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I made more updates to my website! Go check it out!!
Significant things I added:
2 new pages/tabs
some rocks on the "rocks" page to test functionality
Plans for the near future:
Set up the art gallery/test funtionality
Replace current placeholder header
Fix dates so they no longer appear 1 day off on blog posts
Add travel blog posts + pics
Page doll on home page + status
Fix the drawbox so it works again...
Life and How To Live It by R.E.M. was inspired by the story of Brev Mekis, a schizophrenic who divided his house into 2 different dwellings. Each side had completely different furniture, clothes and even pets. This is the house in Athens that Brev lived in.
From this story here, it turns out that Vic Chestnutt lived there later on.
Michael Stipe's live intro to the song went something like this:
He took his house and he built a wall right in the middle of the house. He had an apartment on one side with clothes, furniture, food, books, a radio. He had an apartment on the other side. Different clothes, different books, different furniture, different food. TV set.
He'd live on this side for a while, until he got tired of it. He'd put his book down, take his clothes off, walk over to this side and he'd live over here for a while until he got tired of it. And he'd flip-flop to this side and live over here for a while until he got tired of it, and he did this back and forth until he died. After he died, they went in to clean out the house so they could rent it out to college students. These people went back to the closet in the very back of this apartment, and they opened the door and the whole closet was filled up with these books. And each book was exactly the same, and this man had written these books, and had them all published, and all stacked his closet. He'd never sold one, or given one away. And the name of the book was Life and How to Live It.
Kudzu patch from the front cover ofMurmur,August 2012.
Original below.
Where the R.E.M. album title comes from. Fantastic fried chicken.
Athens, Georgia, August 2012.
I'll be waiting for you, on...
You can hear the song the site above describes here.
Sometimes you just stumble onto an amazing coincidence. Such is the case today. Back around... oh, 1990-'91, my good friend Neal introduced me to a British band called Kitchens of Distinction. Their 1990 album Strange Free World is a great disc, full of what I tend to refer to as guitar wash: waves of cascading guitar noise. It's similar to shoegaze music in a way, though that particular word to me tends to mean a bit more blissful and slow in tempo, which not all of KoD's songs fit into. Bands like Swervedriver, Catherine Wheel, and maybe Silversun Pickups are bands that I'd label with that "guitar wash" tag.
The above song, "Drive That Fast," is towards the end of Strange Free World, and it is a terrific song to drive to. Last weekend we were on our way home from Neckgear's sister's house, and I spied this sign on the side of the road in Clarksburg, Maryland. Had to take a photo of it:
Kitchens of Distinction as a band never made much inroads into the US, but am glad to see the name lives on in other respects. The same could likely be said for my late, lamented favorite band out of Pittsburgh, The Affordable Floors, who would've been a great second act to have on a bill with KoD.
If you'd like to hear more KoD, Strange Free World I recommend without hesitation. It's fairly easily found used, as it came out on A&M records in the US. Also of note is the compilation Capsule: the best of which is also available in a 2CD version that comes with a disc of b-sides.
