Fujichia

your input is requested for a question at the end of this post

There's a new café / bar on my block and I have a bunch of friends who work there so I go all the time to get a single shot of espresso or a beer, sometimes both. I call it Jamie Lee's because they built it for the filming of a Jamie Lee Curtis movie, then someone else (not the movie studio) opened it up as a real bar a few months after the shooting wrapped up. It's kind of mindblowing that the Hollywood organism can just terraform a neighborhood for one (sadly not very good) movie! I'm not complaining, I love it over there. But if they're going to build something out for a movie, why couldn't they make the movie about a cute little used bookstore??? That's more up my alley. Or make it about the Washington Bridge? I mean that actually needs building, it's a wreck. Make the exact same movie but Jamie Lee lives on the bridge, which for movie reasons is now totally functional and pleasant, not in a state of life-threatening disrepair due to years of corruption and mismanagement.

Well anyway something I like over there (Jamie Lee's) is that the tunes are worker-controlled, and the workers and I are aligned with what we think might be good for the place and time. So I decided to take a page out of John C's book, and do a public listening challenge-- here's some notable audio moments from the last couple times I was there.

• Unnamed 90s Drum and Bass mix

  Went there the other day and Mickey gave me an espresso but then insisted on making me another one because it was raining and that messed up the consistency of the grind. We've all had that experience I'm sure, when the rain messes up the consistency of your grind, but this was special because it wasn't even a metaphor. Anyway both cups were honestly great, and THEN she's like wait try this and made ANOTHER ESPRESSO dropped on a few tablespoons of sweetened condensed milk. It reminded me of the first time I had a Milky Way Midnight. The playlist was 90s jungle. God that shit still sends me. Dubdubdubdub stepstepstepstep pressure pressure pressure pressure.

• Freestyle mix

  Flashback number 2: It's 1997. I'm working at the movie theatre for one miserable Autumn and one day this dude asks me suuuuuch an easy math question that we both feel embarassed afterwards. I make a note to ask him later about something that he has expertise in, so we can transform the landscape from a knowledge-based hierarchy to an open field. Well the next day we're talking music, and he tells me he likes Freestyle. I have completely no idea what that is, which makes me so happy, this is exactly what I wanted. "You mean like Freestyle Rap?" "No no, just 'Freestyle'". I said "what's that like?", expecting something like "it's a genre of electronic dance music that fuses melodic vocal styles found in disco with the synth instrumentation of electro and early hip hop". Instead he steps back, squints, looks up towards the skylight, deep breath in. "It's like... flying." Fuck dude.

• Phil Collins - In The Air Tonight

  Went in in the afternoon and there were a couple people spaced out at the bar with just a seat between them, I didn't want to crowd any individual so I sat at a small table by the window. Dude near me was drinking an iced coffee and watching a video with no earbuds, with Phil Collins audio. Come on man. Cheers to Phil Collins for pioneering gated reverb, otherwise yuck. Or anyway, not now, and not like this. I got up and squeezed in at the bar.

• Scream Audio, Alice Cooper

  They tried this thing were on Thursdays they were showing movies, which is nice, but I don't want to watch a movie, I just want to ask for and be given a half a beer, and to talk to my mate behind the bar. Luckily I get to have this experience a lot, regardless of whatever else is going on in the room. In one notable instance, my homie ate a shift salad and we talked about jewelery, punctuated by loud screams from the movie, Scream (1996). The only song I caught was School's Out by Alice Cooper. Every time a school gets out for summer, anywhere on Earth, Alice Cooper gets 60¢ per school. When someone turns 18 he gets a dollar, and when a Frankenstien needs to be fed he gets $1.75.

• Julie Ruin - Apt #5

  pre-Le Tigre 4-track jams from Kath. You know Kath? Kath Hanna? She's in that band now with Erica (Humblebees / Black Rainbow / Onion Flavored Rings). This was my jam when it dropped, I loved this whole record of sample based bedroom pop songs. RIP Sampledelic, my favorite music genre, litigated into the netherworld, to be replaced by the big money non-transformative sampling of Bad Boy Entertainment. They play a lot of sampledelic at Jamie Lee's-- Cibo Matto, Tricky, Deee-Lite, and NO Fat Boy Slim! It's a real chicken soup for the Gen X / Millenial Cusp soul

• Charlatans UK

  I feel like Andy Capp going over there sometimes, yelling "GOIN TO THE PUB FOR A PINT LUV" over my shoulder as I'm throwing on a scarf in lieu of a jacket, hunching up against the chill evening air, hands in pockets. "Brisk out there lads". The other day I popped over and ran into Liquid Sam. We talked for a long time, and favorably, about her childhood idol Elvis Aaron Presley. I know that having a pleasant conversation at a bar isn't a big deal to anyone but I've never had a bar era before, and I'm having a mild one now. It's nice. Anyway Charlatans UK came on the mix (I think it was "The Only One I Know") and Sam cried out in joy. "I've been trying to remember this song but I can't because it's too much like exactly the type of song I like!!!!!!". I can certainly sympathize, though of course I can't think of my own example of a song that sounds like me thinking about music when it's good. Related: when Dolgoff had Tumblecat write "ULTIMO" on the cd of Dopesmoker that was floating around the warehouse. "So I'll know which one is the Ultimo". Cheers to the stunning unplaceable music of the inside chambers of the heart.

  

Links / Misc

• John C's "John's Music Blog" has been going steady for a BIT now, and even though when I click through onto a track I actually don't like it 80% of the time, I find that I still love to read about it 100% of the time. On Substack: [John's Music Blog]

• How many times am I allowed to say "I'm trying to get back into regular writing on here" on here? A dozen times? A hundred? This time I'm thinking it would be good for me to have a reward, something where I do 10 weekly posts in a row and then something happens, I get something pleasant. Or alternately, maybe there's some type of punishment, something unpleasant that happens if I fail to achieve my objective. It's not a major thing, but does anyone have any ideas???

  I was thinking I could use this to justify an unjustifiable expense, so I'm brainstorming "things I want but will not buy" and it's like, a Ciat Lonbarde "Plum Butter 2" ($2,000) on one side and "those yellow scarecrow balloons they have at the blueberry farm" ($20) on the other. There's not a lot of irrational rewards on hand in the 10-week-equivalent midrange. Then as far as punishments go, I'm having trouble thinking of fun-bad, all I'm coming up with is actual-bad, like washing my clothes in fragrant soap, or starting smoking. I'm quite certain that no one wants me to do either of those, not even for sadistic laughter reasons. Well anyway please leave a comment below on this page if you have any ideas. Angelic and demonic concepts both welcome. Ten weeks from now is the week of May 10.