The first time I heard Dennis Parker’s “Like An Eagle”,
you think “nice bit of disco cheese” — nifty enough to get a re-edit by Todd Terje last year, and a banning from the 2006 CBS Top 100 (!). But it gets better and better…
Check out the video:
Bananas. It’s like one of the baddies in Superman II put on a bucket of fake tan and did a kilo of coke. from the YouTube comments: ‘Jesus, even the eagle is gay. This RULES.’
Now it turns out that he was a porn star to boot, under the name of Wade Nichols — ‘his first adult role was in the 1975 film Exploring Young Girls. He followed with films such as Summer of Laura, My Sex-Rated Wife, Marishino Cherries, and John Derrick’s Love You. Nichols also appeared in the 1975 adult gay film Boynapped!.’
I came down on a lightning bolt
Nine months in my Mama’s belly.
When I was born, the midwife scream and shout,
I had fire crystals coming out of my mouth.
I’m Exuma, I’m the Obeah Man
My “not going to the Picnic” plans are in ribbons. Jim Carroll reveals that Dengue Fever, only the greatest Cambodian-via-LA surf-rock band ever, will be playing.
wow. if you like your 80’s synth sounds, head over to
xxjfg and download the Roland Sebastian Faber tune, “Molecular Master” — very tasty indeed, flavours of Enola Gay with the odd Oxygene percussion noise…
And just to make some original postage here, a laid-back, Vince-Clarke-esque, teutonic synth cover of Eno’s classic:
Music has been used in American military prisons and on bases to induce sleep deprivation, “prolong capture shock,” disorient detainees during interrogations — and also drown out screams. Based on a leaked interrogation log, news reports, and the accounts of soldiers and detainees, here are some of the songs that guards and interrogators chose.
Most of the top 10 are what you’d expect from redneck teenagers sent to create hell on earth: death metal, Eminem, and Metallica — and, er, some ironic kiddie-show theme tunes. But at number 11? “Babylon”, by David Gray…
More than sixty years after the publication of Ulysses, Kate Bush was working on the follow-up to her 1985 ‘Hounds of Love’ album, which is now widely hailed as her own masterpiece. Around this time Kate had written an instrumental piece of music, a rhythmic melody that strongly suggested the cadence of Molly Bloom’s speech. Kate’s introduction to the final passage of Ulysses had been a 1958 recording of the soliloquy by the Irish actress Siobhan McKenna. Kate was transfixed by the beauty and femininity of the writing. “It’s like this never-ending sentence, this long train of thought, and the only thing that punctuates it is the word “yes” and it very gradually accelerates. I just thought it was one of the most sensual pieces ever written.” The words from the book matched perfectly to the music. “It was just like it was meant to be. The words fitted - they just fitted. The whole thing fitted, it was ridiculous…”
The music was recorded at Windmill Lane studios in Dublin, arranged by Bill Whelan. The featured players were Davey Spillane on uillean pipes, Donal Lunny on bouzuki, John Sheahan on fiddle, Charlie Morgan on drums and Del Palmer on bass. Kate’s brother Paddy would be credited on the sleeve-notes with playing ‘whips’ on the record, an error he quickly rectified. “I’m actually playing a pair of fishing rods. I wanted to get the impression of a beautiful Irish lakeland and the swishing sound of the rods should conjure the atmosphere of fly-fishing, tweed hats and long Wellingtons.”
Kate’s good cheer at this progress was short-lived however. The Joyce estate would not grant her permission to use the words directly from the book (jm: absolutely fucking typical, wankers). Attempts to change their minds continued for about a year. “We approached the relevant people and they just would not let me use them. No way. I tried everything. Obviously, I was very disappointed. It was completely their prerogative, but it was very difficult for me, then, to re-approach the song. In some ways I wanted to just leave it off the album. But we’d put a lot of work into it. The Irish musicians had worked so hard.”
Despite this frustration Kate set about completely transforming her song. “I gradually rewrote it, keeping the same rhythm of the words and the same sounds but turning it into its own story.” The piece, now titled The Sensual World, became about Molly Bloom the character stepping out of the book world, a black and white two-dimensional world, into the real world. “The immediate impression was the sensuality of this world. The fact that you can touch things, that is so sensual - the colours of trees, the feel of the grass on the feet, the touch of this in the hand, the fact that it is such a sensual world. I think for me that is an incredibly important thing about this planet, that we are surrounded by such sensuality and yet we tend not to see it like that. I’m sure for someone who had never experienced it before it would be quite a devastating thing.” Later in her career Kate returned to this theme, a euphoric appreciation of everyday experience, on her ‘Aerial’ album in 2005 to huge critical acclaim.
The song opens with the sound of church bells, perhaps echoing Leopold’s proposal to Molly on Howth Head. “I’ve got a thing about the sound of bells. It’s one of those fantastic sounds: a sound of celebration. They’re used to mark points in life; births, weddings, deaths, but they give this tremendous feeling of celebration. In the original speech Molly’s talking of the time when Leopold proposed to her, and I just had the image of bells, this image of them sitting on the hillside with the sound of bells in the distance. In hindsight I also think it’s a lovely way to start an album. A feeling of celebration that puts me on a hillside somewhere on a sunny afternoon.”
It seems a group of Kate Bush fans plan to walk along the cliffs of Howth Head in Dublin this June 14th (two days before Bloomsday): ‘A pleasant walk along the cliffs of Howth Head (”…where the water and the earth caress…”) then down into Howth village for an afternoon and evening of live music and merry-making; celebrating Kate, Molly Bloom, James Joyce - and whatever else tickles your fancy! Peaches and seedcake will be the backpack munchies of choice.’
