Je vois tant de raisons de refuser un sens à la vie qu'il serait vain de les énumérer ; le désespoir, l'infini et la mort ne sont que les plus évidentes
C'est une inondation Noël, et c'est un éboulement. Les guirlandes sont des muscles démesurés qui s'enroulent et gonflent pour étouffer le peu qui restait de la réalité. Les lumières clignotantes rampent vers les immeubles et les escaladent pour les aveugler. Des éboulis de boules hétéroclites deviennent des giboulées de grêlons impitoyables. Les vitrines se couvrent de mille chiures d'étoiles. Des étages sans fin de fausse joie pétillante s'empilent au-dessus des rues. Il n'y a plus d'autre géographie que celle du cataclysme. Qui peut se vanter d'avoir surpris les malfaiteurs municipaux grimpés dans leurs nacelles pour accrocher toutes ces décorations terrifiques ? lorsqu'on les aperçoit il est déjà trop tard. Noël vous saute dessus comme une bête féroce. Chaque façade reçoit ses coups de griffe. Des sapins hystériques fument comme des feux d'enfer. Dans les centre-villes meurtris de sonorisations, il ne reste plus qu'à marcher courbé entre des magasins fardés de neige empoisonnée et remplis de post-humains qui se ressemblent tous parce qu'ils sont habités de la même peur qu'ils camouflent en allégresse. Un peu plus tard, à minuit, le 31 décembre, ils viendront hurler leur panique devant les télés sur les Champs-Elysées. Ce sont des jours louches où on peut rencontrer des gens perdus, qui rasent les murs, au milieu de forêts de stupidités, et les bras chargés de cadeaux avec lesquels ils espèrent apaiser la Bête. Noël est un effroi. Noël est une vieille peur mythique toujours jeune. Noël est une colère des cieux qui s'étale lourdement comme un orage de plomb.
Fred Cole of legendary Portland band Dead Moon has died . He was 69. Cole had been fighting cancer and was recently hospitalized with bleeding in his liver; he passed away last night, on November 9. The announcement was made in a Dead Moon fan group in Facebook. Cole's death follows that of Dead Moon drummer Andrew Loomis, who died in 2016. Fred Cole moved to Portland in the late '60s while on tour with...
I chose to post this Portland area obituary because over the years, as @newbombturks started touring more, I would hear tales from lucky folks up in the great northwest, specifically from around Dead Moon’s Clackamas, OR, homebase, about how great they were live; or from people in Europe, as in the early 1990s, we’d get to clubs and see posters that they had played two weeks ago or were playing next month, etc., and let out a large, collective “Fuck!” It made more sense for Dead Moon to play over there. They were the quintessential “huge in Europe” band. Their rep there was nothing less than heroes over in Europe’s government-funded youth centers or craggly rock clubs. We need not cover the whys and hows of how American bands fall in love with touring in Europe, where clubs and bookers actually believe in activities like eating food and having a place to sleep.
But then here’s the thing. As Fred, his amazing wife Toody, and that indestructible motor for the whole midnight Moon drive, Andrew Loomis, got older, they seemed to tour more. I don’t know, maybe they started to see, or at least imagine, some distant light at the end of that long, midnight road of rock’n’roll they’d traveled for so long. And like many bands lucky enough to get to tour a lot, sometimes it takes a few years to appreciate how lucky you are to be in that position, just in time to wonder if the body still can. Fred and Dead Moon answered that particular question tenfold.
Dead Moon is my favorite of all Fred’s six-string excursions, but try to track down those Rats albums! I’m remembering how – even as a died-in-the-Chuck Taylors punk fan who grew up with “DIY” as the given art-life strategy – the stories of Dead Moon pressing their own records at home on their own label just blew me away. I finally got to see Dead Moon a few times the ‘90s, and a couple more times in NYC in the last decade. I got to see Pierced Arrows on their very first tour out here too. And of course upon hearing the news yesterday, I instantly fell into that guilt-state that increases as you get older: “Fuck, I should’ve seen them that last time they came through.” I had to work or whatever fucking forgettable excuse kept me from shaking hands with Fred again.
Unlike the endless stream of admirers in my Facebook feed, I don’t have tons of stories of all-night conversations with Fred, though I had some good small ones over the years. I interviewed him for my book. And I especially remember seeing Fred and Toody to the side of the stage at the Las Vegas Shakedown fest in 2000, as we played our set, right before Dead Moon. I came down from the stage after we ended, and there was Fred to smack me on the back and say “Great show, don’t know how we’re following that!” The “Are you kidding??!!”s came flowing, and we laughed and chatted a little more as he moved his amps and such. They always did all their moving gear shit, and everything else. They were fucking amazing that night, like any other time I saw them.
Dead Moon, 2014 - Photo by Emma Browne
I could go on here forever, but it’s petty impossible to encapsulate such a unique figure as Fred Cole. While physically and spiritually staying alive to live the rock’n’roll mythos for his whole life, he liquidly moved from psych-garage to graveyard proto-metal to trash punk to a grandaddy of neo-garage rock, all sounding eerily united like, well, no other single figure I can think of. It’s a testament alone to just stick around for that long, so invested, inspired, and inspiring. But unlike many similar lifers you could recall, Cole never twisted into his experimentations because of trend-hopping or a last-ditch shot at figuring out “what the kids liked.” Fred’s only directive seemed to be creating with his equally-inspiring wife and playing that stripped guitar until he couldn’t, glowing from dank stage after stage like the hazy glow of street lights on that long nighttime highway his bands drove down. May the last light burn with even half the intensity of a Dead Moon show.
J'ai pu clairement percevoir le mécanisme de ma constante oscillation entre dégoût et nostalgie : se détester soi-même jusqu’à vouloir presque mourir (tout en tremblant devant le moindre geste de menace esquissé par le monde extérieur), aimer ce qu’on n’a pas (même si c’est pire que ce qu’on a), vouloir toujours être ailleurs, s’attacher aux choses et aux gens dans ce qu’ils ont de plus particulier, étranger, déroutant et s’en détacher tout à coup parce qu’on méprise cet attachement qui se réduit, en fin de compte, à rien de plus qu’un certain goût du pittoresque, un attrait d’orchidée-dilettante envers ce qui est exotique, aussi bien en ce qui concerne les pays jamais vus (où l’on s’imagine qu’êtres et choses auront plus de douceur), les idées jamais pensées, que les femmes avec qui l’on n’a pas couché, soit que – avec un dédain mensonger – on ait trouvé les raisins trop verts, soit qu’on ait choisi ces supports à désir en raison même de leur inaccessibilité (ce qui coupe court à tout, excuse l’inertie, étant bien entendu qu’il n’y a rien à faire contre l’inaccessible) – et tout cela pour se masquer qu’on a peur de la vie, seule constatation qu’on essaye jusqu’au bout d’éluder, à cause de ce qu’elle a de cru et de peu exaltant.
Michel Leiris / L'âge d'homme (via mywoodenbookshelf)
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