Davey Dreamnation

I read this book while travelling first class on a train from Stockholm to Gavle in Sweden last month but that’s another story. At seventy-odd pages, When You Bit (OTOLITHS, 2008) is a good hour’s read, if you pace yourself properly.

Here’s an interesting post by Laurie Duggan on the wall of sound, where he makes the point that the vocal track on My Bloody Valentine’s song ‘Come In Alone’ works because of the wall of sound surrounding it. While I think this is true, a closer inspection of the lyrics to these kinds of songs [...]

I picked up this chapbook last February in Sydney for AU$15 after seeing Lee Ranaldo’s band Sonic Youth perform its 1988 album, Daydream Nation, in its entirety at the Enmore Theatre. While that concert was the most electrifying experience of my gig-going career (thanks again Joey!), it makes me sad to say that this little [...]

The summer of 1981 comes like a scene change and I’m lying on my back in the middle of a montage, flat out on the concrete listening to that tape. The hot wind coming off the river is laden with moisture that beads on my upper lip, and crawls from my armpits all the way [...]

you were only ten years old when billy corgan had hair. & you
know, i can barely remember that time myself - it’s as if i was
never actually there oh but i was at selina’s in coogee where
billy corgan had lots of hair & he screamed & yodelled & shook
his mane of greasy sweaty hair (he [...]

a lot of empty places at these tables here-ah
our drummer jumped off the brighton pier (ha
count me in with the beats mark e smith (ta
dah! screw my lightbulb honey brat sonically
sophisticated buy a round of drinks-ah sorry
your services no longer etc … squizzle! boss
says “random quote generator” live at which
trials? ah (gots me gigs in [...]

over there where you’re laying down
down amongst the styrofoam cups &
album cover broken glass bra straps
honey power coming all over me me
& you with your oh fantastic english
got me high & left me there stranger
with a honey tongue warm between
the vinyl EPs wet beneath the stylus
rooms in which to shudder awake on
busy streets we mistook [...]

he bites into the apple eats the bruises
soft & brown like sugary endings (rayon
bites the bruises cuts them clean out &
spits the skin onto the crusty pavement
sucks the bruises (swallows them whole
into the apple of his insides & scratches
& bruises yes just there soft like blisters
just beneath the green skin (leaves like
green canadian flags covered [...]

(open! all hours in a million states
/ face facts we’re broken / up to
our necks in technicalities! —>
smitten! by sunny smiles & hazy
sprays / we prayed for endings /
we prayed for endings yes & for
gamma rays! poetry is relative!
at least it’s relatively cheap / so
strap yourself on don’t disappoint
me when the future leaves! —>
… we’ll [...]

read

she changed mode from mod to journo
helsinki bound on a sleigh west of NO!
bottle-blonde furies stalking XY stage
shaken three-piece tour posters blur
write
lyrics in crayon lying dead in a field
frozen shut her eyebrow raised when
she plays my ipod says NO WA(VE)Y!
like sue me helsinki! (art school’s ok
execute
showcase tiny amounts of WWII flak -
trigger spirals morph [...]

two hearts rushing into the freaky world
busted compromised lonely to be pitied -
smashed our glasses & instead went blind
no way back thrashed beaten or overcome 
& so we attacked the world & it worked -
put our divisions into place & attacked
attacked their betrayals & coded silence
coded our response to meet unmet demands
why do you do what [...]

go on uh huh hit delete nah nah
go on do it hit the button waha
hit delete hit delete make like
babyshambles pete hit yer headz
then be dead hit delete forever
pete make believe uh huh uh huh
go on & do it delete forevers &
still be clever as pete deletes
his band & his mates his arms &
go go [...]

zaboravljani hitovski/ forgotten hits
obscure releases/ cocks & tits
trophy girlfriends/ love hotels
apartment farewells/ shower scenes
warren beatty/ madonna bombs
roulette tables/ passport songs
slippery marble/ jadrolinjia
sunday evenings/ predictable buskers
where are the bands?/ where are the rebels?
life’s all ordinary/ transplant palms
little venetia/ terrible pizza
another old city/ next to the new city
slime/ bikinis on extendable clotheslines
switching languages/ bisexuality
waitresses in pineapple tops/ [...]

ira caplan’s sonic squall rips
new york’s fourth of july gulls
from the captivities of silence
like a chainsaw through a bough
of glass or chalk on yesterday’s
pavement; a soul possessed by
demons determined to explode
his body jerks with stock-market
indices richter scale on jersey’s
fretboard; blinding sounds erupt
then ribbon out dangling notes
along the blue-green themes in
a park for homeless evangelists
shredding civic [...]

bob mould’s screaming eight miles high
can you feel his sheets of pain inside yer
headphones boy take notes & duplicate
on yer long walks home through those
graveyards in yer long coat there’s that
crow he’s eating all yer dead mix-tapes
feature angry men & the odd soft-rock
stooge eg john cougar’s song scarecrow
that’s the sound of yer stadium funeral
furious bic [...]