By Brian Casabella, via Ardent Studios.
Alternate Side
Contact: alternatesideblog
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Someone at the New York Times must like Mink DeVille. Sadly, Willy DeVille died yesterday. Surprisingly for an artist with a following that can only be described as devotedly cultlike (at least in the US), the Times’ obituary today was prompt and thorough. Thorough, that is, with the exception of this unelaborated sentence: “Mr. DeVille’s first two wives died.” (If this piques your morbid curiosity, go here or here.) Although I was too busy being a college radio music snob to pay attention to Thriller or the soundtrack to The Breakfast Club at the time, I was listening to Mink DeVille even in high school. I didn’t know at that age that Willy DeVille was channeling Arthur Alexander or Ben E. King or John Hammond, Jr. I just liked the songs. Incidentally, when my mother saw the album cover to Coup de Grace, she almost confiscated the record because she said he looked like a pimp. I wisely refrained from explaining to her that that was the whole point.
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Mink DeVille, Love & Emotion, from the album Coup de Grace (1981).
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Mink DeVille, Just to Walk That Little Girl Home, from the album Le Chat Bleu (1980).
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Mink DeVille, You Better Move On, from the album Coup de Grace (1981).
“Rage, rage against the dying of the light”
I adore the sheer bloody strength of the feeling of this entry.
“The thought came over me: am I to spend all the best part of my life in this wretched bondage, forcibly suppressing my rage at the idleness, the apathy and the hyperbolic and most asinine stupidity of these fat headed oafs and on compulsion assuming an air of kindness, patience and assiduity? Must I from day to day sit chained to this chair prisoned within these four bare walls, while the glorious summer suns are burning in heaven and the year is revolving in its richest glow and declaring at the close of every summer day the time I am losing will never come again?” (From the journals of Charlotte Bronte)
Along came a spider
Many cultures’ mythologies include trickster gods, spirits or creatures. Coyote, raven, fox… African and Afro-Caribbean folklore has Anansi, the spider trickster. Suffering from Sunday-night insomnia that occurs all too frequently, around 3 a.m. last night I finished reading Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys. In the book a rather unremarkable fellow takes the fatal step of speaking to a spider, and the spider seriously messes with his reality and screws up his life (at least for a while). So I put the book down, got up, and beheld perhaps the longest-legged daddy-long-legs I have ever seen. I promptly twittered Neil Gaiman (not that I know him personally; he’s just on twitter a lot) and asked him if I should speak to the spider. Neil Gaiman replied that I should do so only if I was prepared to deal with any and all consequences. To be continued…
The Low Miffs with Malcolm Ross, The Man Who Took on Love (and Won), from the album Malcolm Ross and the Low Miffs (2009).
There’s something so outrageously over-the-top about this video that I love watching it. The singer strikes such dramatic attitudes! There are too many guitars! But the guitars are so pretty, and Malcolm Ross (the old guy — heh, he’s probably my age) is looking handsome in a perfect not-too-handsome sort of way. It’s one of those rare things that totally cracks me up but still manages to be quite good.
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Islands, I Feel Evil (Creeping In), from the album Arm’s Way (2008).
If you’re looking for me…
…I’ll be down the shore — which no self-respecting person from coastal New Jersey would ever call it. Whatevs, I’ll very soon be barrelling southbound down the New Jersey Turnpike and the Garden State Parkway. On an overcast day such as this, Sandy Hook and Sea Bright will probably look every bit as inviting as Brighton does in this Comet Gain video. At least I’ll beat the summer crowds and be able to get on the beach for free.
Comet Gain, Fists in the Pocket (2005).
Hello. Thank you for visiting Alternate Side.
Alternate Side is temporarily suspended while management undergoes a restructuring.
Alternate Side will be back soon.
Sincerely,
The Secretary
Drip, Drop, Drip, Drop…
Last week when I posted The Bicycle Thief’s Rainin’ (4am), I promised to post the Irma Thomas song that seems to have inspired that track. Thomas is known as the Soul Queen of New Orleans. It’s Raining is an Allen Toussaint composition that seems to unite 1950s doo-wop and 1960s r&b.
