Hey there,

It's been a while. Computer has been on the fritz - it's back up 'n' happenin' again - and I've had a busy Easter weekend. Actually, it's been the weirdest fuggin' Easter weekend on record. Let me put it this way: if you're planning to spend a Saturday night in the middle of nowhere, or in an old butter factory-turned-art gallery out in the hills three-and-a-half hours drive from Melbourne, to catch up w/ a friend of your wife, make sure their psychotic/bipolar/asshole boyfriend (the one you were under the impression said friend had broken up w/ and was out of the picture) isn't going to be hanging around the whole time. He was. I feel like I've just spent a weekend w/ Norman Bates/Martin Bryant/Travis Bickle and Ted Bundy all rolled into one. Chilling... but this isn't the forum to go into it. I still feel rattled. One day I'll look back and laugh, but not yet.

In the meantime...

US folkie Marissa Nadler is touring here next month, courtesy of my buddy Dan. I just got my hands on her new-ish (actually, is it a not-no-new recording licensed from Eclipse?) CD on Unstable Ape and it's a beautiful thing. If you come from the land Down Under, you would be a lazy asshole to miss her glorious pipes in the flesh when she plays here.

Dr. Jim over at... Dr. Jim has just released the new CD - actually, the debut CD - from Morpho, a new project featuring local Renaissance Man wiz, Dave Brown and visual artist extraordinaire, David Wadelton. It's the best thing I've heard in a looong time, or at least since that other release a few weeks back which blew me away (was it Roscoe Holcomb? Don Cherry?), and the fact that it was released by a good friend and contains the talent of another good friend means zip. It's a scientific fact. A fake soundtrack of sorts, it must rate as the most accessible slab of sound Brown has leant his name to since the heady, rock 'n' roll days of Dumb & the Ugly. The liner notes mention the likes of John Barry, Dennis Wilson, Goblin, Can, Neu!, Carl Stalling and Booker T. & the MGs. That's a good starting point and reference list for you. Upon hearing this, you will be shocked. Listening to this pisses me off for two reasons: A) I didn't release it; B) being on Dr. Jim's, a fairly low-key label from ol' Melbourne town, and not, say, Tzadik or whoever, you may never get to hear this. Please, don't let hopeless obscurity become of this fine release.

Lexicon Devil has just reissued the absolute last of the F/i rarities, 1989's Paradise Out Here, originally released in a vinyl-only pressing of 300 back in 1989. I think it easily competes w/ 1987's jaw-dropping Why Not Now?... Alan! LP from 1987 as perhaps their finest recorded moment. Swish new packaging, two previously unreleased bonus tracks, please enquire at a record barn near you.

I'll make a concerted effort to write something for real this week, but in the meantime, here is my space-filling Top 10 for the next 15 minutes. Ciao.

1) ROSCOE HOLCOMB - The High Lonesome Sound CD
2) HASIL ADKINS - Out To Hunch CD
3) BRIAN ENO - Before And After Science LP
4) OS MUTANTES - Everything Is Possible CD
5) LEVIATHAN - Tentacles Of Whorror CD
6) CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL - Green River LP
7) GRIFTERS - One Sock Missing LP
8) DON CHERRY - Orient 2LP (really, still)
9) CABARET VOLTAIRE - The Voice Of America CD
10) TRUMAN CAPOTE - Handcarved Coffins (watching Capote last night made me dig out this oft-read gem for yet another quick read. Capote claimed it to be a true story; you be the judge of that. It's easily the creepiest story he ever wrote, even more so than the brilliant In Cold Blood: THE GREATEST BOOK EVER WRITTEN! If you've never read Handcarved Coffins, I can only plead and beg...)