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| RIP Queen of Disco (the refrigerator) |
Thursday, May 17, 2012
On The Radio
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Low Life anniversary show!
Thurs. Jan. 26- The Low Life w/ DJ Caterwaul anniversary show falls on its new night!
I’ve been spinning at Blackbird for a solid year now, and am getting promoted to Thursdays. I plan to go all out, with (finally!) new flyer artwork and a disturbing Mark Beyer-inked ad in the Alibi the day before. There’ll be guest DJs, free mixtapes, CDs & other random goodies at the show, and (fingers crossed) a possible Special Guest doing live video mixing projections! "Bonus points" (or some freebie) to whomever can identify both images in the new flyer by fredricksbrooke, below. Email dcaterwaul@hotmail.com if ya think ya know. I’m geeked! Come geek out with me!
“Low” as in downtown, underground, lowdown’n’dirty. Expect some deep psych, garage, roots, punk and freaky, funky rock, with plenty of curveballs in the mix. Come out, grab some grub, have a few drinks, and dig in! Now every 2nd & 4th Thursday night of the month.
@ Blackbird Buvette (509 Central NW, downtown) 9pm til close, Free, 21+
-DCat
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
ZINE REVIEW
Mirror of Mauve Arcs
by Mark Billings,
GAIT Publishing
The subtitle of this zine is "a guidebook for unlocking Earth's Unknown History" and seems to identify as a work to be filed under "Alchemy/Time travel/Meta-history/Anthropology". So already, this looks to be a pretty ambitious undertaking.
by Mark Billings,
GAIT Publishing
The subtitle of this zine is "a guidebook for unlocking Earth's Unknown History" and seems to identify as a work to be filed under "Alchemy/Time travel/Meta-history/Anthropology". So already, this looks to be a pretty ambitious undertaking.
Is it successful? I'm not sure.
I'm pretty certain that these writings aren't intended as a "how-to guide." Rather, it may be that the actual reading of them is intended to open up areas of consciousness in one's mind that allow the aforementioned nifty mystical things to happen.
But does it work? Again: I don't know.
I do know that this small zine of seemingly-connected short stories doesn't lend itself to "skimming," or half-conscious reading. I had to put some serious effort into this. The writings are divided into "partitions," and the first several read like outsider poetry; perhaps a creation myth filtered disjointedly from raw experience right into English. There's an extreme economy of syntax, some of which may be experimenting with the use of E-Prime language. There are also many things that seem like misspellings or poor grammar that actually evoke other meanings when considered carefully. New words pop up throughout ("It was in a simulgramatic form"). I thought a reference to "daaley incense" was a misspelling until I encountered other references to "daaley leaves" & such, but still never determined what it was about. Other words, like spurynayil, tendlnsc and frinaly are anyone's guess.
Later in the book, the narrative & dialogue becomes more coherent, though the connection between stories remains obscured. Perhaps that's the most important part of this work; that which is implied by its absence. The final story ends abruptly, as if the last sentence were cut off or a page were missing. And as with so much about these writings, I'm not sure if this is intentional- but I think so.
It could be a slow-burn sort of magic. I'd like to pull these writings out 20 years from now & see how they affect me then.
Reading this, I kept thinking of experiences people report from taking DMT. There's lots of lush symbolic imagery, seemingly shamanic in nature, that seems to be coming from a similar place as Castenada's Don Juan stories, though the language is far more distilled in the zine. The visual language of Jodorowsky's mystical films might also be a good comparison.
Visually, the zine itself is pretty austere. It's almost all text, of a fairly small and skinny font, which marks from dirty photocopiers can make more difficult to read. There are a few primitive drawings throughout, attempting to illustrate certain concepts in the stories. With these, it helps to keep in mind that nothing is merely decorative. The only color is two small overlapping blue & red dots placed at the center edge of each page, all of which are very unevenly cut. It made me think of a reference to 3D glasses. The only other clue I have to this is 2 lines from the zine itself:
I'm pretty certain that these writings aren't intended as a "how-to guide." Rather, it may be that the actual reading of them is intended to open up areas of consciousness in one's mind that allow the aforementioned nifty mystical things to happen.
But does it work? Again: I don't know.
 | |
| back cover |
Later in the book, the narrative & dialogue becomes more coherent, though the connection between stories remains obscured. Perhaps that's the most important part of this work; that which is implied by its absence. The final story ends abruptly, as if the last sentence were cut off or a page were missing. And as with so much about these writings, I'm not sure if this is intentional- but I think so.
It could be a slow-burn sort of magic. I'd like to pull these writings out 20 years from now & see how they affect me then.
Reading this, I kept thinking of experiences people report from taking DMT. There's lots of lush symbolic imagery, seemingly shamanic in nature, that seems to be coming from a similar place as Castenada's Don Juan stories, though the language is far more distilled in the zine. The visual language of Jodorowsky's mystical films might also be a good comparison.
Visually, the zine itself is pretty austere. It's almost all text, of a fairly small and skinny font, which marks from dirty photocopiers can make more difficult to read. There are a few primitive drawings throughout, attempting to illustrate certain concepts in the stories. With these, it helps to keep in mind that nothing is merely decorative. The only color is two small overlapping blue & red dots placed at the center edge of each page, all of which are very unevenly cut. It made me think of a reference to 3D glasses. The only other clue I have to this is 2 lines from the zine itself:"Turn this inside out. Blood is blue inside and red outside."
(under this were two triangles, one pointing up and another inversed.)
Well, that, and one other thing:
I am fortunate to actually know Mark from the various times he's lived in ABQ, organizing music events, meditation sessions & flea markets. A very gentle, friendly guy; a world traveller who also makes some great psychoactive guitar noise/drone under the moniker Yellow Crystal Star. "Dude seems like he's permanently on mushrooms" is the usual glib assessment people make, and Mark definitely seems like someone who's had a glimpse of some alien realities. Trying to communicate those experiences to people trapped in the mundane, 3-dimensional world has got to be frustrating, though. I know I've had a couple of perplexing conversations with him. I respect the hell out of any attempt to communicate something beyond Consensus Reality, though. In fact, I think it's essential for our survival as a species. I don't know if Mark's really accessing the Akashic records, or if reading this zine will give you Time Travel skills, but I'm really glad it exists. If you're interested in checking out this zine yourself, contact gaitiag@yahoo.com. Price is negotiable, trades welcome, give what you can.
As Mirror of Mauve Arcs states at the beginning: "all text is fictitious and all text is nonfictitious and all text is possible".
Well said.
-DCat
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| My copy came with a really cool sticker. |
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Polyzylons & RIP Heather Russell
It's already been two months now since Heather Russell of Kansas City passed away at a young age, due to cancer. I wanted to post this as soon as I heard about it, but my ability to be emotionally articulate in print seems to be getting more difficult all the time. So here's what you get.
I knew Heather from the Iowa City music scene in the late 90s, and particularly from Polyzylons, the band she was in with (then boyfriend, later husband) Bill Cave, another friend of mine. I never knew Natalie, the other bandmate, that well.
Polyzylons were a revelation to me. It was the first time I ever felt like I could contribute to the local music scene by turning people on to something they wouldn't otherwise pay attention to. Most of my friends were townie metalheads & wierdos, into noise rock like Pussy Galore, Chrome, and stuff on AmRep, or else far-out chaos like Caroliner & Borbetomagus. Heather, on the other hand, was responsible for turning pretty much everyone in my circle on to Stereolab. I became a fervent Polyzylons promoter, hyping their shows to everyone I knew and playing them a lot on the pirate station I was involved with (ICFR- Iowa City Free Radio). It's probably delusional, but I'd like to think that I helped them gain some momentum in IC, at least. I don't believe they ever played anywhere else.
I think Polyzylons may have gotten together due to everyone working at the local Public Access TV (PATV) station. Musically, it's just incredibly delicate, haunting stuff, seemingly outside of any time frame. It holds up for me now just as much as it did then. In fact, I had melodies from this recording stuck in my head for weeks after pulling it out of storage & hearing it again after so many years.
I burned this straight off the cassette, and may not have the right breaks for each song. In fact, there's 3 or 4 songs that definitely got lumped together in the same track because I didn't want to chance making abrupt cuts. Everything's in the .zip file, link to be found at the bottom of this post. And yes, the furry blue feather in the scan was also included in my cassette. Hope you enjoy it.
-DCat
RIP Heather
I knew Heather from the Iowa City music scene in the late 90s, and particularly from Polyzylons, the band she was in with (then boyfriend, later husband) Bill Cave, another friend of mine. I never knew Natalie, the other bandmate, that well.
Polyzylons were a revelation to me. It was the first time I ever felt like I could contribute to the local music scene by turning people on to something they wouldn't otherwise pay attention to. Most of my friends were townie metalheads & wierdos, into noise rock like Pussy Galore, Chrome, and stuff on AmRep, or else far-out chaos like Caroliner & Borbetomagus. Heather, on the other hand, was responsible for turning pretty much everyone in my circle on to Stereolab. I became a fervent Polyzylons promoter, hyping their shows to everyone I knew and playing them a lot on the pirate station I was involved with (ICFR- Iowa City Free Radio). It's probably delusional, but I'd like to think that I helped them gain some momentum in IC, at least. I don't believe they ever played anywhere else.
I think Polyzylons may have gotten together due to everyone working at the local Public Access TV (PATV) station. Musically, it's just incredibly delicate, haunting stuff, seemingly outside of any time frame. It holds up for me now just as much as it did then. In fact, I had melodies from this recording stuck in my head for weeks after pulling it out of storage & hearing it again after so many years.
I burned this straight off the cassette, and may not have the right breaks for each song. In fact, there's 3 or 4 songs that definitely got lumped together in the same track because I didn't want to chance making abrupt cuts. Everything's in the .zip file, link to be found at the bottom of this post. And yes, the furry blue feather in the scan was also included in my cassette. Hope you enjoy it.
-DCat
RIP Heather
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