Music is My Boyfriend #12 playlist

MIMB #12 Playlist
December 13th, 2007


It was like a christmas party. People were there all night. I was hanging out with Chris. It was fun. Got to play alot of new records and didn't have to hang out really late. There was a new crowd from the artwalk and probably as many people as there have ever been. Here's what I played:

Albert Hammond "It Never Rains In Southern California"
The Hives "Tick Tick Boom"
Led Zeppelin "Good Times, Bad Times"
The Wolfmen "Needle In The Camel's Eye"
Jean Knight "Mr Big Stuff"
Gnarls Barkley "Gone Daddy Gone"
Junior Boys "In The Morning"
Joy Division "Tranmission"
Lords Of The New Church "Russian Roulette"
The Normal "Warm Leatherette"

Blur "Music Is My Radar"
Roxy Music "Out Of The Blue"
Primal Scream "Gimme Some Truth"
LCD Soundsystem "North American Scum"
CSS "Let's Pretend That We're Dead"
The Dandy Warhols "Bohemian Like You"
Sweet "Fox On The Run"
Klaxons "It's Not Over Yet"
Bowie "Fashion"
Teddybears "Punkrocker"

Black Sabbath "Sweet Leaf"
Stereo Total "Wir Tanzen Im 4-Eck"
Bat For Lashes "What's A Girl To Do?"
Clinic "If You Could Read Your Mind"
Wolmother "Woman"
Maximo Park "Girls Who Play Guitars"
New Young Pony Club "The Bomb"
Blondie "Atomic"
Gary Numan "Airlane"
John Foxx "He's A Liquid"

The Knife "Marble House"
Hot Chip "Over and Over"
Ladytron "Softpower"
The Strokes "Last Nite"
The White Stripes "Icky Thunp"
Sonny and Cher "I Got You Babe"
Blonde Redhead "Spring and By Summer Fall"
The Velvet Underground "I'm Waiting For The Man"
The Coral "Who's Gonna Find Me?"
Wire "Outdoor Miner"

The Horrors "Count In Fives"
Queens of The Stone Age "3s and 7s"
The Kills "The Good Ones"
Pulp "Do You Remeber The First Time?"
Interpol "The Heinrich Maneuver"
Kasabian "Empire"
Arctic Monkeys "Brainstorm"
Babyshambles "Delivery"
BRMC "Berlin"
Bloc Party "The Prayer"

The Stooges "1970"
TV on The Radio "Wolf Like Me"
Jarvis "Fat Children"
My Bloody Valentine "Only Shallow"
Mannfred Mann "Blinded By The Light"
Burial "Ghost Hardware"
Renegade Soundwave "Transworld Siren"
Massive Attack "Inertia Creeps"
Lene Lovich "New Toy"
The Auteurs "Show Girl"

The Go! Team "Grip Like A Vice"
The Teardrop Explodes "Read It In Books"
Broadcast "American Boy"
The Raveonettes "Love In A Trashcan"

Best albums of 2007

Here is another BEST of 2007 list. Really any of these top ten records could have been number one. Many of these bands have been my top pick in the past. I just felt Blonde Redhead had done something very artistic, and it was the best album they have done. Bat For Lashes was the best debut album. A Place To Bury Strangers and Klaxons were close too. LCD Soundsystem and Burial and UNKLE made great records too. And all down the line. Many records I haven't heard yet, so I hesitate to include them here.

1. Blonde Redhead "23"
2. Bat For Lashes "Fur and Gold"
3. LCD Soundsystem "Sound of Silver"
4. Burial "Untrue"
5. Devendra Banhart "Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon"
6. A Place To Bury Strangers "APTBS"
7. UNKLE "War Stories"
8. Klaxons "Myths of The Near Future"
9. The White Stripes "Icky Thump"
10. Liars "Liars"
11. Jose Gonzalez "In Our Nature"
12. PJ Harvey "White Chalk"
13. The Good The Bad and The Queen "The Good The Bad and The Queen"
14. Battles "Mirrored"
15. Grinderman "Grinderman"
16. BRMC "Baby 81"
17. The Fiery Furnaces "Widow City"
18. Of Montreal "Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?"
19. !!! "Myth Takes"
20. The Long Blondes "Someone To Drive You Home"
22. Arcade Fire "Neon Bible"
23. Nine Inch Nails "Year Zero"
24. Mystery Jets "Zoo Time"
25. Deerhoof "Friend Opportunity"


Other picks:

West Indian Girl "4th and Main"
Charlotte Gainsbourg "5:55"
Patrick Wolf "The Magic Position"
No Age "Weirdo Rippers"
Maximo Park "Our Earthly Pleasures"
MIA "Kala"
Jarvis Cocker "Jarvis"
New Young Pony Club "Fantastic Playroom"
Elliott Smith "New Moon"
The Hives "The Black and White Album"
Kieran Hebdan "Tongues"
Art Brut "It's A Bit Complicated"
Justice "Cross"
The Cribs "Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever"
Queens of The Stone Age "Era Vulgaris"
The Horrors "Strange House"
The Stooges "The Weirdness"
1990s "Cookies"
The Black Lips "Good Bad Not Evil"
Adult "Why Bother?"
Led Zeppelin "Mothership"

Joanna Newsom @ Walt Disney

All photos by Alexander Laurence

Music is My Boyfriend

Music is my Boyfriend playlist
November 8th, 2007

Junior Boys "Last Exit"
Violent Femmes "Blister In The Sun"
Black Sabbath "Sweet Leaf"
Joy Division "Transmission"
Jean Knight "Mr Big Stuff"
Roxy Music "Virginia Plain"
Liquid Liquid "Cavern"
Gary Numan "Cars"
Lords of The New Church "Russian Roulette"
Bat For Lashes "What's A Girl To Do?"

Death From Above 1979 "Romantic Rights"
Devendra Banhart "Lover"
CSS "Let's Pretend That We're Dead"
Siouxsie and The Banshees "Hong Kong Garden"
Grinderman "No Pussy Blues"
The Normal "Warm Leatherette"
Massive Attack "Special Needs"
Neil Young "Cinnamon Girl"
Bowie "Scary Monsters"
Echo and The Bunnymen "The Cutter"

Ladytron "Soft Power"
Suicide "Cheree"
The Velvet Underground "Waiting For The Man"
Manfred Mann's Earth Band "Blinded By The Light"
Gorillaz "Clint Eastwood"
Depeche Mode "Can't Get Enough"
The Rapture "Get Myself Into It"
Interpol "The Heinrich Maneuver"
Bow Wow Wow "I Want Candy"
Iggy and The Stooges "Raw Power"

A Place To Bury Strangers "To Fix The Gash In Your Head"
The Black Keys "Your Touch"
The Dandy Warhols "Bohemian Like You"
The Go! Team "Grip Like A Knife"
Klaxons "It's Not Over Yet"
LCD Soundsystem "North American Scum"
T. Rex "Hot Love"
Rocky Horror OST "Science Fiction"
Suede "We Are The Pigs"
The Sex Pistols "Anarchy In The UK"

New Young Pony Club "The Bomb"
Amy Winehouse "Rehab"
Teddybears "Cobrastyle"
Arcade Fire "Rebellion Lies"
Kaiser Cheifs "I Predict A Riot"
Bloc Party "The Prayer"
The Kills "Fried My Little Brains"
Clinic "If You Could Read Your Mind"
We Are Scientists "The Great Escape"
John Foxx "He's A Liquid"

Blur "Music Is My Radar"
The Subways "Rock and Roll Queen"
The Raveonettes "Love In A Trashcan"
Broadcast "American Boy"
Adam and The Ants "Kings of The Wild Frontier"
Big Audio Dynamite "C'mon Every Beatbox"
Hot Chip "Over and Over"
The Rutles "Doubleback Alley"
TV on The Radio "Wolf Like Me"
Roxy Music "Out Of The Blue"

Jesus and Mary Chain "Just Like Honey"
Junior Boys "In The Morning" (Hot Chip remix)

The Black Lips Interview

The Black Lips
By Alexander Laurence

The Black Lips are a band from Atlanta, Georgia. They are one of the hot
bands this year after causing a sensation by playing a lot of shows and having
crazy live shows. They started in 2000 as teenagers. But since then one member
has died, and they have been naked onstage, they have vomited and urinated, set
themselves on fire, and played instruments with their genitals. They have
released several singles and albums. Most recently they come out with a live
album, Los Valientos del Mundo Nuevo, and Good Bad Not Evil. The band members are
Cole Alexander (vocals, guitar), Jared Swilley (Bass guitar), Joe Bradley
(drums), and Ian Brown (guitar). I spoke to Jared recently on the phone while he
was getting a haircut, so here we go.

**

AL: Are you playing tonight?

Jared: Yeah, we are playing in Athens, Georgia tonight. We were actually
banned from the club four years ago. We had a bad reputation. They got worked up.
They had anticipated all this crazy stuff happening. It wasn’t that crazy.
They overreacted. We had brought out some lighter fluid. We were going to light
the drums on fire. They sent a stagehand onstage to take our stuff apart. Our
old guitarist got in a scuffle with him. He pushed off the stage. It became a
big debacle. They kicked us all out and called the police. They kicked out
everyone from Atlanta. Since then the owner of the club likes our band now. She
comes to see us play all the time.

AL: You can just blame it all on the guy who is not in the band anymore.

Jared: It was based on things that we have done. Back then people wouldn’t
let us use the monitors or any of their gear. They would take pictures off the
wall because they thought we would break it. They would threaten us when we got
to the place. It would start off on the bad foot.

AL: It took you a few years to figure out how to play?

Jared: We were more into destruction in the beginning. It took a while to
become technically proficient. We were really young and we would get really
drunk. That is what we liked to do.

AL: But you have played a lot of shows?

Jared: We have toured relentlessly since I was seventeen years old. We
couldn’t do the same stuff all the time. We never really thought about it. Stuff
changes. Time moves on.

AL: You played some shows in Tijuana?

Jared: Vice wanted us to do a live album. It was our first major label
release. You do a live album you want to make it fun. Doing it in Tijuana seemed
like a good idea. It is a crazy city. We wanted it to be a spectacle. We have a
lot of friends from Mexico. The guy who tours with us and does a lot of our
videos is from Mexico. He has friends in Tijuana.

AL: It’s odd for bands to go down there.

Jared: Yeah, we want to tour all of Mexico. There is a cool scene down there.
In Tijuana, I thought it was going to be a bunch of white kids from
California. But we ended up playing with a local band. They were cool. It was a good
vibe. People weren’t jaded.

AL: Have you played in Europe?

Jared: We have been there a lot. We are going again tomorrow. Europe is great
too. They are not jaded. Paris and London are rough crowds, but the rest, and
especially small towns are great. Italy is great.

AL: Do you like to go to new places?

Jared: I like to do that. We are going to Israel this summer. We are working
towards getting a show in Uganda. I would like to go to more crazy third world
places. We have wanted to go to Brazil for a long time.

AL: How did you decide which songs went on the live album?

Jared: It was mostly songs from our last album, Let It Bloom. Just some
random songs from the previous albums. We just play the songs we think are good and
are not tired of playing. We usually have a set and add songs all the time.
We don’t play a lot of songs on the record that have organ or piano.

AL: You just finished this studio album, right?

Jared: We just got out of the studio. We recorded twenty songs. It will
probably be twelve or thirteen songs.

AL: When you play live now, do you ever feel the need to light your pubic
hair on fire? Or do you figure that you have to do something new?

Jared: We don’t do that stuff as much as we used to. If it happens, it
happens. I don’t think about it. We want to play a good show and play our songs.
It’s more important to have a solid set. People should not expect that we are
going to pee on them.

AL: You have this song “Cocksucker.” Were you trying to be shocking with
that?

Jared: That was on the first album. That wasn’t trying to be shocking. The
song’s contents haven’t changed all that much. We still write about the same
things. There are no new references to oral sex on the new album.

AL: How do you write songs in the band?

Jared: Everyone will come up with ideas for a song. We work on songs at sound
checks and at band practice. Sometimes we have lyrics ready, and other times
we will write them right before we record.

AL: How did the tour with Be Your Own Pet go?

Jared: It was great. It was weird because it was the first time we did a tour
where we were the older guys. They are all teenagers. When we were their age
we would have shows canceled on us or we would have to wait outside the venue.
They didn’t have to do that because they are on a major label and they had a
lot of press, and people know that they are all under 21.

AL: Did anyone in the band ever get seriously injured?

Jared: At SXSW three years ago I had to get fifteen stitches on my head. I
used to have this wrestling video where they show you how to cut your forehead.
You bleed but you don’t scar. I was really drunk when I did it, and I took a
razorblade and cut my scalp. I did it towards the end of the set. I played the
last two songs. Then people told me that I had to go to the hospital. We have
never had any broken bones. We used to fight onstage a lot.

AL: You fought with the audience or the band members?

Jared: Both. We used to fight with our old guitar player. Once some people
tried to steal our guitar. We fought some rednecks at SXSW.

AL: Now do you have better gear?

Jared: It’s nicer. For a long time we didn’t have any equipment. We had to
borrow stuff every night. Now that we are on Vice, we have stuff that works. We
had the same drum set for so long, it was pathetic. That is probably why we
play better. We used to have practice amps and the drum kit was in shambles. For
a long time we couldn’t afford to buy any cymbals. That was our main problem
for a long time. Other bands wouldn’t let us use them cymbals, even when we
were totally sober. It was annoying.

AL: If it works, the songs sound better?

Jared: Yeah. We got a tuner too. We don’t know how to tune really well. That
helps a lot.

AL: Would you consider doing the Warp Tour?

Jared: No. It would have to be totally different. I don’t like festivals
because you are outside all day.

Jesus and Mary Chain @ the Wiltern

Miranda steals the show.



Miranda is feeling the positive vibe.





All photos by Alexander Laurence

The Mystery Jets Interview

The Mystery Jets
By alexander laurence


The Mystery Jets are probably the best new band from England this year. They
are four young guys from London who play the most original melodic music. They
also have one of their dads in the band. He was the main songwriter in the
band, but he has taken a backseat on the second album. Their first American
album is called Zoo Time. They did their first tour in America this September
2007, supporting the Klaxons. I got to talk with Blaine and Will before their show.

Blaine Harrison: Vocals, guitars, and keyboards
Henry Harrison: Vocals and guitar
William Rees: Guitar and vocals
Kai Fish: Bass and vocals
Kapil Trivedi: drums

AL: It took a long time for a proper album to be released in the USA. We had
been hearing songs for a while.

Blaine: We just released Zoo Time which a compilation of old songs that we
still play and some new songs we did with Erol Alkan. We are doing the new album
with him. That is the American album. We figured that when we came over here
that many people would already have our earlier stuff on import. I buy a lot
of stuff on Amazon from America. It’s so easy these days. You might as well
give them something different. We had different artwork, took off some songs, and
put on three new songs.

AL: You originally put out a few self-released EPs. How did you get from
Transgressive to 679 Recordings?

Blaine: Transgressive just did the single of “Zoo Time.” Then we did “You
Can’t Fool Me Dennis” with 679, and then we did the album. That took us to the
end of 2006. We were touring in England so much. We did five or six tours in
England from 2005-2006.

Will: We were on Warners Bros in America. Apparently they are pretty poor at
the moment. We want to have the same presence in America that we have in
England. In England, what we have is a grassroots following. We have always
released a lot of singles. We have interesting b-sides. We have made the artwork. We
use all that to inspire the fans.

AL: I got the Mystery Jets “You Can’t Fool Me Dennis” remix single. How did
that come about?

Blaine: We were lucky because the people at our label were helping Justice
get over to London. They gave Justice our record. They said that they would do a
remix of “You Can’t Fool Me Dennis.” At the time they had a low profile, and
it was the second remix they did.

AL: It seems like an odd combination?

Will: Us and them? Yeah, at the beginning we didn’t know how lucky we were to
have Justice do a remix. We didn’t know anything about the French dance
scene. We didn’t know how popular it would become in a year’s time.

Blaine: It worked really well. Out of all their remixes, it is the only one
not made for the dance floor. It reminds me of “Rocket Man.” It’s like a piano
ballad. It’s a pop song. It’s really cool because it shows that they can do
that as well as the other stuff.

AL: That dance music from ten years ago seems like it’s making a comeback.
Daft Punk, Chemical Brothers, and Underworld are all back this year. Were you
guys every curious about that?

Will: I recently bought pretty much every Chemical Brothers record. I was
trying to figure out what they were about. I think many people our age are
checking out dance music and what it was like ten years ago.

AL: But you guys seem to be more inspired by records from the 1970s?

Blaine: We didn’t listen to dance music at all. It was really my dad, Henry,
who introduced us to all these bands from the 1970s like Pink Floyd and King
Crimson. Those were records he listened to when he was a teenager. Henry was
one of the founding members of the band.

AL: Much of that prog rock is very complicated music.

Will: That is what is interesting about it. It’s not straight songwriting.
It’s music with real imagination.

Blaine: That is what caught our imagination. We almost tried to replicate
those bands. We did some elaborate prog songs on our first EPs, and we never play
them. We have sort of outgrown them. I am glad that we got to music that way,
because we have always set out to be different. We just naturally grew up
with different things. I was never into punk.

Will: We love stuff like Oasis and the Beatles. The simple stuff.

AL: What are you doing now?

Blaine: We wanted to do our second record with Erol Alkan. I don’t know if
you know him over here. He is known and respected within British dance music.
You see kids with t-shirts: “E.R.O.L. keeps kids dancing.” He is one of the
guys who have made dance music credible again. He made records that are exciting
and not about record sales. We did a session with him. He was waiting to do
stuff with bands that were outside of dance music. We were one of those bands.
He has worked with Klaxons and Long Blondes. We have taken seven or eight
months to do this new record. We are desperate to get back on tour again. Some
bands take three years to do an album.



AL: With some of the prog bands they are more about making albums than making
singles. What do you think of Secret Machines take on that concept?

Will: We like their first record. That was wicked. We like records being
about an hour long. Their live show is amazing. If you have had a few spliffs and
put their record on it enhances the experiences what they doing sonically.
Every band can be appreciated in slightly different circumstances. There are few
bands that do the progressive thing very well. I like Secret Machines and Mars
Volta.

AL: So, with the new album are you trying to redefine yourselves?

Will: Yes, I think we are trying to redefine ourselves. We are trying to
shake off some of our old influences. We are making an album that is more focused.
It gets to the heart of things very quickly. It’s an album of ten or eleven
songs. It’s very straight the way it’s put together. There are no grand intros
or outros, or instrumental parts. It is literally what you see is what you
get: eleven songs. From where we are coming from, that is a new thing.

AL: How does the songwriting go in the band?

Will: The first album was written over a period of ten years, because we were
a band for a long time. This second album was written more quickly, and it
was more of a collaborative effort.

Blaine: The principal lyrical writer of the first album was my dad. He wrote
like 80% of the lyrics. This album we have written lyrics together. When I
have written lyrics, I bring them to him, to see what he thinks, and visa versa.
It’s totally heads together. That is something that I want people to realize:
that although he is not touring with us, he is an essential ingredient to the
band.

AL: He’s become like Brian Wilson?

Blaine: If you like. Yeah. That is something in his head, he could see
happening. He used to joke: “One day, you guys are going to kick me out of the
band.” He’s not being pushed out. He is there when we are writing. He comes to
practice. We had a song with a sample from a Third World record. He said: “Let’s
use that sample, and write our own chorus.” That is what we did. He is part of
the decision making as anyone else. One person comes up with the chords and
the lyrics, and it’s the rest of us to make it into a song we can be proud of.

AL: When did Henry decide that he wasn’t going to tour anymore?

Blaine: It was last year. We all sat down and talked about how we were going
to move forward. He is cool with it. He leads a double life. He has a whole
other career as an architect. He is an artist. He has only been playing since we
started the band.

AL: Did you go to University?

Blaine: We dropped out. We both went to art school. I would like to finish
but we have very little time left.

AL: If you go to school, people are going to go: “I am in a class with that
guy from Mystery Jets.”

Will: Do you know Jah Wobble?

AL: Yeah. I did an interview with him.

Will: He used to work for the London Underground, after Public Image. He used
to drive the trains, and would go “There’s the guy in Public Image LTD.”

Blaine: It’s funny that. You see Daniel from Television Personalities all
around London. We have rode together on the night bus. You don’t know that this
is the guy who wrote “Part-Time Punks.” What people do after bands may be
quite funny. We did a few shows with Television Personalities.

AL: Where would you like to live in the world?

Blaine: I would like to live here in Los Angeles. I think that a lot of
people do.

AL: A bunch of British bands come over here and do their records here. Dirty
Pretty Things are in town at the moment.

Blaine: We saw them last night. They said it’s going really well. They are
working with some guy who was in the Prodigy.

AL: What other bands do you like?

Blaine: Mostly bands that we have toured with: Futureheads, Bloc Party. Those
bands rubbed off on us when we were doing the first record. Klaxons are
amazing.

AL: You did a remix of Futureheads?

Blaine: That was something that our label arranged. At the time, they had
bands like Futureheads and Death From Above 1979. There was a lot of
collaboration.

AL: Do you have any hobbies?

Will: I like to run.

AL: Are you still doing art?

Blaine: We do the artwork on the first record. For the second record, we
found these amazing photographs by Hans Bellmer.

AL: With the dolls?

Blaine: Yeah, with the dolls. They are photographs of his dolls. Some of the
photographs are less known. Some have this color tint. Some are blue and red.
They look amazing.

AL: Hans Bellmer was a Surrealist.

Blaine: Yes. He escaped from the Nazis. He was an exile.

AL: Have you read any good books?

Will: Yes. J. G. Ballard “Crash.” Just read it.

Blaine: I don’t really read that much. I am a slow reader.

AL: If someone wants to meet you?

Blaine: Come backstage after the gig.

AL: When will the record come out?

Blaine: Hopefully it comes out in February 2008.

AL: Who else would you like to work with?

Blaine: John Cale. He did that record with LCD Soundsystem. James Murphy is a
genius.

AL: Didn’t you play one of those NME Shockwaves tours?

Blaine: Yeah. In 2006, with Arctic Monkeys, Maximo Park, We Are Scientists.
We did really well. That was when it was getting really intense for Arctic
Monkeys. There was a bit of a scandal when they were supposed to play before
Maximo Park in Sheffield. I think that Maximo Park let them headline.

Devendra Banhart @ the Orpheum

Playlist @ Bar 107

Music is My Boyfriend #10
October 11th, 2007

This one was one of the more successful ones. I was flying solo all night. Andrea was sick. Wendy threatened to come. A few other friends made cameos. It was packed from 9pm- to after Midnight. Some person ran up a 1200 dollar bill. So I made a lot of money playing the music that I love. I hope you like it too. Here is what I played:

Renegade Soundwave "Black Eye Boy"
Lords of The New Church "Russian Roulette"
Mararishi Mahesh Yogi "Love"
Renegade Soundwave "Transworld Siren"
Pink Floyd "Time"
Black Sabbath "Sweet Leaf"
T- Rex "Hot Love"
CSS "Pretend We're Dead"
The Ventures "Walk Don't Run"
The Castaways "Liar Liar"

Bat For Lashes "What's A Girl To Do?"
Klaxons "Golden Skans"
Teddybears "Cobrastyle"
LCD Soundsystem "North American Scum"
Bow Wow Wow "I Want Candy"
Devendra Banhart "Lover"
The Dandy Warhols "Bohemian Like You"
Peter Bjorn and John "Young Folks"
We Are Scientists "This Scene Is Dead"
The Go! Team "Grip Like A Vice"

The Rapture "Get Myself Into It"
Kraftwerk "Pocket Calculator"
New Young Pony Club "The Bomb"
Maximo Park "Girls Who Play Guitars"
David Bowie "The Jean Genie"
Black Sabbath "Paranoid"
My Bloody Valentine "Only Shallow"
Lene Lovich "Lucky Number"
Jarvis "Fat Kidz" (Let Them Eat Acid)
Clinic "If You Could Read Your Mind"

Babyshambles "Delivery"
Bloc Party "The Prayer"
Interpol "Mammoth"
The Futureheads "Hounds Of Love"
Ladytron "Soft Power"
The Streets "Let's Push Things Forward"
Queens Of The Stone Age "3s and 7s"
Broadcast "American Boy"
The Long Blondes "Weekend Without Makeup"
The Psychedelic Furs "Love My Way"

The Rutles "Doubleback Alley"
The Cure "Boys Don't Cry"
The Coral "Who's Gonna Find Me"
The Cure "Just Like Heaven"
Roxy Music "Do The Strand"
Brian Jonestown Massacre "Let Me Stand Next To Your Flower"
The Horrors "Count In Fives"
PIL "Dead Disco"
Liars "Plaster Casts Of Everything"
Massive Attack "Inertia Creeps"

The Knife "Like A Pen"
Klaxons "It's Not Over Yet"
UNKLE "Burn My Shadow"
Blonde Redhead "En Particulier"
Wire "Another The Letter"
Cold War Kids "Hospital Beds"
The Good, The Bad, and The Queen "Herculean"
The Three O'Clock "With A Cantaloupe Girlfriend"
The Dream Syndicate "That's What You Always Say"
The Rakes "The World Was A Mess But His Hair Was Perfect"

Mararishi Mahesh Yogi "Love"
Renegade Soundwave "Thunder"
Low "Hatchet" (optimimi version)
Mystery Jets "You Can't Fool Me Dennis" (Good Books remix)
Arcade Fire "Intervention"
Richard Hawley "Baby, You're My Light"
The Black Angels "Better Off Alone"

Bat For Lashes @ Troubadour

All photos by Alexander Laurence

Music is My Boyfriend October 11th

Music IS MY BOYFRIEND: the club
the monthly downtown LA party for music lovers

Thursday, October 11, 2007 at 9:45pm:
bar 107:
107 West 4th Street @ main
Los Angeles, CA

music is my boyfriend #10 @ Bar 107 / October 11th

Music Is My Boyfriend is the name of our amazing night of NEW MUSIC in Downtown LA. It happens the second THURSDAY of every month. DJs Alexander Laurence and Andrea Sutterfield revisit to BAR 107....

Alexander Laurence (aka The Portable Infinite)
CELEBRATES VINYL and the birthday of Ennio Morricone

My book Five Fingers Make A Fist is available... Buy a copy at new low price and I will sign it.

New Indie Rock + New Indie Dance + Select Records from the 70s & 80s + you + me + everyone

Sexy videos of Meg White + free stuff + special appearances

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LA Cita - Charlie Os - Bar 107 = barmuda triangle

Five Fingers Make A Fist

Hello, my name is Alexander Laurence. I wrote a book of stories. It's a work of fiction. It's not about music.

Five Fingers Make A Fist comes out on October 1st, 2007

But you can buy it now at:

In San Francisco: Anarchist Bookstore, Aardvarks Books, Adobe Books, Modern Times, and Dog Eared Books

In Los Angeles: Kosher News 370 N. Fairfax avenue
Kate Los Angeles 515 S. Fairfax avenue

Ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220152347631

And now on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Five-Fingers-Make-Alexander-Laurence/dp/0977441032/ref=sr_1_1/104-5165417-5848743?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1190943581&sr=8-1

A review

"I have read your book.  I find
your writing voice to be concise, economical, and straightforward
while the stories and the points of views of the characters are highly
imaginative and fanciful. I like the terseness, immediacy,  and
intimacy of your characters' point of view. There is a lot of pain,
anger, and sexual charge, but also hints of redemption piercing
through this collection.  I like how some stories are short and self
contained while others are composed of movements as in a piece of
classical music. You have a very sharp, intelligent mind which seeks
to make sense of the human condition through a series of jolts and
quiet spaces. I appreciate the spaces you give the reader to breathe
after a more shocking or nihilistic piece. It is the hope within the
darkness which gives the work soul and breadth. The story "Words" was
particularly moving. You could definitely write for films either by
writing novels that someone else adapted or possibly doing the
adapting yourself. I can see you enjoy the poetry of writing and a
screen play necessarily dumbs that all down. But I am sure you would
enjoy seeing your imaginings brought to life visually. Looking forward
to reading your future novel."

The Mystery Jets @ Spaceland

My video:

All photos by Alexander Laurence

Five Fingers Make A Fist interview

Alexander Laurence talks about his book
FIVE FINGERS MAKES A FIST
By Pauline Angelique

I met Alexander Laurence almost twenty years ago. He was a rebel and a poet
who I met in college. He was very enthusiastic about writing and literature. I
say that now because it was rare back then and even rarer now when hardly
anyone reads and hardly anyone gives a damn about real art or politics. We had
some classes together. Alexander introduced me to some writers who I had never
heard of. We took a fiction writing class together. That was when I read one of
his first stories that was included in Five Fingers Make A Fist.

“Monsieur Untel” was unlike anything else people were reading and writing in
those days. Most of the stories were these realistic stories about
relationships and sexual awakening in the suburbs. “Monsieur Untel” was like a modern
day Rashoman, written in a different age. We were both published in some of the
student magazines and we did some readings together. Alexander even published
one of my stories in one of the literary journals that he worked on after
college. Alexander’s interest in literature was passionate and sincere and seemed
to carry on throughout the years. He had am appetite for art and fiction that
was immense.

That was at least fifteen years ago. Many of us who were aspiring writers and
artists then, got jobs, went to graduate school, taught classes, and had
families. Alexander Laurence continued on writing. He published about one hundred
poems and a dozen stories in some literary magazines around the world. He
interviewed many authors including Martin Amis, William T. Vollmann, Bret Easton
Ellis, and JT Leroy. He interviewed many authors who he had told me about in
the 1980s. Alexander met all his writing heroes. He lived in Los Angeles, San
Francisco, and New York City. He worked at many odd jobs: waiter, deliveryman,
magazine shops, bookstores, telemarketing, cafes, proofreading, tax reports,
the morgue, and art gallery assistant. He also visited Mexico, Canada, and
England over the years. During most of 1990s he worked as a journalist for a number
of magazines and wrote book reviews for newspapers and weekly magazines. He
was also a key figure in the Bay Area spoken word scene. He hosted four
different poetry series in San Francisco from 1991 to 1994. National attention came
during his stint at the Blue Monkey Café in 1993, during the poetry license
scandal.

In 1992, Alexander finished an early version of Five Fingers Make A Fist that
was slightly different. It was after a few years of inspiration where he
found his own voice. Most of this book was written then. Alexander had retired
from the poetry scene and was committed to fiction. He worked on a few novels
during the 1990s. In 1994, Five Fingers Make A Fist was going to be published by
a new press dedicated to experimental works. A year later, the press had
organizational problems and the book never was released. By this time Alexander had
moved to New York City. He had written another novel and had collected his
poetry into a volume and had some interest from the publishing world in his
author interviews.

In 1996, an agent had shopped around his books in New York. A year later the
book was shelved due to corporate takeovers and less interest in new authors.
By 2002, Alexander had been involved in rock criticism for a few years.
Fiction was hardly on his mind. A few manuscripts of Five Fingers Make A Fist had
been circulating for years. At the beginning of 2003, one found its way to the
offices of Pollinator Press, a new publisher based in San Francisco. Alexander
now lives in Los Angeles where he is writing his next novel and playing music.

Pollinator Press is a new press that has published a few books. Five Fingers
Make A Fist seemed like the perfect book to begin its fiction line of books.
So finally, years after most of it was written, here is a great new book, that
hasn’t lost its bite. It is a comic novel that explores the underground and
extreme situations. Author Blake Nelson says: “Alexander Laurence is a true
explorer of the underground and the underworld. No one knows these worlds better
than he does. I am a huge fan." Five new stories have been added which were
written over the past three years. Alexander is now working on a new novel, which
was started in late 1999. What follows are some comments by Alexander about
each story and when it was written.


A Story of My Life (1992)

I wrote this immediately after “My Birth” as part of a trilogy. It seemed
like one of the many monologues that I was writing in the beginning of 1992.
Since I wasn’t writing poetry anymore, monologues seemed like the next thing to
do. This is like some resume of a character’s life looking back. When I was a
kid I had a bunch of theories about how my parents met. I made them up. They
were all pretty funny. All of this is pretty straightforward. It could have been
longer, but the idea was to be quick and entertaining. People always ask me
if my work is autobiographical. No, it’s fiction. It’s not like the guy who
wrote Lord of The Rings wrote about his life.


My Birth (1991)

I took a class with the writer Kathy Acker at the end of 1991. I was also
reading a bunch of birth narratives around that time. The beginning of Harold Brodkey’s “A
Runaway Soul” was one of them that came out that year. They all bothered me. They
kept me up at night. I thought it was impossible to have a birth memory. It
seemed silly. After a while of firmly rejecting this, I changed my mind, and wrote
this story. I read it aloud to the class and Kathy Acker thought it was the
best thing I had done for the class. We did a reading with Acker as a class and
my story was one of the highlights. I have a videotape of it. The story was
published a few times. There is another version where the writer, Eurydice, is
my mother.

Childhood (1992)

As part of the opening trilogy, I thought there should be another type of
early childhood narrator. It’s more like retelling events that did and did not
happen to me during the ages of two and seven. The conceit is that it’s like the
narrator is struggling with language because he is too young. It’s like this
fuzzy version of childhood, pre-language, sort of influenced by comic books
like Gahan Wilson. This is the end of the beginning. The original book was
arranged differently. These three stories being here seemed to make more sense.
They are all first person narratives. They are character studies.

Monsieur Untel (1987)

This is the earliest story I have written which is represented here. It was
also part of a novel that I never finished. I was really into French novelists
like Maurice Blanchot and Alain Robbe-Grillet. I was really into anything
French. Even the title of the story is a French joke. I guess that I was somewhat
influenced by Monsieur Teste by Paul Valéry, although this is nothing like
that. My story is a detective novel told from three opposing points of view. It’s
a literary story in a way, but in another way, it’s okay if you have never
heard of Modernism too. I was trying to be unlike Charles Bukowski in every way.

Alexanderplatz (1991)

Not really sure when this story came about. I don’t really remember writing
it. I remember being impressed with all these magazines that were geared
towards girls who were thirteen years old. I thought that was innovative. I tried myself to
write letters and poems to gain entry into Sassy Magazine, but they never did
accept them in their shit poetry section. So I wrote this story instead. I
was thinking about my own childhood in San Francisco in the late 1960s. I had
just moved back to San Francisco in 1989 a month before the earthquake. In 1991,
I lived with all these German artists in the south of market area of San
Francisco that was very trendy. That was very hip and much like Williamsburg and
Silverlake at that time. I was sucked into that hole for a few years.

Roommate (1992)

I lived in a lot of apartments in San Francisco from 1989 till 1992. This is
my tribute to all the horror stories that I heard about and experienced
myself. In an earlier version, this story was a footnote of another called “I
Remember Jeep” which I thought was too complicated and unable to read. There was
still a feeling of bohemianism in San Francisco as in other cities in the early
1990s. All that died around 1995, with the booming economy, and the
disappearance of a real subculture. I am hoping that some of those times will come back.

I Grew Up Listening To It Backwards (1991)

This is a nostalgic piece of the 1970s when your interest in music seemed so
unique and important. It was very much more political. All music now seems
like fashion and there is too much of it. There were fewer bands back then and
everyone was much more informed. Led Zeppelin started when the Beatles were
still around. Every gig and every album seemed special. Now you can see one
hundred bands a month and buy one hundred CDs and be only scratching the surface.
This story is more like the story of Michael Whitton, who was a convicted
murderer I knew when I was younger. He would talk about Led Zeppelin nonstop. When
they reformed in 1985, it was the highlight of his life. I was more into Kiss
and Ted Nugent. And then Punk Rock came along, and things changed for me.

Crack Whores (1993)

This was part of a novel that I never finished. I lived a lawless existence
for a while at the end of 1990. Running into an old friend who was a successful
businessman led to some destructive behavior. We spent much time together for
about a year. This story is fairly autobiographical and represents part of
the problems with San Francisco at the time. It is like a documentary of the
underground and the lowlifes. Not much has changed in that area. I had written
some arty stories, I thought at the time, and I wanted to write some realistic
things. This was the beginning of that.

Memoirs of An Electroshock Therapy Patient (1992-2003)

This is a collection of monologues. It is sort of like the Wandering Rocks
part of Ulysses. I wrote most of the first version in 1992. The second part was
influenced by the comic book Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer, by Ben
Katchor. It was being published in the NY Press in 1991 when I first lived in
New York City. The second part is like a monologue by the main character of
“Frankie.” The part “Mertz” was the central piece. It was supposed to be a
satirical piece about Ross Perot. I decided that the other two parts were not very
good. I added ones about the internet and love, which I thought were more
important.

The Ideal Copy (1993)

The title comes from a song by Wire. After I had written a story where the
footnotes were longer than the story, I decided to write this. It is supposed to
be a factual, documentary type of story. It is supposed to be a satire about
realism. The “Laura” of this story is based on my friend Otter who was
roommate at the time. “Laura” is just a name for a bunch of girlfriends I had
during the time. I sent a copy of this story to the lead singer of Wire, Colin
Newman. He apparently liked it.

The Next Story of Laura (1992)

After writing “My Birth” I decided to write a bunch of stories about weird
sexuality. Much of this story was suggested by my daily chats with Otter and a
weekend of hanging out with her Italian friend, Anna Maria. Once I was taking
a nap in my room and I had a sexual dream. The walls started shaking. I woke
up and someone was having sex in the next room and my bookshelf was rocking. It
turned out that Otter was having sex with another girl while a guy was
watching next to them tied up. Also I guess that I read Eurydice’s F/32 at some
point. This was my response. Some of the other stories I wrote like this didn’t
work for me. I wrote one called “Story” that is not included. I read this on a
radio show in Los Angeles in 1992, and most of it was bleeped off the air.

The Seasons (1991)

I was reading a book about Japanese culture at this time. I had a dream that
was like the end of this story exactly. I went to Seattle and British Columbia
with me girlfriend at the time. That whole summer trip where I spent a lot in
nature in Salt Spring Island. On the way back I started to write the first
draft of this story. German writer, Arno Schmidt, influenced the form of it. I
submitted this story to many magazines and everyone wanted to publish it. After
finishing this story, I probably started thinking that I was going to do a
book of short stories because it didn’t fit in with anything else I was doing.

Frankie (1989)

At the time I was still influenced by Modernism and Victorian novels. I
decided that I wanted to write more about music, pop culture and modern life. Most
of my stories up to this point seemed like they took place in any century and
there were no modern references. No one would ever make a phone call or log on
the internet. I felt like this was the first time that I hit upon the style
that most of this book is written in. It is a mix of high and low culture,
realism and surrealism, comedy, with the occasional philosophical reference. I
wrote this way before I ever knew who Mark Leyner was. Actually Frankie is a real
person who I used to run into at LA Cafes. I wrote this at some point right
when I moved away. Many cultural things happened at that time. There was an
interest in tattoos and piercing that started about then. People were really into
comic books. I felt alienated from that whole post-punk thing. It was a
nostalgic piece.

The Story of My Wife (1992)

This is mostly a spoken word piece. It has that Beat Poet repetition thing
going. It’s my “Howl.” It’s also sort of the third part of a trilogy, where
“The Ideal Copy” is the first part, and “The Next Story” is the second. I wrote
it very fast and read it with some visiting poets. It made an impression. It
was taking all aspects of past girlfriends and putting them into one person. I
had written “My Birth” and “My Death” and this was another chapter.

Stay Hungry (1992)

I felt like I should write some real stories with a plot and characters at
some point. This is one of them. It was based on some real stories I heard when
I lived with these strippers in San Francisco. I knew that I wanted to write a
story that lead to a big fight. I wrote a lot about what was going on in my
life at the time. Plus my friends Otter and Simone added some details. This was
published in a few magazines.

The Coffee, Bread, and Salad Tour (1990)

This is one of the early stories. I had a bunch of early stuff that was weird
and strange. This is like a mini-detective novel. I tried to include as much
of my experience as possible. I think that what made this different from my
other stories was that it represented what I was into at the time and based on
places that I lived. Harry Mathews and Vladimir Nabokov also influenced me. The
French writing group Oulipo was a big interest to me at the time. So there
are many rules and restraints that I had devised in the writing of this story.

The Cannibals (1991)

Someone had given an idea to write a play. It had to be something about The
Donner Party. This is what I came up with. We were going to perform it on
several occasions but people would drop out. It ended up us just doing a few
readings. There was also interest from some indie filmmaker in doing a film version.
I never heard back. I am not sure if it ever happened. This play was included
in the first version of Five Fingers Make A Fist. I took it out and made the
book shorter. At the last minute I decided to bring it back because I thought
it was still very funny.

Nestor Burma (1993)

After I had finished the first version of this book, I started to write a
novel. After that I became really interested in drugs. I read a book by Terence
McKenna who I later met. Some Japanese friend showed me some videotape about
DMT. I thought it was very provocative although I had never tried it. I read a
lot at that time about libraries and cultures.

Words (1997)

I wrote a few stories based on my Dad. When Eurydice asked me to write a
story about O. J. Simpson, this is what I came up with. I couldn’t really think of
anything fictional. Since I had really met in person and he was like the
first famous person I had ever met, I thought that would be a good story. This is
fairly realistic.

Audrey Hepburn (1991-92)

I spent most of the time in my fiction class with Kathy Acker writing this
story. I began by writing some pieces about Audrey Hepburn. I chose her because
I was a fan of My Fair Lady and I saw it about twenty times when I was growing
up. I have seen most of her films and read five different biographies. A
quote from my book review was used on the back of the Alexander Walker biography.
The Howard Hughes biography by Noah Dietrich was one of the first real books I
sought out and read. Howard Hughes was one of the most important people who
have ever lived in my lifetime. If he would lived and done the things he did
today, he would have been on cable TV news all day. He was far more important
than Princess Diana or Michael Jackson. I sort of consider myself apolitical,
but this story turned into one of the most political things I had ever written.
It written during the whole time of Anita Hill, George Bush, and the Iraq War.
It was about the time of the Rodney King riots. I was involved in a
demonstration in San Francisco that became very violent. I visited Los Angeles a few
days after the lootings and burnings. Also at that time, I had a chance to meet
Audrey Hepburn, who made an appearance at a store in downtown San Francisco. I
forgot about it and didn’t go.

Five Fingers Make A Fist (1992)

More monologues. They take place in the Lower Haight. That was ground zero
for bohemianism and bizarre theories. I was trying to take some things written
in tabloids and making stories out of them.

Black Box Recording (2000)

I hadn’t written any stories for a few years. I was trying to write something
short for the Chick For A Day anthology, edited by Fiona Giles. I guess that
she wanted some sexy stories. I thought it would be better to have a story
without sex. I tinkered with this story for years. Changed the point of view so
it sounded more like the other stories, and became like another portrait of a
woman.

"Theatre of Death" (1992)

This also began with my first visit to New York City. Veselka is one of the
first places that I ever went to in New York. I had an idea about a story of
two men go to a café and talk about a book they read. Most of this story is
based on the photographs of Joel-Peter Witkin. There were also some gothic novels
that I had read at the time. I think there are a few references to the poetry
of Norma Cole. I had a bunch of disparate elements that I wanted to include. I
think it’s like going to a museum and looking at paintings.

Undiscovered Country (1991)

This was called “My Death” at first. It’s the most abstract piece in this
book. It is the most like “Childhood” which is like prose poetry. In fact the
main influences on it are Carla Harryman, Lautreamont, and French Poetry. It is
like a dream journal. I wrote most of it during the class I had with Kathy
Acker. It is very arty and pretentious in a way.

The Black Sun (2001)

Since this book has an epigram by Georges Bataille, I thought maybe I should
include this story, which is much like his novel, The Blue of Noon. I also
read Literature and Evil and that was inspiring. I wrote an earlier story, “The
Story of Bliss” which is based on the same character. This is like a look back
to the failed relationship, whereas “Bliss” was like a story that took place
at the time. I also thought that there was not much love and feelings in this
book. I hope that this was more sincere.

Deathwish II (2002)

I was influenced by film and indie film in particular. I remember going to
see this film with my friends. We were drunk so I don’t remember much about the
film except Charles Bronson blew away a bunch of people. I was really into
early indie films like Slacker, Reservoir Dogs, and El Mariachi. I grew up in the
1960s and 1970s and films and music and TV influenced me as much as Flaubert
or DeLillo.

The Ballad of Nariyama (1991)

I saw this Japanese film in 1991 when I was in New York City. I only saw it
once. I wrote a different story based on it. There are a ton of references in
this book and “Nariyama” and “My Fair Lady” and “Alphaville” are probably
the ones dealt with in a lengthy way. There is my fake film in “Frankie.” All
these films deal with love and acceptance.

Having Nothing To Do With You And
Being Invisible (2000)

Another part from an abandoned novel. This was published a few times. I won a
fiction contest held by Astralwerks and The Chemical Brothers. It’s like a
nameless character from my early novels that have given up on life. I was
reading some of the early novels of Georges Perec. I felt like this was a good place
to end. It is open and leads to the strange characters of my next novel.

*

FIVE FINGERS MAKES A FIST comes out on October 1st, 2007

If you want to obtain a copy of FIVE FINGERS MAKE A FIST (Pollinator Press
2007) please write to Alexander Laurence or Pollinator Press.

If you want to send money through Paypal or stock this book in your store.
You can contact the author, Alexander Laurence, at alexlaurence@aol.com

Or send a money order or check of 14.95 plus 1.50 postage to:

Pollinator Press
PO Box 78351
San Francisco, CA 94107

www.pollinatorpress.com

Music is My Boyfriend #9 playlist

It was a weird night. It wasn't the worst and wasn't the best. People showed up. They were a bunch of drunks. I guess some were more interested in the Ryan Gosling film next door. He was hanging out at bar 107 for a while. I got to play some Coral, Shitdisco, Cold War Kids, and more for the first time. Andrea was there for the third or fourth time, and played all her mod / brit records. It went like this:

Soundcheck:

Propellerheads "Velvet Pants"
Jay-Z "99 Problems" (A Cappella)

Justice "D.A.N.C.E."
LCD Soundsystem "North American Scum"
The Go! Team "Grip Like A Vice"
Massive Attack "Inertia Creeps" (Manic Street Preachers)
Klaxons "Golden Skans"
We Are Scientists "The Scene Is Dead"
The Coral "Who's Gonna Find Me?"
The Rutles "Doubleback Alley"
Bat For Lashes "What's A Girl To Do?"
Teddybears "Ahead Of My Time"

Maximo Park "Girls Who Play Guitars"
Joy Division "Isolation"
Liars "Houseclouds"
CSS "Alala"
Art Brut "Direct Hit"
Grace Jones "Pull Up To The Bumper"
The Rapture "Get Myself Into It"
New Young Pony Club "The Bomb"
Bloc Party "The Prayer"
Ladytron "Soft Power"

Interpol "Mammoth"
Burial "Ghost Hardware"
Queens of The Stone Age "3s & 7s"
Blondie "Rapture"

Andrea and Alexander DJed together here:

We played Libertines, Babyshambles, Jack Penate, The Kills, Belle & Sebastian, Xerox Teens, Beach Boys, The Supremes, The Rakes, The Who, The Seeds, Sunshine Underground, and more.

I came back in with my records:

Shitdisco "Reactor Party"
The Cribs "Moving Pictures"
Jarvis Cocker "Fat Kidz" (Let them Eat Acid)
She Wants Revenge "Tear You Apart"
Neil Young "Cinnamon Girl"
Interpol "The Heinrich Manuever"
Wire "Outdoor Miner"
Klaxons "It's Not Over Yet"
British Sea Power "Remember Me"
UNKLE "Burn My Shadow"

Amy Winehouse "Rehab"
The Horrors "Count In Fives"
The Sweet "Fox On The Run"
West Indian Girl "To Die In LA"
Clinic "If You Could Read Your Mind"
Kraftwerk "Numbers"
The Strokes "Last Nite"
The Velvet Underground "There She Goes Again"
Polyphonic Spree "Running Away"
Arcade Fire "Rebellion (lies)"

Cold War Kids "Hospital Beds"
The Long Blondes "Once And Never Again"
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Y Control" (faint)
Patrick Wolf "The Magic Position"
Bob Dylan "Rainy Day Women"
Modest Mouse "Float On"
Brian Jonestown Massacre "Going To Hell"
Johnny Thunders "Chinese Rocks"
Iggy and the Stooges "Raw Power"
The White Stripes "Icky Thump"

Donovan "Hurdy Gurdy Man"
The Good, The Bad, and The Queen "Herculean"

september 13th, 2007

Music is My Boyfriend : a new year

Thursday, September 13, 2007 at 9:45pm
Location: BAR 107
Street: 107 West 4th Street @ main
City/Town: Los Angeles, CA

music is my boyfriend #9 @ Bar 107 / September 13th

Music Is My Boyfriend is the name of our amazing night of NEW MUSIC in Downtown LA. It happens the second THURSDAY of every month. DJ Alexander Laurence and friends return to BAR 107....

Alexander Laurence (aka The Portable Infinite)
CELEBRATES VINYL and Mel Torme

My book is coming out soon so there is cause to celebrate. I have a bunch of new records so it's going to be a big night....

New Indie Rock + New Indie Dance + Select Records from the 70s & 80s + you + me + everyone

Sexy videos + free stuff + special appearances

DJ Andrea Sutterfield

More FREE CDs

It is all FREE and there are no lines

BJM live

BJM : new video "Golden-Frost"

Tiny Tim Interview

photo by Alexander Laurence

TINY TIM: The Impotent Troubadour (1996)

I did an interview with Tiny Tim for CUPS Magazine a few months before he died. I drove out to Laughlin Nevada to meet him, and it was one of the most bizarre events in my life. He was playing in one of those retro sixties shows with some guys from Badfinger. We spoke for an hour in the casino office. Then we went up to this hotel room, and he gave me some orange juice. Many indie labels started releasing records by him.

by Alexander Laurence


Alexander: Very prolific of you with all these three CDs coming out at once: I
Love Me, Girl, and Prisoner of Love. What prompted this?

Tiny Tim: When it rains it pours. I Love Me was done in 1993. Steve Rubin
started it, God rest his soul. The Girl album was done in 1988 in Denton, Texas.
Prisoner of Love was done in 1994 and that's just coming out now. I've never
recorded a better one than this one.

You've had a low profile since the early ’70s?

TT: I've never retired from this business. I could not afford to. 1968 to
1969 were the great years. In 1970, the slump came. Success in the usual cases is
two years. After that the fickle public wants something new.

What was the secret of the success of your big hit, "Tiptoe Through the
Tulips"?

TT: I thank Jesus Christ for his blessings. I prayed about it in 1954 when I
was thrown out in the media for my long hair and white makeup. Parents asked
me, "What's wrong with him?" and "What is going on here?"

What's this Tiny Tim thing all about?

TT: That's what Larry King asked when I was on his radio show. I didn't know
how to answer this question because the only thing I can tell you is that at
Loews Theater--I worked there in 1951--at the Christmas Party they have
employees sing for us. I sang a song called, "Never." I was uptight and I bombed out.
Right after Christmas something had to change.

You needed a way to stand out?

TT: Beautifully put. Something cried inside of me: change, change!! So in
1952, I decided that I was not good-looking and I didn't want cut this nose
because I was afraid of operations. So I took a challenge to try to make it with
this long nose. I must tell you that I always liked women, but they were not
that much attracted to me. I had to find two things: a career and what would
appeal to women. Certain women who fit into my princess dream world.

What sort of women are these?

TT: I'll give you an example: a woman who you know is Elizabeth Taylor. I met
her in 1947 and when she saw me there, her eyes popped out of her head. She
threw me a kiss from the cab. Some fellow said she likes anyone who makes her
eyes pop out of her head. That inspired me. I wanted to make it to her level. I
dream of a certain face that fits into my dream world and I had to have
something because of my looks. I started cleansing my skin eight times a day. I
used Pawns from Woolworths. Landers cream from Woolworths 25 cents.

That sounds kind of fruity.

TT: It's only fruity if you're fruity. I wanted my skin to be soft and
immaculate. Clean it, use astringent, night cream, eye cream, and if I can, a throat
cream. I wash my hair every day and haven't missed a shower since December
20, 1989. Cleanliness is next to godliness, but with women it was more so. I
wanted to appeal to women by cleansing and using cologne and light makeup. When
I made it with Tiptoe through the Tulips, the world was saying, "This guy is a
fag." It was worth it when one makes it. Originality is the key to success.

My main appeal as it is now: Jesus Christ comes first, romance comes second,
and show business comes later. I just saw two nice young girls come here. Just
to see that is heaven. They say: what a nice guy Tiny Tim! He signs so many
autographs. What they don't know is that I'm looking for one or two angels in
the crowd who might be the trophy winner in my dreams. Now I'm married to
Miss Sue and can't give any trophies out. She is 40-years old and I am nearing
65. The only thing with women is the Bible says I can't touch them until
marriage. Unfortunately, I'm no saint.

You've touched women outside marriage?

TT: Terrible, it was a sin of fornication. Every time that happens, I pray to
the Lord for forgiveness. I didn't say it was right because Masters and
Johnsons says it's normal.

How many trophies are we talking about?

TT: Thirteen trophies from 1963 to 1982. My first trophy came out to a girl
called Mrs. Snookie. I worked in New York in a club called The Page Three.
Police closed it because girls liked each other that went to that club.

So I wanted to appeal to women. First the high voice came. The high voice was
a miracle because at that time I sounded like everybody else.

Where'd the high voice come from?

TT: There was a feeling in the heart in 1952. I'd pray to Jesus "Oh lord, I
needed a change." It just came over me while singing Tony Bennett's 'Because of
you.' It sounded original. My father told me, "Stop that fairy voice. What
happened to your other voice?"

Looking at myself I didn't like short hair. I emulated a picture of
Valentino. It was not the long hair alone. It was the white face makeup with the long
hair. I wore the white face because it gave me a feeling of purity with
women. I see women as pure angels and it kept me in that facility with women. Tan
makeup made me feel too heavy in my soul whereas the white makeup was it. In
1954--high voice was there, the makeup was there and the long hair was there
and not just for show business. I wanted to find an eternal princess. Trying to
get jobs was difficult; going on the train with long hair and white face
makeup and cologne crowded customers would clear out as soon as I sat near
someone. They would get up and leave.

I notice you are a follower of Jesus Christ.

TT: In 1952, I found Jesus Christ. There was a touch where all of the sudden
I felt all my little worries. I mean I was so worried about the Dodgers. I
would cuss and swear when they lost one game and when I found Jesus Christ, the
most important thing was to get to heaven.

Will you get heaven?

TT: It's only up to him to judge. I can never make that judgment. I have to
work harder and harder all the time.

So you think the competition is thick to get to heaven?

TT: If we just sit here and think about anyone who ever lived, it would be so
uncountable. We'll see the great stars and singers of King Arthur's court.
Show business does not start with this time. I want to know who the stars were
then. I disagree with the Pope. I think there will be s-e-x in heaven or on new
earth.

Sex in heaven?

TT: Why do I believe there will be s-e-x in heaven? For the kids who died in
abortions, for the kids who died in their mothers' womb, for those who died in
wars, for the Mongoloids and the cripples. I believe they will have a taste
of it in the new world to come. In this world you can look at them but there's
always a line where you can not go further. For example I would love to go
with a 15-year-old girl if her parents said it was okay.

We could set you up with somebody.

TT: It's wrong for me to fool around because God says, "Thou shall not commit
fornication." There is an angry god right now. He is angry at man and woman
because so many people are divorcing and fooling around before marriage. Like
he almost destroyed the world with Noah. Look at what is happening today: the
unrest with Israel, England, and this thing with China.

These are the end times.

TT: Oh, the beginning of the end times.

Is the rapture approaching?

TT: Nobody knows when. It comes closer. However if the world goes on, we
ended the first half. If the world continues, we are finally going to meet
outer space aliens. Either from different galaxies or from another dimension
here.

Are they related to Jesus Christ, the aliens? Was he an alien?

TT: Oh no, he was the son of God. But he may have created the aliens. I don't
know.

Why do you think it will happen?

TT: You take Verne, Da Vinci, and Spielberg. In Da Vinci's time he sketched
wings for man. Verne did the submarine ahead of its time. Speilberg has his
vision of how they look -subconscious revelations of what aliens look like. As
for myself, I couldn't go in the army when I got drafted in 1951. They asked why
I wanted to go. I said it is a chance to go to the moon. They rejected me and
classified me as 4G which means if they bomb New York City we'll call you.
Now these things are coming true. I believe that 100 years from now they'll be
saying, 'how can you marry that creature from Mars or that creature from Saturn
or from wherever.' All these things will happen if the world goes on and
Christ doesn't come back. The question that will come up then is whether the
banishment to the Garden of Eden will only apply to earth or to the whole universe.
I think it will apply to the whole universe.

Will the aliens be subject to Christ?

TT: Yes, or they would have a God of their own. I believe personally it will
be the same God of Israel through Jesus Christ.

A lot of people see you as a novelty act. How do you see yourself?

TT: I'm the master of confusion. There is no explanation. As long as I please
him and walk with him, that's what counts. It is the same with the abortion
issue: abortion is absolutely wrong. The only time an abortion should be
allowed is if the mother's life is in danger. We could have been aborted, never
would have tasted pizza, never would tasted ice cream. The scripture says the body
is not your own. It is legal murder and that is why I am for Pat Buchanan. He
is the only one to stand up against abortion which is the murder of a life.
All the rest are prostituting themselves for the election. Number 2- Condoms in
schools--shocking.

Have you ever used a condom?

TT: Never did. Even to look at the thing. In the 1940s, those things were so
secretive. They'd hide them in the back of the store. I don't believe in
[the] rhythm [method] or birth control. That is why women have cancers, lumps, and
tumors because they wish to stop a flow the Lord does not wish to stop. That
is why Olivia Newton John had cancer. Birth control creates cancer. It is
causing a lack of the white race while poorer races who don't believe in it are
multiplying because the white man has decided to take it easy and wait until he
is 40. What is happening is all the dark races are multiplying while the white
man is diminishing. The quota is getting lopsided.

Overpopulation is the biggest false philosophy. Satan is a beautiful prince
that looks like Fabio. He is jealous of God. He goes to the United nations and
offers the false lie of overpopulation in China. I'm for life on every planet.
We can never be over populated: we can make a haven on the moon, a haven on
Jupiter.

So Planned Parenthood is part of Satan?

TT: In my opinion, yes.

Are you sick of playing "Tiptoe Through the Tulips?"

TT: I never yield to the tiredness. Never bite the hand that feeds you.

How many Top 40 songs did you have?

TT: "Tiptoe" hit number 17 and that was the only one. It had such a furor in
1968. One disc jockey who went on strike didn't want to play it.

Why is that?

TT: He thought it was too odd. It blew his mind.

Another thing you're famous for is getting married on the "Tonight
Show"?

TT: Miss Vicki. She was 17-years old and I was near 40.

How long did the marriage last?

TT: Four years.

Was she too young?

TT: Age does not matter. A person knows as much at 17 as they do at 47.

Whose idea was it to get married on TV?

TT: Mr. Carson's.

Why did you agree?

TT: I would smitten by her and I told the press. Carson asked me to marry
her on his show. It would make her mother happy and save the expenses.

How is your latest marriage going?

TT: I must also say that I am impotent. I discovered this in July 1994. It
happened like that maybe because blood diabetes or age. I told this to Ms. Sue and
press and even made a documentary record in England called, "Songs of the
Impotent Troubadour." The reason I made this album is to show that even if you're
impotent, you can still sing love songs. Miss Sue doesn't care that I can't
enter her. The album has sold a thousand copies in two years.

Five Fingers Make A Fist

Five Fingers Make A Fist

Stories by Alexander Laurence

Pollinator Press: OCTOBER 1st, 2007

Evoking Exercises In Style by Raymond Queneau, where the same story is retold 99 times, Alexander Laurence has taken storytelling as the subject of his book. Five Fingers Make A Fist juxtaposes extreme realism, science, poetry and theater in 28 stories told through various points of view, from a baby narrator in "My Birth" to an old lady waiting to die in "The Ballad of Nariyama." Many of the stories take place in San Francisco in the 1990s, yet they are truly universal. Inspired by pop culture, music, and TV, these stories are too entertaining for any literature to get in the way (it's okay if you don't get the literary references and in-jokes the first time). The characters become so twisted by their own self invention that they start to believe their own made up stories about themselves and the world. Sometimes their self-made fantasy becomes a truer version. What is real? What is a mask? What is good old storytelling? Prepare to have the world turned upside down.

Website: http://pollinatorpress.com/pages/books/fivefingers.html

Laura Warholic by Alexander Theroux

This book is finally out. The character that is based on Laura Warholic, I lived with and went out with the three years before Theroux met her. I think some character is a composite of me, but I never lived in Boston. Theroux wrote me a bunch of crazy letters ten years ago begging me for details about Laura. He promised to buy me dinner and give me manuscripts.


From Booklist
Prior to his two elegant essay collections, The Primary Colors (1994) and The Secondary Colors (1996), Theroux wrote push-the-envelope works of fiction. Now in his first novel in 20 years, a work that screams "literary event," Theroux takes up a signature theme, thwarted love. Eugene Eyestones is an erudite man of taste and refinement earning his keep by writing an intellectual yet nonetheless scandalous sex column for a Boston magazine published by the grotesquely fat and foul Minot Warholic. Laura, Warholic's homely, straw-thin, slutty, rock-and-roll-fanatic ex-wife, serves as gentlemanly Eugene's unlikely muse, while he dreams of Rapunzel, a fair lady working in a bakery. Weary of the anti-Semitic, racist, misogynist, and homophobic tirades and insults habitually spewed by his cartoonishly vituperative colleagues, Eugene goes on the road with obtuse Laura, touring America's grand spectrum of tackiness. Undeniably funny and compelling, linguistically and intellectually dazzling, as well as offensive and outrageously prolix, Theroux's spiky catchall satire of the myriad ills of contemporary culture and the divide between idealized love and unbridled lust grinds and thrashes its way to an obliterating conclusion. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Book Description
A brilliant satire from one of the great novelists of his time.

In his first novel in nearly twenty years, Alexander Theroux, National Book Award Nominee, returns with a compendious satire, a bold and inquisitorial circuit-breaking examination of love and hate, of rejection and forgiveness, of trust and romantic disappointment, of the terrors of contemporary life. Eugene Eyestones, an erudite sex columnist for a Boston cultural magazine, becomes enmeshed in the messy life of a would-be artist named Laura Warholic, who, repulsing and fascinating him at the same time, becomes a mirror in which he not only sees himself but through which he is forced to face his own demons. Not only does she inadvertently supply him with material for his columns, but she exemplifies all that Eugene considers wrong with contemporary America (of which the publishing profession and its recognizable denizens serves as a microcosm)—a garish and dunce-filled Babylon that Theroux scorches with inventive and relentless satire. Nostalgic for the old days and old manners, a way of life lost to grace, loving from afar a mysterious beauty named Rapunzel Wisht, Eugene fights against the rising tide of stupidity, focusing on Laura in the hope that by saving her he can validate his ethical beliefs. But feckless Laura and the colorful but bizarre cast of characters surrounding Eugene—brilliant bigots, nihilists, Generation-X slackers and zanies of all sexual persuasions—threaten to pull him under, leading to the novel's unforgettable conclusion, a climax of betrayal and redemption of Dostoevskyan power.

As in all of Theroux's works, his maximalist and pyrotechnic prose style and searching intellect are the chief attractions, capable of outrageous comedy, nuanced philosophical discussions, winsome love scenes, flame-throwing tirades, subtle theological musings, and an unflinching genius for a profound if merciless look at the human condition. Horrifying and hilarious, damning and demanding, Laura Warholic in its uncompromising power will surely be one of the most talked-about novels of the season, and for years to come.

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Laura-Warholic-Intellectual-Alexander-Theroux/dp/1560977981/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-3808092-9907928?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188345834&sr=1-1

Music Is My Boyfriend

Music Is My Boyfriend AUGUST @ Bar 107

Music Is My Boyfriend
August 9th, 2007

Mercury Rev "Delta Sun Bottleneck Stomp" (Chemical Bros)
Dylan "Subterranean Homesick Blues"
Sweet "The 6-Teens"
UNKLE "Burn My Shadow"
Primal Scream "Some Velvet Morning"
Interpol "The Heirich Maneuver"
The Horrors "Count In Fives"
Amy Winehouse "Rehab" (Hot Chip)
Klaxons "Golden Skans"
Kraftwerk "Pocket Caculator"

John Foxx "Underpass"
Gary Numan "Cars"
Annie "Crush"
Ladytron "Softpower" remix
CSS "Alala"
Tegan & Sara "Are You Ten Years Ago?"
Bow Wow Wow "I Want Candy"
Queens Of The Stone Age" "3s and 7s"
The Strokes "Last Nite"
Jarvis "Fat Children" remix

Dream Syndicate "That's What You Always Say"
Arcade Fire "Wake Up"
My Bloody Valentine " Only Shallow"
The Glove "Perfect Murder"

DJ Andrea: played Pulp, Suede, Nancy Sinatra, Hot Chip, The Others, The Rakes, Libertines, Beah Boys, and more....

ME again:

Blonde Redhead " En Particulier"
Love & Rockets "Ball of Confusion"
Rocky Horror OST "Sweet Transvestite"
The Long Blondes "Lust In The Movies"
Datarock "Fa Fa Fa"
The White Stripes "Icky Thump"
The Cribs "Mens Needs"
Bat For Lashes "What's A Girl To Do?"
Clinic "If You Could Read Your Mind"
Art Brut "Good Weekend"

The Warlocks "Baby Blue"
UNKLE "Mayday"
Tokyo Police Club "Nature of the Experiement"
Roxy Music "Virginia Plain" Headman remix
Maximo Park "Apply Some Pressure"
Sarah Nixey "Strangelove"
Garbage "I Think I'm Paranoid"
Jesus and Mary Chain "Just Like Honey"
Klaxons "It's Not Over Yet"
Bloc Party "The Prayer"

Dandy Warhols "We Used To Be Friends" remix
Howling Bells "Low Happening"
Velvet Underground "I'll Be Your Mirror"
Donovan "Hurdy Gurdy Man"
Bowie "Up The Hill Backwards"