Granite And Steel

"way out; way in; romantic passageway

first seen by the eye of the mind,

then by the eye. O steel! O stone!

Climactic ornament, a double rainbow..."

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2013

Quote Of The Week

"Those promises we make to ourselves when we are younger, about how we mean to conduct our adult lives, can it be true we break every last one of them? All except for one, I suppose: the promise to judge ourselves by those standards, the promise to remember the child who would be so appalled by compromise, the child who would find jadedness wicked."

45 Revolutions: Died Pretty

Sister Ray takes a Suicidal hate-trip Down Under with a layover in Cleveland... Rob Younger plays the part of the travel agent.

Inside Looking Out

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2013

Quote Of The Week

"Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love."

Free Beer... Tomorrow

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2013

Digging For Gold: Supercharger

Supercharger - Self-titled (Radio X, 1991)

Brilliance. I first had the second Supercharger record because this one was too hard to find, rare and long gone by the time I knew about them. Then a bootleg version, lovingly subtitled The Fuck Greg Lowery Edition came out and I grabbed it. (Estrus reissued it right after the bootleg.) Anyway, I LOVED this band. Early '90s Bay Area simple punk rock'n'roll; think a more inept Angry Samoans with a little garage swing to it. Like I said, brilliance. I was bummed to have missed them in Seattle when I lived there but I did get to see two bands they spawned: the Rip Offs and The Brentwoods. I even got to play a gig with The Rip Offs and Spoiled Brats when I was in the Primate 5. Where at? The Purple Onion, of course! (Such a great music scene in SF back then, Spoiled Brats, Mummies, Trash Women.) This record has the infamous "Sooprize Package for Mr Mineo" — not sure who wrote it and played it first, these guys or the Mummies. Perhaps someone can enlighten me. Other bands I befriended did this one justice too; The Statics and Tie Reds. More gems include "The Ghost of Steve McQueen", "All About Judy", "She's So Cool", "Whiptofized"... the hits just keep coming and coming on this one!

Download: "Sooprize Package For Mr. Mineo"

Text by Tom Hyland

Quote Of The Week

"To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence."

Quote Of The Week

"We are all so guilty at the way we have allowed the world around us to become more ugly and tasteless every year that we surrender to terror and steep ourselves in it."

Stuck In The Middle With You

Big thanks to the complete asshole who reported Achilles In The Alleyway for sharing two long out-of-print songs, despite the notice stating clearly that we'd remove anything if there was ever an issue. (We never put up entire albums, just a song or two to illustrate a post... It's all for the love of music and music history, and we'd never do anything to hurt any artist or take money from their pockets.)

Digging For Gold: Vs.

Mission Of Burma - VS. (Ace Of Hearts, 1982)

This is yet another record my brother taped for me in high school, I wanna say in1986; I believe the flip side was the first Killing Joke record. Anyway, it completely floored me. From the first twitchy, metallic, searing guitar riff on the opener "Secrets" to the epic last track "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate," I was perplexed and enveloped by this record. It was like nothing I had ever heard and still has that immediate impact. Crazy to think this record is 31 years old as it sounds fresh and exciting right now. I know it sounds cliched but this record IS epic. I remember hearing all the weird sounds, tape loops, textures and then coming to realize that it was an actual band member doing all that. His instrument was JUST effects... crazy. The band's constant touring and playing to small crowds when they were first around has been thoroughly documented. My wife saw them at Danceteria in the early '80s with like 10 other people in the audience. But in one of the cooler developments for such an influential band, they have a second life now (not unlike their fellow innovators, Wire): they actually release new records and play to sold out crowds at big venues getting the praise they deserve. I saw the first reunion shows at Irving Plaza, before they started to write and release new records. It was like seeing a huge arena band reunion where everyone in the audience (mostly men in the 40s of course) were singing along to every song, pumping fists. I am sure there was a tear or two shed in that crowd of diehard music geeks! My brother saw them a lot back in the day and he joined me for that Irving show, which was great. Haven't listened to this whole record in a while, and just gave it a spin this morning. 31 years later, it has lost none of its urgency, innovation, great songs and EPIC quality.

Dig: "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate"

Text by Tom Hyland

Quote Of The Week

"Why do people have to be this lonely? What's the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?"

Poor Boys Born In The Rubble

"Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering.

There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in."

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2013
Words (from "Anthem") by Leonard Cohen

Digging For Gold: Church Of Anthrax

John Cale & Terry Riley - Church Of Anthrax (CBS, 1971)

Cool collaboration between two minimalist composers/musicians. Before Velvet Underground, Cale was performing minimal pieces with the likes of La Monte Young, Tony Conrad, etc. while Riley is one of the pioneers of the movement with "In C." This has the two playing various pianos, synths, organs; on the opening track, Cale plays a cool bass-line. On the two long tracks there's a killer drummer too, who is criminally not credited on the record... I read a bit online and found out it was David Rosenboom from Blood, Sweat And Tears! His jazzy, in-the-pocket groove gives the pieces an early Krautrock-kinda feel; Can or Neu come to mind. Good stuff.

Download: "Church Of Anthrax"

Text by Tom Hyland, formerly of The Shop Fronts and Imaginary Icons,
as well as the man behind the much-missed Dot Dash booking empire. Be sure to
check out Gowanus Wine Merchants, his shop in scenic Brooklyn, U.S.A.

Quote Of The Week

"I'm not concerned with your liking or disliking me... All I ask is that you respect me as a human being."

The Dazzling Illusion

Philip Roth reads from American Pastoral (1997), his elegy for the 20th Century's promises of prosperity, civic order and domestic bliss.

Digging For Gold: Hollywood Brats

Hollywood Brats - Self-Titled (Cherry Red, 1980)

A real gem! The Hollywood Brats were a glam-era, pre-punk band from early 1970s. The band included Casino Steel (who later co-founded The Boys). The recordings, from winter of '73-'74, didn't come out until 1979 and 1980 on Cherry Red (reissued via Italy's Get Back in the early 2000s). Amazing guitar-fueled rock'n'roll in the NY Dolls tradition (the opening track has a Johnny Thunders riff for sure). A few songs were later re-recorded by The Boys for their first full length ("Sick On You" and 'Tumble With Me.") Essential.

Download: "Sick On You"

Digging For Gold is a new A.I.T.A. column by Tom Hyland, formerly of
great NYC bands The Shop Fronts and Imaginary Icons, as well as the man
behind the much-missed Dot Dash booking empire. Be sure to check out
 his new wine shop, Gowanus Wine Merchants in scenic Brooklyn, U.S.A.

Evidence Of The Old City, No. 82

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2013

Quote Of The Week

"To find everything profound — that is an inconvenient trait. It makes one strain one's eyes all the time, and in the end one finds more than one might have wished."

A Day Without Limits

"When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself."

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2013

The Balcony Is Closed

Roger Ebert

Rest In Peace

"It was reviewing movies that made Roger Ebert as famous and wealthy as many of the stars who felt the sting or caress of his pen or were the recipients of his televised thumbs-up or thumbs-down judgments. But in his words and in his life he displayed the soul of a poet whose passions and interests extended far beyond the darkened theaters where he spent so much of his life." ... Story continues here: A Film Critic With The Soul Of A Poet (Chicago Tribune)

Dig: I Do Not Fear Death (Salon)

Quote Of The Week

"We are imperfect mortal beings, aware of that mortality even as we push it away, failed by our very complication, so wired that when we mourn our losses we also mourn, for better or for worse, ourselves. As we were. As we are no longer. As we will one day not be at all."

Murder Ballads

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2013

Outlaw Blues

Paul Williams

Rest In Peace

Paul Williams was the founder of Crawdaddy, the first rock magazine that treated the music as music and not a teenage fad. He was a gifted writer who provided a platform for many others, and his influence is felt by anyone who regards rock'n'roll as a medium that can be both fun and thought provoking. Williams died last night surrounded by his family, including his wife, the gifted singer and songwriter Cindy Lee Berryhill.

Text by Mark Deming (via Facebook)

Quote Of The Week

"Reminds me of that fella back home who fell off a ten-story building. As he was falling, people on each floor kept hearing him say, "So far, so good." Heh, so far, so good."

Meat Crack

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2013

Born Against

“We leave a stain, we leave a trail, we leave our imprint. Impurity, cruelty, abuse, error, excrement, semen — there's no other way to be here. Nothing to do with disobedience. Nothing to do with grace or salvation or redemption. It’s in everyone. Indwelling. Inherent. Defining. The stain that is there before its mark."

From The Human Stain, 2000

Quote Of The Week

"How many slams in an old screen door? Depends how loud you shut it. How many slices in a bread? Depends how thin you cut it. How much good inside a day? Depends how good you live 'em. How much love inside a friend? Depends how much you give 'em."

The Parting Glass

"The most important thing to remember about drunks is that drunks are far more intelligent than non-drunks. They spend a lot of time talking in pubs, unlike workaholics who concentrate on their careers and ambitions, who never develop their higher spiritual values, who never explore the insides of their head like a drunk does."

Streams Of Whiskey

Fare thee well to an Upper West Side institution

(Family owned and operated for 70 years)

Photograph by Lee Greenfeld © 2013