mistaken for the Zombies, for instance). I'd actually heard them live, and they were rather good, even if the smoke from their stage show got in my eyes. Based on their sound samples, especially the delightful "Camp Fire," they sound well worth their CD, Clouded Staircase, not like those High Llamas (dear God, was I ever happy to sell Gideon Gaye).
Showdown at the Equator: Known in my house as "the band with Kelly Caldwell," but then I love her Banner of a Hundred Hearts to shreds, and I haven't seen them live either. Truth be told, I was expecting something a little "harder," but I loved the light, airy texture to the songs on display, which reminded me of a punkier, lower-fi Sing-Sing.
The Casionauts: Known in my house as "the band with Ryan Balderas," ditto, "The Larry Brown Press Conference," ditto. I was expecting something a little softer from these Lansing guys with outstanding cultural taste and delightfully unpredictable songwriting concerns; one of their song samples covers the 1941 suicide of German scientist Rudolph Schoenheimer--okay, maybe "delightfully" was a little off. I loved it nevertheless. Not only were the songs thoughtful and accomplished, but they were surprisingly danceable, which is apparently important to me now.

I kicked myself (well, not really) after leaving because I forgot to check out Porchsleeper or Dabenport (and probably lots of other people, too).

Passing by Encore Records that day, I finally picked up the Great Lakes Myth Society CD. It's definitely one of those that will take me a while to truly appreciate (nothing wrong with that, either--the same thing happened with Sufjan Stevens and Greetings From Michigan). I'm a "foreigner" in Michigan, of course, and the group's cultural concerns aren't as immediately familiar to me as they would be to native Michiganders. That's part of the appeal--it's like this music is a piece of a not-quite-vanished world. Some of the songs aren't instantly catchy, and a lot of the hooks are "hidden" (at least for me), but it's grown on me just in the space of a day's listening. The sound's a bracing dose of alt-country and folk mixed in with a little Appalachian music and a touch of hard rock. Highlights: "The Salt Tracks," "Love Story," "Big Jim Hawkins" (probably my favorite, as it's the hardest-rocking), "The Northern Lights Over Atlanta, Michigan," "Railway Ties," "Lake Effect" (which seems to double as the GLMS artistic manifesto), and, of course, "Marquette County, 1959." I actually didn't really like the song as such, but it's dealing with Otto Preminger's Anatomy of a Murder (1959), filmed in the Upper Peninsula--any song that's even tangentially related to Ben Gazzara gets points in my book.

Yesterday saw Cinema Guild's last showing for the summer season--for personal and administrative reasons, Lou probably won't start the series up again until at least September. The "final programme" (my Moorcock reference for the day) was based around Picasso, with relatively short films by Jean Cocteau, Alain Resnais, and Henri-Georges Clouzot, the last of which, The Mystery of Picasso (1956), was both fascinating and grueling. Picasso starred as himself, painting barechested throughout and looking strangely like Christopher Lloyd. The movie was almost entirely rear-projected shots of Picasso paintings coming together as he painted them, so that it looks as if his hand is invisible. For thirty minutes, this is utterly engrossing, but after an hour, it nearly put me to sleep. There's a hilarious moment when Picasso worries that one of his paintings isn't good enough, and Clouzot reassures him by saying the painting's "very impressive." Picasso, in that instant, looks as if he wants to smash Clouzot's head into a canvas and scream "very impressive? Who the fuck are you? I'm Picasso, bitch!" like a more macho Jon Lovitz. Even that didn't keep me awake.