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Status: Complete

ILL-SAID ILL-HEARD ILL-
RECAPTURED

Let's start where I once left off, Austin, Texas (near the corner of Avenue B and
45th Street), because it's the 500th night of Brooklyn winter this year and while
I dig the seasons muchly, the long stretches of bitter cold have played havoc
with my, uh, “training” for bike racing season. This is a silly hobby, I can hardly
disagree, and whether I do it out of love or as a convenient beard for shaving
my legs, only the two cats sleeping in this room with me (one curled up on a
chair, the other sprawled out atop some dirty clothes on the floor of this crooked
aparment's single closet) truly know and they're not talking. They are listening,
however, because I've spent an inordinate amount of time on the trainer this
year (Tacx Swing Force for all two of you who might even fake an interest) and
lately, when I ride, I rock.

It wasn't always so. In recent years, I've sweated (and mumbled inane encour-
agement to my suffering self) to Jimmie Lunceford (especially the hot “30s
recordings), the Monteverdi opera L'Orfeo, Capitol-era Frank Sinatra,
Charley Patton, Freddy King, mucho Terry Allen... even Townes Van Zandt
Live at the Old Quarter! Other things didn't work so well. The Grateful Dead
(whom I frequently dig while driving to and from races), Jelly Roll Morton,
J.S. Bach (his son C.P.E. Bach fares better), I tried 'em all and more and what
the hell: some days you eat the bear, some days the bear the you. This year, for
the sake of fuck knows what, I listened to a lot of Spoon. I can't tell you why
but I bought Girls Can Tell on a whim and kinda hated it. Sounds good, but
where's the, ya'know, content? Know that I'm hardy a pop fiend maybe it
makes sense, the songwriting bar set pretty goddamn high from Dylan,
Leonard Cohen and the Minutemen (“Shit From An Old Notebook”) to Dave
Schramm and Richard Buckner. (Luke Haines of the Auteurs sometimes too:
when the revolution comes, “The Upper Classes,” from When I Was a Cowboy
will be the glam anthem of my new sovereign nation.)

But winter dragged and dragged, I was busy with nonsense and slogging
through a morass of uncertainty and indecision. Perversion maybe too: unsatis-
fied with spending $12.99 for one record I didn't like, I bought two more and to
quote the title of the first song on the album I did not at first enjoy, “Everything
Hits at Once.” I'm still not slain by the songs as units of expression with words
(if that's your bag, dig the Mountain Goats' superb All Hail West Texas for one,
almost any Chris Knox or Tall Dwarfs record for twosies and threesies ) but as
sounds upon sound, Britt Daniel is so onto something, I almost feel bad about

28 Geek Weekly Fanzine

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