2008 has been big year for JustSayinIsAll.com... In addition to keeping the art and music flowing online, below are THE TOP 20 shows JustSayin brought to Madison over the past year. Do any stick out to you? 1) 9/19: Dan Deacon, Leslie & The Lys, Monotonix, High Places ( mp3 ) [ review ]: One of most dynamic bills I've ever seen... Hairy Israleis rocking on top of the crowd, the debut of a new stunt by Leslie Hall, and the choreographed [...]
David-Ivar Herman Dune - Sans titre (2008) Research shows that the most accurate judgment of yourself comes from someone you've known between one and three years. This length of time allows the person to know you long enough to get past first impressions, but not so long as to begin to generalize favorably (Eichinger 24). Herman Dune - Someone Knows Better Than Me [...]
Richard Renaldi - Ilene and Loria [from " Touching Strangers "] (2007) You touch her shoulder. It's cold butter wrapped in wool. She touches yours and thinks the same. If you look closely at Richard Renaldi's photographs, you'll notice the discomfort. These are strangers who are prompted on the street to touch each other and then look into the camera. Some lay their hands like a blessing. Some extend a straight arm to [...]
Sarah Maple - Branch Cock Heavy black bangs attempt to lay over her eyes, as if to quiet their bounce on an otherwise pale Chicago face. Her neck is slightly tilted to focus on ripping the corner of a small paper envelope of watermelon seeds. She arranges them one by one with an extended finger into the outline of a bloated watermelon on the wooden table, then puts the envelope in the middle of the circle and pulls confidently on her sleeves to cover her gentle fists. She [...]
Rob Hornstra - from "Roots Of The Runtur" (2005) Cassettes Won't Listen - Freeze and Explode (mp3): This track is as cold as the slick on the sidewalk. The words are as plain as translucents and whites. The chorus tapers and repeats like the drifts. The hope is rigid and melts like lonely delusions. And tonight when I lick it, it sticks to my tongue as [...]
Jeff Soto - False Revolutionary (2006) His mind was in his big toe all day. Overextended and aching. From walking to work faster than he could walk. To escape the cold chasing the tips of his ears. There is a dull feeling that pounding the pavement is what will always be needed to get anywhere. Friendly Fires - [...]
Jirapat Tasanasomboon - Our Prayers Are Answered (2006) Jirapat is a Thai artists who visually introduces his contemporary American heroes (including Spiderman Marilyn Monroe and John Wayne) to traditional Thai heroes. Often the sites of their interaction are also iconic in nature - within classical and contemporary paintings. They speak of likeness and difference of human ideals ideals over history and of the strange dinner party that is our increasingly global culture. [...]
Kent Henricksen - Devious Delight (2008) Lil' Wayne - Dr. Carter (mp3): For those of you who regularly follow this project, you'll remember that my Dad turned me on to Lil' Wayne around this time last year. In this track from " Tha Carter III ", Dwayne scratches his voice like a skipping vintage record over a freeform jazz riff to tweeze Macy Gray out of Louis Armstrong. Practically acapella, his voice [...]
Alec Soth - First Baptist Church, Bemigji, Minnesota [from The Last Days of W ] To give life you must take life, and as our grief falls flat and hollow upon the billion-blooded sea I pass upon serious inward-breaking shoals rimmed with white-legged, white-bellied rotting creatures lengthily dead and rioting against surrounding scenes. Dear child, I only did to you what the sparrow did to you; I am old when it is fashionable to be young; I cry when it is fashionable to laugh. [...]
Vidya Kamat -Birthmark Series (2007) Labeled by the pattern of time and place. Vidya calls them "cultural memories" that become embedded in your flesh and mark your being in a context. This one, from Mumbai, is hidden on the tongue. It swims in saliva with the foods grown from the land of place, grown and stretched over years of spoken truths and untruths. On the roof, it sounds like a " d " or a " t ". [...]
Katsutoshi Yuasa - I Can See Nothing Without Glasses (2005) Today is a third photocopy in a week, what do you think? Another sunrise, wind, trees, walking, mail, sunset, dark. I can see nothing unique without my glasses. Less with snow. Even less without leaving the room. Jonni Greth & The Drones - Chariots Of Birmingham (mp3)
Scott Listfield - Men's Room (2008) English compresses and cracks his voice like the flu. He pours sluggish out of his spacecraft, pulls his helmet back like mud, and suffocates on our words. Down the metal ladder rungs and onto a varicose slab of concrete next to a Pizza Hut, each step a heavy, dazed plod. He sings and there is silence at the end of each syllable. A chainlink fence to separate each consonant, an empty parking lot between vowels. [...]
Thomas Eisner - Herbaceous 5 (2006) Odetta - Another Man Done Gone (mp3): With a last clap, Odetta sings deep forever of the struggle and the loss. Another done gone.
I usually don't post live reviews. But you missed a hidden gem buried below the snow and cold last night, just passed midnight, on a Monday. Randy Chabot, a pale young Michigan man of average height and scruffy black hair, jumped on stage at The Frequency and opened his bag of goodies. First a white plastic Tiger from Target where his bassist was stuck working Black Thursday weekend, then a Poltergeist DVD, then glow sticks for everyone, and then one of the most honest and energetic DIY sets I've seen in Madison. Under the playful name [...]
Maureen Keaveny - Image from " The Setting Sun " (2007) These are squeals of a light bulb swinging two feet above the slick glass of a copy machine's open jaws. The bulb is raised by your claps and lowered by your silence. The shadows grow and shrink with your lack of commitment to enthusiasm. While the line of best fit sags, it's the jagged indecision in your voice that makes the music suspenseful. Are you a machine? Surely you are. So is the sunset. [...]
Andrea Diefenbach - Untitled (2006) I'm sure you've noticed recently, but I'd give most anything for a piano. Maybe it's idle hands or empty rooms or too much electronic music this summer. But I feel there's something running through my veins that I can't explain until it drips out my fingers. Tapping helps me hear that I am the sound of something greater. That I am not the pianist. Also, I'm sure you've noticed that I repeat myself when I'm trying [...]
Thaweesak Srithongdee - DrPadou (2003) John sings from somewhere else. And as a compelling songwriter, you kind of have to. He visits our corner bars from somewhere far, to recall a story without performing. Of dark and shadowy nights with flickers of strange headlights and scruffy beards dipped into coats, he sings. That there are places beyond where we regularly gather weathered, places he has been. He sings like he's recalling, slow and building, hesitant and compassionate. There are warm blankets everywhere, you should come, he sings. [...]
William Lamson - No. 23 (2006) According to William Lamson , " the pursuit of flight, no matter how flawed or hopeless the attempt, places the amateur in the heroic position of trying to transcend his place on earth ". And with Deastro's release "Keeper's", Randy Chabot has made a powerful Midwestern launch towards lower orbit in a vessel crafted with Detroit cardboard, plastic synth remnants, and glittery optimism. [...]
James Esber - Luger (2008) She had that kick of winter in her voice. A black vest pulled together with a fist and a sneer. She would greet confusion with "Shut up", but expect a response. She was unimpressed and bored. And here, inside, she had plans for morality that could only be compromised by her competitive ambition to achieve them. Her unborn children would wash the streets clean at night in dreams with soap and spinning bristles. Usually in slow motion. Here, inside, she [...]
Nadja Bournonville - To Arrive Somewhere Different (2007) You can hear the felt. Socks scurrying across a drafty wooden cooridor. A pause at the base of the stairs. The intention is the percussion between seconds. You can hear the space for miles. Goldmund - Gifts (mp3)
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