Leica M, 50mm Summilux Asph.
Archive for November, 2013
In The Winter, You Find Beauty Where You Can
Posted in Uncategorized with tags 50mm Summilux Asph, Leica M on November 30, 2013 by johnbuckley100Tulip Frenzy 2013 Top Ten List ™ Shortlist Announced
Posted in Music with tags Capsula, Crocodiles, David Bowie, Deathfix, First Communion Afterparty, Houndstooth, Kelley Stoltz, Kevin Morby, Kurt Vile, Magic Trick, Mikal Cronin, Neko Case, Parquet Courts, Phosphorescent, Robyn Hitchcock, Secret Colours, Thee Oh Sees, Tulip Frenzy Top Ten List, Wire on November 30, 2013 by johnbuckley100So we promised Magic Trick that we would wait for River Of Souls, out Tuesday, before locking the ballot box on the Tulip Frenzy 2013 Top Ten List ™. We will save them a spot on the shortlist, okay? Below, in NO PARTICULAR ORDER are the bands in consideration.
At Tulip Frenzy World HQ, the horse trading, lobbying, and outright bribery are in full force. We’ve cast a sideways glance at our competitors, and let us just say that this was one of the rare years in which we did not automatically scoff at the Uncut Top 50 list, and they did settle one thing for us: yes, the Parquet Courts album is to be considered this year, even though it actually was released last November. But no one listened to it until January 1, when we were all suddenly forced to grapple with a) 2013, and b) the Parquet Courts’ greatness. But mbv as the Album of The Year? Please, nice to have Kevin Shields back but it’s not really that good. Still, could have been worse.
We should note that we are NOT considering the Bob Dylan 1969 Isle of Wight release, even though it finally came out this year, and even though it is simply amazing. Why is it ruled out by the judges? Because we don’t think that’s right to knock a band in their prime out of consideration just because another incredible album fought its way out of the Dylan archives. But here’s a pretty great set of bands/artists who will be considered:
Houndstooth
David Bowie
Kurt Vile
Phosphorescent
Crocodiles
Robyn Hitchcock
Parquet Courts
Thee Oh Sees
Kelley Stoltz
Magic Trick
Neko Case
Capsula
Deathfix
Secret Colours
Kevin Morby
Wire
First Communion Afterparty
Mikal Cronin
In consideration: 18 artists. It’s going to be a long few days of wrangling in these here parts. Stay tuned.
On How We Anthropomorphize The Silliest Things
Posted in Uncategorized with tags 50mm Summilux Asph, Leica M on November 29, 2013 by johnbuckley100Richard Hell Is A Stand-Up Guy
Posted in Music with tags "I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp, "Spurts", Dim Stars, Richard Hell, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Television on November 29, 2013 by johnbuckley100So funny, we’d been thinking this morning how unhappy we are not to be in Brooklyn tonight to see Television play at Rough Trade. And then we got this email…
For a long time, we’ve loved listening to Richard Hell’s music, particularly the two albums he recorded with the Voidoids — Blank Generation and the original Destiny Street. But since the ’90s, we’ve also enjoyed reading his fiction (Go Now), and then his excellent memoir, I Dreamed I Was A Very Clean Tramp, which we absolutely adored.
Today, Richard contacted us out of the blue to let us know that he had just re-issued his compilation SPURTS AKA The Richard Hell Story because… well, we’ll let him tell it:
After Saul Leiter
Posted in Uncategorized with tags 50mm Summilux Asph, Leica M, Saul Leiter on November 28, 2013 by johnbuckley100Leica M, 50mm Summilux Asph.
We loved the way Saul Leiter a) shot almost all of his best images in portrait aspect, b) used the frost on windows as something to focus on while the world took shape outside. We thought of Saul this morning, on a cold beautiful day. He was a master, and an inspiration.
The New York Times obit this morning was quite wonderful. R.I.P., Saul Leiter.
This Russian Is Not Pleased A Long Weekend’s Coming
Posted in Uncategorized with tags 35mm Summilux Asph FLE, Leica M (typ.240) on November 26, 2013 by johnbuckley100Kevin Morby’s Got His Own Album To Do
Posted in Music with tags "Harlem River", Kevin Morby, The Babies, Woods on November 26, 2013 by johnbuckley100The Harlem River is not the Big Muddy, it’s not the Colorado, it’s not the Snake. By the standards of American waterways it’s something of an afterthought, better known for the highway that runs along it than its noble role separating Manhattan from the Bronx. Let’s put it this way: to most people, its most important aspect is that without it, Manhattan would not be an island. It’s a curious body of water to lend its name to an album as pretty as Kevin Morby’s Harlem River, promising something as pure as the Allagash, though we assure you, you wouldn’t want to drink from it.
But drink deep of this lovely, quiet, sometimes mesmerizing album. The title track is haunting, and would easily be a hit in that perfect world that so honors nine-minute songs. “Miles, Miles, Miles” is a piece of Americana stolen from the after-hours of the Blonde On Blonde sessions. It doesn’t take Cate LeBon to make “Slow Train” that perfect song for a Saturday morning when it rains outside, but it helps.
Morby has a nice voice, and we already knew he was a stellar musician from his work fronting The Babies and playing bass in Woods. The Babies — with their Pixies antecedents and their Brooklyn barroom roots — are not an obvious reference point for a quiet, soulful album like this. So it’s like Woods, right? Uh uh, for whereas the brilliance of that brilliant band is projected like a Titan rocket by the strength of Jeremy Earl’s voice, nothing Kevin Morby does is meant to announce itself. He’s just made a lovely, quiet album we’ll be playing on those rainy Saturdays, on those long car rides, for a long time to come.
Like Ron Wood before him, long, long ago, Morby’s got his own album to do, and we’re glad he did it.
For A Moment Last Night At DC’s Black Cat, Capsula Were The Greatest Rock’n’Roll Band In The World
Posted in Music with tags "Solar Secrets", Black Cat, Capsula, DC on November 24, 2013 by johnbuckley100All lifelong aficionados of real rock’n’roll have essentially the same fantasy, which is to see their favorite band play ten feet away. Some burly mothers regularly achieve this by muscling their way to the front of the crowd and staying there for an hour before the show starts. Others — including the team at Tulip Frenzy – like a little breathing room, a little distance. Unless circumstances allow us to get real close without bother. Last night, alas, the Nation’s Capital did not show up in force to see Capsula open for Brazilian legends Os Mutantes. But you sure couldn’t have told that from the way Capsula played. And so we stood there, maybe five feet away, while they put on one of the best shows we’ve seen in the modern epoch.
Capsula, for those who don’t know — and if you don’t, we pity you — are the finest punk rock band to ever emerge from South America, though for the past 13 years they’ve used Bilbao as their locus for world domination. It’s been paying off, too, as Solar Secrets, their recent album produced by Tony Visconti — fresh from his handling the chores for David Bowie’s The Next Day — has been topping Alternative charts in Europe. They may be the hardest working band in rock’n’roll these days. Based on the commitment they showed last night, wherein Martin Guevara and Coni Duchess bounced off one another, and then the ceiling, like those ping pong balls about to be plucked for the Powerball lottery, they may, at moments, also be the single best live band working today. The drummer — was that Ignacio Villarejo or someone else? — was like a locomotive, minus the smoke, and even when Guevara and Duchess were doing synchronized back flips, the musicianship would have made the Berlin Philharmonic seem like amateurs.
Longtime fans of Tulip Frenzy know we’ve been wild for Capsula for years and years. Ever since hearing 2006’s Songs & Circuits, we’ve viewed them as some magical combo of the Cramps, the Stooges, and the best ’70s radio pop. We can’t put it better than… we already have: “Capsula is a throwback to an era of punk rock that may not ever have existed, a remnant of a Platonic world where all songs are played fast, where the drummer keeps an animalistic beat for hours on end, a place where the pogoing guitarist can fill the stage and stage the fills with melody and soul as the girl bassist with the bunny ears rocks harder than Izzy Stradlin. When Songs & Circuits came out five years ago, we could scarcely believe our luck, pinched ourselves to find a modern punk band that played fast and offered steaming parilla of smoking riffs and still poured on melody like it was hot sauce.”
We still feel that way, even as we would rank Solar Secrets a half-notch below both Songs & Circuits and 2011’s In The Land Of The Silver Souls. The set list last night was long on new material like “Constellation Freedom,” and a cover of Bowie’s “Moonage Daydream,” which they played on their Ziggy Stardust homage, with a dip back into the catalogue with songs like “Communication,” their update of the Stooges’ “Penetration.”
At one point, Guevara hung his guitar from the ceiling and then wrapped his mike around a pipe, singing into it while it dangled above him. Although on record, they can be very smart classicists, in their first-ever DC concert they showed themselves to be the kind of hams that the Fleshtones can be, willing to do virtually anything to extend that rock’n’roll moment one minute longer, to turn the dials to 11. There should have have been 1000 people there, not a couple of hundred, but here’s the essential thing to know about Capsula: the set they would have played for that larger crowd wouldn’t have been any different than what they did for us last night.
Orchids Make The Girl Happy
Posted in Uncategorized with tags 50mm Noctilux 0.95, Leica Monochrom on November 22, 2013 by johnbuckley100We’ve Been Streaming Kevin Morby’s “Harlem River,” And What A Treat It Is
Posted in Music with tags "Harlem River", Kevin Morby, The Babies, Woods on November 22, 2013 by johnbuckley100If you like the music Kevin Morby makes with the Babies, where he sings and plays guitar, and wonder what it might be like were he to go into the studio with, oh, the musicians who recorded Blonde on Blonde, then a treat awaits you Tuesday, when Harlem River is released on Woodsist. And of course it’s on Woodsist since Morby’s day job is playing bass for Woods.
Can’t wait til Tuesday to listen? You can stream the whole thing from Pitchfork, bless their little souls, right here.
More next week.