After I smoked some of the evil weed, I walked over to Cocke Hall to do some computer work. As I walked, I had a revelation that chicken is to egg as happiness is to comfort.
Marijuana, used with restraint, occasionally leads me to profound insights. This is not a good example, but it is an example.
Elizabeth and Andrew were watching teevee at our house when I got back. A very weird situation was then afoot in the country...President Bill Clinton's State of the Union Address was about to be delivered just as an announcement was to come of the jury's verdict in the OJ Simpson civil case (the families of the victims versus the former football great). I kept expecting the teevee to go split-screen so both enormously news worthy events could be simultaneously televised. The decision announcement kept being held out as imminent, but time dragged on and I became bored. I certainly wasn't going to watch Bill Clinton's feel-good propaganda. So I took my pre-work nap.
I slept fitfully in the end, but in the last ten minutes before my alarm went off, I had a powerfully frightening dream about being in my old high school during a frightful electrical storm. I hated to leave my bed but it was time to go to work. I felt like casting my employment to the wind for an hour more of sleep.
The Sonic Youth CD is surprisingly chaotic and unfamiliar despite how recent it is. It starts out as close to tonal as those guys ever get, but by the end, it sounds like the crappiest stuff that Josh and I do in his pornography heaven.
The PJ Harvey is like a female version of Nick Cave's better stuff (listen to "C'mon Billy," track 4). It's thus no surprise that PJ has collaborated with Nick on some projects. I'm rather surprised by how much I like this album. An especially good song is track number 5, "Teclo."
One has to wonder with a novelty like an all-girl sludge metal band like L7, if they were boys, would they still be considered any good? I don't know. A band does what it takes to get attention, whether it be all-girl, or whether (as in the case of Hole) its lead singer has a mega-famous husband who commits a gruesome suicide. The ridiculously named Bricks are Heavy starts out rather lame, like a Joan Jett and the Blackhearts rehash almost (listen to Track 3: "Pretend that We're Dead"). If it weren't for the starkly creepy grunge of the guitar, I'd probably have trouble making it to the middle, where the CD picks up enormously. By the end, they've used Arabic scales (listen to Track 6: "Slide") and wallowed thoroughly in punk. It becomes a wonderful piece of work.