B O N D P H O N E.
Words and pictures by Chris Lamb.

"You don't meet nice girls in coffee shops." That's it, that's what the rest of Waits' "Hold On" is built around. It's the line that wedges in my head the most, dwarfing the rest of the song to the point that it's all just window dressing. What's the Hemingway quote? "'The cat sat on the mat' is not a story, but 'The cat sat on the dog's mat' is?" Google says John Le Carre, so there you go. Trust the Google. That one line, that story that comes out it, begins the long creep of November, our long hard slog of getting shit done.

"You don't meet nice girls in coffee shops." If only that were completely true.

Tom Waits led into Luke Haines but only because I finally found a copy of Luke Haines is Dead, the three disc career spanning monster compilation slowly sneaking its way into the import isles. Haines is actually better for working, trading Waitsian lessons learned for perseverance (generally at the expense of every one else) shot through a sneer (generally at every one else.) In the zombie crush throes of level design, turning pictures on a screen into physical spaces to run around in and play with, I keep putting on disc two and starting with the second track, "Everything You Say Will Destroy You." It has an odd zen-like effect, with the crunchy guitars and rough production (most of the disc is made up of BBC sessions, alternate takes, and rare songs) blocking out the rest of world and allowing me to make the tough decisions like whether to place an explosive barrel or the regular old kind in front of the door. After a few weeks of this I've come to the conclusion that Haine's glory isn't his hatred, which there genuinely isn't a lot of, or his disgust, which he excels at. It's the separation, the very clear dividing line between him and and his subject matter. The hinge of each song is that there is You, and there is Us, and that that is all the difference in the world. And after a few weeks of songs like "Chinese Bakery" on repeat, I realize that it isn't hatred or disgust in his voice, but pity.

posted by chris  # 10:07 AM