Before I pass away

Sale histoire, chantée Jeudi soir dernier au Café de la Danse, par les délicieux Married Monk.

We met in a bar
Nothing special so far
Until the moment they suggested a drive to the coast
Minutes later we hit the road
The guy who was driving was fat and dressed in black
And all of a sudden he blew his top
When I told him he was driving too fast
I kept quiet for a while
Then I said
"I know of a dive further west
Let's go and I pay my round"
But no answer was to be heard
And then they stopped the car
Got me out without a word
Got me to undress
Laid me down on the sand and pissed all over my body
Insulting me the hardest way
I seemed to be attracting them the very same way
Blood attracts sharks and pitbull terriers

Boys you've been after me
Yes you've been chasing me
And now you've captured me
What a pleasure it must be
But before you stab your prey
Before I pass away
Be sure that I lived for this
And this is my gift

"We're gonna make you eat your balls
We're gonna get rid of you
So shove your bloody dignity aside
And prepare yourself for dying like a dog"
One barked
So I had a thought for my family
Remembered my first lover
Understood I'd never see the sun setting on this Roman Beach
And felt the cold blade of a flick-knife
Penetrating me

Boys you've been after me
Yes you've been chasing me
And now you've captured me
What a pleasure it must be
But before you stab your prey
Before I pass away
Be sure that I lived for this
And this is my gift

the Married Monk - Roma amor

R/O/C/K/Y (Ici d'ailleurs, 2001)

The violent throes of depression

Cat Power, de retour début octobre avec un dixième album, en interview dans le New York Times

When Chan Marshall, the singer and songwriter best known as Cat Power, got pregnant in 2014, she considered drastically changing her life. For nearly a quarter of a century she had made the road her home, fighting the never-ending war of a career as an independent musician, exposing her emotional turmoil, night after night, for supportive but demanding audiences.

Suddenly, she was having a child, and it felt like winning the lottery. “I’ll just go to Australia and I’ll start over,” she thought. “Who doesn’t want a simple life?” She even found a whiskey bar there, more than 10,000 miles away, that agreed to hire her as a bartender.

That vision of quiet isolation and anonymity mirrored one she’d had as a younger person in the violent throes of depression: moving to a tiny desert town, changing her name to Beth, wearing dresses, having short hair. She had dreamed of eight children — four biological and four adopted — plus animals and a garden. At her lowest, “that was my little switch,” she said, “my fantasy.”

Cat Power Has a Lot to Be Proud Of. Now She Knows That.

(Joe Coscarelli, in the New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/arts/music/cat-power-wanderer.html

Chan et son fils, sur la pochette du single "Wanderer"

Gre

Petit hommage à mes années grenobloises via ce dessin de Lewis Trondheim. On y voit les oeufs qui montent à la Bastille... et les berges d'Isère (que l'on arpente finalement très rarement)

Lewis Trondheim, Tout est à sa place dans ce chaos exponentiel (2018)

Des choses sans intérêt

Pete a l'estomac barbouillé, toujours. Il remarque la bouteille de bière qui sert de bougeoir au milieu de la table et il explore la cire fondue, passe le doigt sur les coulures. Il a besoin d'un bon moment pour récupérer chaque fois qu'il sort de l'agence pour l'emploi. Cet endroit lui donne envie de cracher, hurler, de tuer quelqu'un. Il allonge les jambes sous la table, se connecte à Facebook sur son téléphone. Facebook lui raconte des choses sans intérêt sur des gens qu'il ne côtoie plus depuis des années. Il absorbe leurs théories belliqueuses et leur discours de haine politisée. Il repère une photo de son ex à un pique-nique avec son nouveau mec, tout sourires, et se rend compte, en basculant dans une incompréhensible spirale de néant, qu'elle est enceinte, qu'elle porte à l'annulaire une bague de fiançailles. Il y a des likes en rafale. Pete s'inflige chaque commentaire avant de reposer son téléphone.

Kate Tempest, Écoute la ville tomber (2016)

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Kate Tempest, dont je parlais précédemment pour sa musique, et qui écrit également poésies et romans.

Album Cover of the Week

Pat Van Dyke - Hello, Summer (Stereo Vision, 2018)

dDamage corporel

RIP Fred Hanak, journaliste, grand amateur de hip-hop, et surtout - pour moi - moitié de dDamage.

dDamage, ça me rappelle ma découverte en 2002 des labels parisiens Tsunami Addiction / Active Suspension / Clapping Music. J'avais rencontré son frère Jean-Baptiste (seconde moitié de dDamage) quelques années plus tard à Radio Campus Paris, via EDH.

Par ses featurings, l'album "Shimmy Shimmy Blade" était à la croisée de pas mal d'artistes que j'écoute (notamment MF Doom et Dose One, à retrouver dans les extraits ci-dessous). Bref, c'est une fraction de mon histoire musicale qui s'en va.

Un nouvel album de dDamage semblait devoir paraître prochainement.