JRussell's BlogNO!!!!

Tiding the Impossible

While I'm completing the JRussell Labor Day Trio-logy and setting the Chris Higgins legend into the eternal burn of text, I have spent a lot of time here in college bored out of my skull. I've made mixtapes, well almost. Of the three tapes I delved in to, all three have complete side A's and none of them have side B's. The first is my 'Richmond' mix that begins with the Queers "This Place Sucks" and is set to end with Pg.99 "Richmond is a hole". It was songs of comfort (Kid Dynamite, Pixies, a Mannequin song that sounds a lot like Dinosaur Jr), frantic jittery songs (that Interpol song about couches, a Mannequin song that sounds like Born Against and old Nirvana, that Black Eyes song about heading south from Baltimore) and other songs with titles and lyrics to express the bipolar departure to the alcoholic education prison instituion that is college, not to dwell on the fucker, but it was on my mind. I put the Stooge's 'Dirt' on there because I had just bought Fun House a couple weeks before I came down here and its got that kind of bassline and guitar noise that really makes a person want smoke some pot, and has a kid wandering down the halls of the honors dorm looking for a stoner to no avail. I put Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash doing 'The Girl from the North Country' because its incredibly soothing and its two bad ass motherfuckers singing a sweet love song about a girl in the North Country (fair?), definitely a southern thing I told myself, and if my impressive sideburns and new western pearl snap shirts aren't loud enough, I'm slowly becoming a grits, CCR, pick up truck, and BBQ sammich man. I had My Bloody Valentine 'Loomer' on the tape because I really associate that with the dehydrated, unshaven, lightheaded good times in Europe. Wearing clothes that hadn't been washed, hadn't showered, listening to the wavering almost organ-like feedback in the background while I watched the sun rise in Spain on the train. I left the room in the train because it was too hot in there I wasn't sleeping anyways. I remember listening to that song at like four in the morning in bed at the hostel in Barcelona after a night out at assorted bars and clubs, the last club being the most electro-popular-shiny shirt-douchebag-grind-not as in grindcore-kind of lame ass clubs. But lots of kids like that scene, but it seems way too fake for me, and they have no room for me but I don't want in anyway, I was more comfortable at the Irish Pub across the pavillion, yelling for "Whiskey in a Jar", bring the Oi! to the table, singing along to "I Fought the Law" (The Bobby Fuller Fuckin' Four!, turns out weren't actually the original writers as I had pledged, actually writen by Sonny Curtis of the Crickets, I learned this oddly enough from a Grateful Dead site, you can learn all kinds of things from Deadheads; African percussion, falafel cooking, AP US Government.) Yeah, so My Bloody Valentine, Loveless is a really comforting album all together, Isn't Anything is growing on me, especially Lose My Breath and Sueisfine. So there's actually two Lungfish songs in a row on this tape which is a mixtape faux-pas unless the whole tape is doubles of every band (Read High Fidelity and learn more mixtape rules than the movie provide, although it is an excellent film, and in my series of comfort films that I may or may not discuss, I'd rather be getting laid, but we all know that works, more blog), but that's only because I wasn't lying nearby when the track ended and it went in to the next Lungfish song, but its not actually that bad, because Lungfish is awesome, and the first track was the instrumental Necrophones then in to the catchy and happy All Night and All Day (not the Kinks, although I could go for some Kinks on this tape), but its got Daniel Higgs doing this Johnny Rotten-esque slur of of I'll be here all not long, plus you have to break the rules to make progress, gotta put the knife in the ketchup bottle so to speak. There's some filler on that tape, I put a Fucking Champs song on it, because I had taken a Champs CD after seeing a band composed of Field School students and teacher play at a part with an apparent heavy influence from the Champs, so I put them on the tape, but I kinda wish I hadn't, I love riffs and I'll check out ex-Nation of Ulysses bands, but its not doing it for me.
The next tape is a tape for my boy Willy J'Rot down in New Orleans, orginally he had asked for a carton of cigarettes because they cost too much down there, and they're cheap in here in Virginia, what with the slaves and all. He also wanted some of the Richmond staple, PBR. I was going to trade the cigarettes and cheap beer for records and a bottle of fine bourbon. I was intrigued by the the bourbon because its like "fine wine" right? Ladie's man style? I'm a boy who buys Courvoisier glasses at thrift stores every time I see em. I had a Georgia avenue funeral home glass but it shatter in my bathtub while I sipped a Slurpee in a Courvoisier glass in a hot bubble bath. We all learn the whole cold + hot = explosion! thing at some point. There's the legend of Sammy "the fork bending, sign spinner" Sklover throwing a cold rock from the river into the campfire, the stone explodes and breaks his trademark glasses. He goes on to become a "homo-flexible lesbian man" at Guilford College in the crustpunk oasis of Greensboro, NC. To find this boy's PBR, all I'd have to is walk down Cary St. and find some party where there is no doubt a 30 pack of the Blue Ribbon on someone's porch. Richmond's all about porches and PBR. But then the boy got caught up in frisbee and trumpet, so no cigarettes. So we ended up trading mixtapes, he just finished his and asked for my address, but I of course am stalled after completing side A. He had specifically requested "dirty punk like Born Against". In this current phase for me, dirty meant noisy and punk meant driven. I started the tape with Sonic Youth 'Nic Fit' which is a 59 second bouncy little fucker, noisy and fast. Then I put on the Born Against that he asked for. Put on beer-drinking, Karp-lovin', Bardcore champs, Charming Bastards' song 'Wasted Cerveza', which is what I wanted every song to sound like. Then I took a turn for the dirty and southern and stoner rock with Pentagram which is essentially the American counterpart to Black Sabbath, playing that groovy, heavy riff stuff in the early 70's, thick stoned-out pre-metal. Then I punked it out again, with Mannequin and the "long song" that we had po-go'd to at Mitchell Hall and the Warehouse Next Door and a some Bad Brains for good measure, can never have too much Bad Brains. The tape is good but I don't feel like listing the whole side A, but I like the blend of southern dirty heaviness (Eyehategod) with straight ahead stuff (old Black Flag, Slayer punk covers) with noisy punky stuff (Free Kitten, Destroyer) and I can't wait to actually finish that tape and do some bad ass layout for the cover and track listing. The third tape I'm caught up in is a tape for a girl named Kate who lives either in Maryland, Virginia, or Vermont, I'm not quite sure, but she's cool. I don't know if I've actually met her or not, but I saw her at that Queers show first night down in Richmond, or at least I think it was her based on the description (girl. daycare swindlers hoodie. check. check.) Either way, she got caught in me and Will discusiing our tape trade, so I offered to make her tape. Now from what I could tell she's in to catchy punky stuff (Ramones, Queers, Daycare Swindlers) and also like 60's, 70's stuff, the Dead, the Doors, the Beatles, so I had to keep that in mind, while expanding the musical horizon, but she seems mellow, often her online icon is a cartoon mushroom, other times its that pale bitch Amelie, so I don't want her freaking out with some spastic Dillinger Escape Plan knee jerk, breakneck His Hero is Gone or anything. So I started her Side A with Q and Not U - 'Soft Pyramids' because its catchy, and kind of calm, and kind of a dancer and its got that whole Dischord white kid with rythym and an awesome melodica. Next track is still DC Dischord, Fugazi's 'Great Cop' which is also catchy and punky and and it builds up and its not too heavy and its got a breakdown and you can picture a crowd at Fort Reno or in front of the Washington Monument getting caught in the sway of the groove. Next track: The Clash 'City of the Dead', she mentioned liking the Clash, am I talking about Richmond being the city of the dead? Do I want to go see Shaun of the Dead? Am I telling a fucking story with this tape? Am I that kind of mixtape duder? Next track goes further back in time to the pyschedelic sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators with 'You're going to miss', better known as the first song in High Fidelity, but its a rocker and it features a pyscho-tropic jug player in the background. She mentioned liking both the Zimmer-man and the Cash-man, so I threw in 'The Girl from the North Country' because its been on my playlist a lot recently. Put in some more Lungfish while the tape was getting chilled out some, but then clapped some life back in to with Soophie Nun Squad 'Exponent' which is essentially the sound of a high school pep rally band with the drums and the clapping and the crowd shouting in unison, if it were a bunch of political-art punks from Arkansas with a resemblence to Jesus Christ Superstar. I had wanted to put an Avail song on the tape, get some positive Richmond shit on there, but I didn't, so I went right in to Black Eye's Deformative (the one heading south from Baltimore, its their best song). Then Sonic Youth Kissability, I wanted to put their Madonna cover but for some reason I didn't. I already have the second side ready, just haven't recorded it yet. I figure one night I'll stay up late drinking coffee and I'll finish it.

Out of boredom I also got caught up in a little challenge on the Viva La Vinyl to "Photoshop Pete".

My first submisison was a quickie done in paint.

But then I got a little more in to it. Check out these other submissions:

*not necessarily work safe*

Enjoy.

Pete
Pete
Pete
Pete
Trevor