Corpsekisser "Cry Laughing"

(photo via Shayla Hason)

The first time the three members of Silk Flowers interacted musically was August 10, 2006 in Portland Oregon, when No Age, Soiled Mattress & the Springs, Burrito Pillow, and Corpsekisser played together at Foodhole. Peter and Aviram were in Soiled Mattress, along with eternal genius Matthew Thurber, and Corpsekisser was/is Heather and I.

I am very excited to announce that Fred Thomas' Life Like Records has just released the Corpsekisser LP. Fred also just posted a really sweet and I think accurate description of the record:

Corpsekisser encapsulates the mindset of the troubled child that doesn't want to feel better. You can hear parts of the so sick you feel euphoric sounds of early 90's Siltbreeze while the male/female tandem vocals and too-hazy-to-be-brutal recording calls to mind "Twin Infinitives" era Trux.

The record is limited to 200 copies and comes with a very informative insert. Also here is a music video:



More information and ordering details HERE.

Peter and I's old band mate Matthew Thurber just released a split cassette of our respective solo  projects, Peter's House Music (Peter) and Dim Diamond (myself, Aviram). You can order one for yourself here.

MYSTERIES REVEALED IN TIME

SATURDAY NIGHT

Saturday, May 15th @ SILENT BARN

:: Eric Copeland
:::: Tarek Atoui
::::::: Silk Flowers
::::::::: Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe

| SILENT BARN |
915 Wyckoff Ave @ Weirfield | Ridgewood, Qns
M-Myrtle/Wyckoff, L-Halsey| 8pm | all ages | $tba
| MYSPACE |– http://myspace.com/thesilentbarn

This is our last show until July....

IN THE AIR TONIGHT

Awhile ago I was thinking about getting a different drum machine. One of the ones I was interested in getting was those prefabricated pattern ones like the Rhythm Ace by Ace Tone or one of the CR models from Roland. Which has been used by everyone from John Foxx to Blondie to Phil Collins even. It led me to this video. Which made me think of how often this song has been used as comedic fodder. No doubt his demonstration has comedic value in it's own right. I think maybe two more toms could have been used in there. He's giving Neil Peart a run for his money.

Boy/Girl

Last year when we played in Copenhagen we got to see Iceage and it was one of the best things I saw on that tour. I recently interviewed them for Maximum Rocknroll, it's in the new issue. Anyway, writing about this Danish band got me thinking about other Danish bands, my favorite of which is Sort Sol. I lost their second record, "Dagger and Guitar" a few years ago (actually I've lost two copies of that record in my life), so I spent some time on the internet trying to track down the songs so I could hear them again. During that process, I stumbled upon this music video for "Boy/Girl." It's perfect. Lydia Lunch is so amazing when she sounds bored, but Steen Jørgensen beats her at that game by chewing gum the whole time. It's like a boredom competition, like the part where Lunch tosses her hair and then Jørgensen tosses his hair. Also he looked a bit like Pieter Schoolwerth which made me happy.

This:

the rain is gone/the pain is gone

I have an uneasy memory of getting in a fistfight with this kid at the soccer fields behind the middle school. We were both young so there weren't too many punches, but a lot of grappling and flailing. I remember knocking the kid's head against the nearby playground equipment, which seems really scary now. He pulled out a lot of my hair, a thing I didn't find out until the silent car ride home when it starting falling out in clumps, which I gathered together in awe of how much had come out.

The thing that taints the memory the most was that my dad witnessed the fight. It happened during my sister's soccer game, my opponent was an older brother of one of the other girls on her team (or the opposing team, I guess). My dad was the coach of my sister's team, so he couldn't break away from the game to stop us or express his dissatisfaction. But he was not proud of me, and that car ride home with the growing pile of hair was really a bad trip.

The next time I went to one of my sister's games I sat in the car for the duration. I'm not sure if I was in trouble, and not allowed to attend, or if I just was being petulant and wanted to sit in the car. Earlier that week I had seen the video for "Take it Personal" on BET and had managed to get the cassingle for the song, I think from my friend Wayne. I sat in the car for the hour or so of the game and just rewound the tape over and over listening to the song. I remember being really struck at the emotion in the song, I felt like Guru made himself really vulnerable. It felt very close in spirit to most of what I was listening to at that time--Rollins Band, Nine Inch Nails, Green Day--but had a much different effect. In a lot of ways, this relatability was what pulled me out of this first stage of abject, tortured angst, and got me listening to a lot less guitar-based heartsick laments.

Guru was sick for the last few months, and his coma got me talking to a few friends about how much or how little we've listened to Gang Starr in the past few years. The answer was mostly not much. But there's no denying how important Gang Starr was to my adolescent life, and wether or not I even hear his voice on a song like "Mass Appeal" I have to say it was his attitude that brought me to their music in the first place. Rest in Peace....