The Mars Volta - Asilos Magdalena

Enfermo llegue
Y para componerme ando de vago
No me des tu obedencia
Porque te enseno mi cuerpo de lodo
De donde la piel estuvo debil
Con una hambre que no me deje cantar

En mi vida
El oscuro me mantiene
Cuando yo te vi
En la lluvia me prometistes tu sangre
Yo no me quedo en mi vida

El oscuro me mantiene
Cuando yo te vi
En la lluvia me prometistes tu sangre
Yo no me quedo ...

Ya que caistes de este mundo
Cargo la navaja, Dios mio, para ti
Cuantas veces me mordistes
Y cuantas veces yo me fui
Ya no estoy enamorado
Con tus mentiras
El infierno me duermo
Porque el infierno es la unica verdad
En mi vida

El oscuro me mantiene
Cuando yo te vi
En la lluvia me prometistes tu sangre
Yo no me quedo en mi vida
El oscuro me mantiene
Cuando yo te vi
En la lluvia me prometistes tu sangre
Yo no me quedo ...

Estrella de la manana
Samael, te persigo a ti
Y si me quedo sin nada
Ademas me muero por ti

Estrella de la manana
Samael, te persigo a ti
Y si me quedo sin nada
Ademas me muero por ti

Estrella de la manana
Samael, te persigo a ti
Y si me quedo sin nada
Ademas me muero por ti

I arrived sick
And to feel better, I'm always in the streets
Because I showed you my body of mud
Of where the skin was weak
With a hunger that won't let me sing

In my life
The darkness maintains me
When I saw you
In the rain you promised me your blood
I don't stay in my life

The darkness maintains me
When I saw you
In the rain you promised me your blood
I don't stay ...

Now that you've fallen from this world
Carried the blade, my God, for you
How many times did you bite me?
And how many times did I leave?
I am no longer in love
With your lies
In hell I sleep
Because hell is the only truth
In my life

The darkness maintains me
When I saw you
In the rain you promised me your blood
I don't stay in my life
The darkness maintains me
When I saw you
In the rain you promised me your blood
I don't stay ...

Morning star
Samael, I follow you
And if I stay with nothing
I will die for you

HAPPY THANKGSIVING!

Okay, who needs some lulz? *raises hand* In lieu of sad content, here are some things that never fail to make me smile. ( silliness ahoy )

When I turned 30, I joked to my flatmate that I would try to get into prog, as befitting someone of my advanced age. I promptly forgot about this until recently, when I realised that the 'prog' label attributed to The Mars Volta was somewhat apt, and now that I'm a grown up with my own friends and keys and credit cards, I can enjoy whatever genres of music I like and mix them all up into a big haggis of influences and tastes.

At first I was going to compare The Mars Volta's De-loused in the Comatrorium and Rush's 2112 - both are concept albums inspired by poisonous substances ('De-loused': morphine & rat poison, '2112': the philosophy of Ayn Rand), but upon reflection, thought Frances the Mute was a better match with Fly By Night (an Xmas present given to me after I'd looked up Rush on Wikipedia to find out 'the song' and 'the other song' and remarked with hilarity on the bonkers OTT song titles). In addition to song titles in outline form, both albums' concepts are played out in a mixture of first and third person narrative in a fairly non-linear fashion and feature traditional prog solos of the drum and guitar variety, and both feature men singing in falsetto.

At this point, I thought: hang on, there's no reason why I shouldn't really like Rush! However, I've always avoided them, being one of those bands that people who annoyed me in highschool liked, and therefore were struck forevermore from the 'to give a chance' category. No more! I will attempt cast aside these prejudices and, with Hazel's help and a mind opened by Cedric Bixler Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, give Rush an actual listen.



Frances the Mute is inspired by a friend of the band's who had worked as a repo man and found a diary in the back of a car he was repossessing. The diary was written by someone trying to find their birth mother, and the names in the song titles are taken from the diary. Here's the gorgeously insane tracklisting:

1. Cyngus...Vismund Cygnus
3. L'Via L'Viaquez
4. Miranda That Ghost Just Isn't Holy Anymore

It's worth noting that the songs' movements were split into separate tracks by Universal, because at 5 songs the album would have been considered an EP and the band paid accordingly, so Cassandra Geminni (sic) was split into 8 songs, though they don't represent the 5 listed movements of the song.



Fly By Night is inspired by Ayn Rand - again - and drummer Neal Peart's experience of moving from Toronto to London.

1. Anthem
2. Best I Can
3. Beneath, Between & Behind
4. By-Tor and the Snow Dog
6. Making Memories
7. Rivendell
8. In the End

But wait, I have more things to compare before starting on the actual music! Album artwork, as we all know is key to setting the feel for Songs Of Great Import / tales of wildebeests & angels, etc. The clear winner here is Frances the Mute - both covers are creepy, but where Rush's stern faced blue owl / lionpawed thing reminds me of Sam the Eagle, The Mars Volta's textless photo of old timey cars driven by what looks like besuited kidnap victims is just...cree-pee.

Fly By Night's back cover is a list of the tracks (By-tor is sans full outline title) plus awesome vaseline-lensed photos of the band. Here we learn that Geddy Lee is By-tor and Alex Lifeson is Snow Dog. Neil Peart isn't anyone, apparently, though his mullet probably won international hairstyling awards. FtM has all our glorious songs, plus another chilling bag-headed person, who for ages I thought was holding a gun but isn't, he just seems like he COULD be which is far scarier, yes?

Props to Rush for featuring hand-written lyrics in the liner notes plus some more lovely photos of those dreamboats and some doodles from Mr Peart. More props to the Mars Volta for more photos of that weird red-bag-headed person, plus a tentacle-rooted tree, and lyrics - which are kind of hard to read since they're in a block of text (and often misspelled / the wrong words). I liked the inclusion of the lyrics to the song 'Frances the Mute: A. In Thirteen Seconds B. Nineteen Sank, While Six Would Swim C. Five Would Grow and One Was Dead' - a beautiful song that needed to be cut to keep the album from being a thousand years long, or something (despite the same record company whining that it was only 5 songs long?)

BUT WHAT DO THEY SOUND LIKE? Check out part two, coming up at some point!

NOOO!! En! Oh! Oh! Oh! Lovely lovely Thomas Pridgen appears to have been sacked by The Mars Volta. Why, Omdric / Cedmar? POR QUEEEEEE????? :( x a million.

I was so looking forward to seeing him in his crazy-sexy Animal drumming mode, gorgeous smile and dreads flying everywhere. *Kif Kroker sigh*

Answers not guessed from last post's quiz:

6. Yeah that's right, it's time to set the record straight! Time For Livin' - Beastie Boys
14. This is not a test of the emergency broadcast system - this is the real thing! Dinosaurs Will Die - NOFX
15. So freely you curse my plans. Still Can't Find the Phone - Gene

Friends, hello! I have been busy doing things, and being only sporadically on the internet (where on the internet = reading LJ / FB and not drooling over pretties online / playing crappy Zynga games).

There have been many doin's transpiring, of the Change My Life kind. It didn't help that I didn't have my meds for a few days and the brain zaps / vertigo made it very difficult to get out of bed.

Here's that lyrics meme quiz thing, why not?

1. Good evening - I'm from Essex, in case you couldn't tell. Billericay Dickie - Ian Drury and the Blockheads, guessed by puzzled_anwen and dubdobdee
2. Cheer up, honey I know you can. Radio Cure - Wilco, guessed by glynnis
3. Late afternoon, another day is nearly done. One Great City! - The Weakerthans,guessed by huskyteer
4. Well don't you think that I'm bound to react now? Black Math - The White Stripes, guessed by glynnis
5. Maybe if I lay real still, it will go away, maybe it will. The Alternative to Love - Brendan Benson, guessed by glynnis
6. Yeah that's right, it's time to set the record straight!
7. Dig in boys, for an extended stay. Everywhere - Billy Bragg, guessed by glynnis
8. Enfermo llegué y para componerme ando de vago. Asilos Magdalena - The Mars Volta, guessed by glynnis
9. Hang your collar up inside, hang your dollar on me. artist (REM) guessed by braisedbywolves Welcome to the Occupation - REM, guessed by catsgomiaow
10. You just can't believe me when I show you what you mean to me. Confusion - New Order, guessed by katstevens
11. I came across a cache of old photos and invitations to teenage parties. Being Boring - Pet Shop Boys, guessed by barrysarll
12. She feels like a stranger has come in the night and stolen her life and left her with this. Feathers - Man Man, guessed by glynnis
13. I attack with love, pure bug beauty. Company in my Back - Wilco, guessed by glynnis
14. This is not a test of the emergency broadcast system - this is the real thing!
15. So freely you curse my plans. artist (Gene) guessed by catsgomiaow

I kind of medically require this:

http://shanalogic.com/item.php?item_id=1538

DUDES!!!!!!!!!!

Free Dead Weather gig tomorrow!

The show last night was glorious. I'm still processing it / writing it up (goddamn everything takes me so long)! but for serial, you should go. ALSO Third Man pop up shop!!!! Hooray for payday today, I am going to buy all the tat. ALL OF IT.

(thanks for sponsoring me for charioke - sorry I am behind on everything as per - emails, comments, reading LJ, etc - due to having all the work, doing stuff at night, oh also horrible chipped tooth of doom and pain and owness. It's really unsatisfying chewing food on one side of your mouth!!!)

Hello, I think many people have seen this loads of times, but it's payday and also this is MONDAY so a reminder: I will be taking part in Charioke with demiabeille, ruudboy and shewho. They gave us a target of £600 which I'm nowhere near reaching, ack! But pls to give a few pennies if you can / suggest some songs for me:

http://www.justgiving.com/Rebecca-Toennessen/

I have been requested to do Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polka Dot Bikini, and all the White Stripes songs on the playlist.

THANKING YOU!

Okay, so this morning this drunk guy came up to me as I was approaching the crosswalk, and pointed to me saying 'what's in your face? Didn't that hurt?' referring to my lip piercing. Of course it's not acceptable to just walk up to someone and challenge how they look, and sometimes I ignore it and sometimes I will call the person on it. In both cases, I always end up feeling like what I did was wrong.

If I ignore the comment, the person might continue to shout abuse at me or call me names for ignoring them. Fuck it, him - it's always men. Anyway today I decided I wasn't having that, and asked him why he thought it was okay to just walk up to someone he didn't know and pester them about their appearance. I had to wait at the crosswalk for the light to change and he approached me, getting very close. I put my hand up before he got too close (he was still standing far too close for any stranger to reasonably stand) and then got angry, shouting at him words to effect of 'what's wrong with you, to hassle someone on their appearance and then ignore their personal space needs'. I then asked him again why he thought he had the right to comment on how I looked. He then wandered past me, into traffic (the light had not changed) and started to walk away at which point I shouted at him that he was a coward for not answering my question. He turned around and shouted 'you're an arsehole!' before walking off.

I was standing next to a pension-aged black guy, and as the guy shouted 'you're an arsehole' a dude on a bike asked the black guy if it was directed to him. He shook his head no and pointed to me. 'He was angry because I told him it wasn't okay for him to hassle women on their appearance and ran off when I challenged him on it' I told him. The guy on the bike ignored me. The light changed and I crossed the street, trying not to cry.

I won't call this some kind of 'go me, point!' because IMO this was much more upsetting to me than just ignoring the guy. Calling idiots on this is one thing, but I doubt anyone is ever going to respond with 'yes that makes sense' and change their behaviour accordingly. Then again, if I had not started shouting, the guy might not have called me a name. But no matter how I play this out in my head it would have ended pretty much the same way. Maybe other people can respond to comments / wolf whistles / hissing / whatever in a strong way that makes it clear this is not acceptable but I don't think I can. Back to ignoring them.

I have good news, but I'm too superstitious to say what it be, because there's still Thing Two and Thing Three to contend with. However Thing One has been achieved.

Cross yr paws for me, foax!

Really quick one dudes, meeting all morning, training all afternoon - but I'll be looking for chums to hang with in owlcountry from 5-6:30ish as I'm going to see lovely Brendan Benson (I love him for real) with Moggy and don't need to be to Camden til 7. I'll be leaving my office for training at about 1:45ish so if you want to do something and it's past that when you read this, text me. Ta!

I was just talking to this American girl in the kitchen? And you know how sometimes People of Yank sound like everything is a question?

Do *I* sound like that?

Oh hai, I'm doing Charioke and here is my Just Giving Page:

http://www.justgiving.com/Rebecca-Toennessen/

with all details here.

I am on a team with demiabeille, ruudboy and shewho and they also have pages and will be looking for monies, so you might get a flood of these notices. :D Anyway, if you can, please donate and spread the word. I'd really appreciate it.

IFYE, it totally sounds like Tom Jones is singing 'She's got style, she's got grace, she's a wiener.'

ION my back hates me.

I was up even earlier than usual today (1am!) and after futile attempts at sleep, watched a load of old SCTV sketches on YouTube. SCTV is a classic - great writing, spot-on satire and brilliant comic timing.

The premise of the show is that you're watching a low budget Canadian TV network. Sketches that wouldn't have worked full-on can be incorporated into commercials, station idents or trailers, and things that work are scheduled into the programming. And when the joke is crappy, low-quality TV, you can save cash by filming cheaply in Edmonton and paying your writers more.

I used to watch this via Nick at Night (it ran in the early 80s so a bit before my time) but NaN picked up 'The Best of SNL' and this, and I was introduced to lots of my favourite comedians all over again. I think SCTV was, in many ways, far superior to SNL (well, any SNL not featuring Phil Hartman).

One of my favourite duos is Eugene Levy and Joe Flaherty, and they played very well off each other with Floyd Robertson and Earl Camembert.

You don't have to know that Lloyd Robertson and Earl Cameron were well-respected CBC news anchors, but I'm sure it helped - having said that, I think these sketches are still pretty fresh / relevant. Flaherty's baffled straight man masks an embittered alcoholic, Levy's clueless, self-important gasbag a never-giving-up, never-gonna-win loser. Throw in some absurd / surreal news stories and you get something Weekend Update never quite achieved.



There wasn't any one 'star' of SCTV - all the faces here (bar maybe Andrea Martin) made it big mid to late 80s. I've always loved John Candy and his death was one of those 'death of my innocence / childhood moments' (pls not to get me started on Phil Hartman's murder). Anyway, this sketch is delightfully wrong - again, if you didn't grow up with Leave it to Beaver reruns, it might not work so well, then again imagine any cheesy 50s nuclear family sitcom and I'm sure you can appreciate Flaherty's boozehound dad, O'Hara's inanely happy mom, and Dave Thomas's asshole neighbour boy. Levy's Ward and Candy's Beaver are eerily spot on.



Being a massive Jeopardy! fan, I loved their pisstake of Alex Tree-beck. I always wondered what would happen if he finally snapped, though I'm sure after every polite 'sore-y, the answer is 'What is the Panama Canal. The.Panama.Canal', he's thinking 'you fucking moron'.

Though it's not just Levy's enraged quiz show host that makes this great - the hapless students make their few lines go a long way. I love the way Catherine O'Hara says 'The Bea-tells?'



Monster Chiller Horror Theatre featuring Count Floyd (Floyd Robertson moonlighting) showed super lame movies like Dr. Tongue's 3-D House of Stewardesses and Tip O'Neill's 3-D House of Representatives.

The commercials were great too:





Good stuff :D

Back pain waking me up at 3:30? Greeeat :/ I feel as though someone has summoned the stampede of infidel feet to dance a lewd, lascivious fandango on my spine.

1. Tired of back pain now. But I'm not peeing purple Kool-aid coloured wee, so I don't think I have a kidney infection.

2. Spider update: hoovered and Dyson emptied into the bin outside. Moggy reckoned it was dead anyway and I'm inclined to agree. It just wasn't moving!

3. Some excellent music writing about the new Akon song here. Read it! I have trouble writing about music I don't like, and this is a good example of how it can be done intelligently.

4. I have sekrit money! Email from the British Bankers' Association says: Following extensive investigations carried out on your behalf, I am pleased to advise you that HSBC Bank plc have indicated that they may have traced an account in the name of Rebecca Lyn Toennessen that you have quoted and a letter will be sent to you from the bank, within the next 28days, to validate your claim.. That's my old student account with the Midland Bank, which I was sure was in credit but an amount so insignificant that I never bothered closing it. We'll see just how insignificant! My bet is >£5.

5. I covet this bag. Also this hoodie. I hate being tempted by things I want!

6. I am the proud owner of an Icky Thump in glorious MONO, on heavyweight double vinyl. Cripes, it's already going for £££ on eBay. But it's MY RECORD mwhwhwhwha.

7. I did a Wilco playlist on Spotify.

8. Bums, I think all the Wilco tickets are gone :( That'll learn me for hemming and hawing.

9. Karaoke on Wednesday! What should I sing?

10. Bedtime very soon. No more dreams about alien invasions please.