The Dreadful Flying Glove presents ... Crowded House

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It was 1995 when I decided that I liked Crowded House. At this point, I hadn't heard anything by them. That wasn't much of a problem, though, because they'd become the kind of band that people couldn't stop themselves writing articles about. It was in articles that I read about songs called things like "Hole In The River" and "Four Seasons In One Day" and thought 'those are great titles', or read about a song with lyrics drawn from the fevered utterances of Neil Finn's sick child. (Don't worry, he got better.)

Then there was the story about their drummer accidentally ending a gig by tossing a bottle of beer to a friend in the audience minus its cap, exploding across the mixing desk. Or the story about them recording their most recent album in some ghost-haunted house above a desolate New Zealand beach, on the verge of splitting up, held at bay by storms.

With all these stories to keep me amused, it came to pass that by the time I actually got round to buying one of their records, they'd already split up.



"Nails In My Feet" (live) (1993)


This song is from that stormy album, Together Alone. The bassline that doesn't quit, the words 'reception room', the guitar break that's the melodic equivalent of a gentle squeeze to the balls, the healthy disregard for lyrical convention overall: I like these things.

Neil Finn writes some of the best words I've heard anyone write in a song, entirely without ego. An expression such as "Sit like a lap-dog on a matron's knee" is the sort of thing that should be unjustifiable in a song on the grounds of being openly clever. But in this case it's utterly lucid, correct, quizzical and interrogative in all the right ways. It makes me green with envy and giddy with being-there-ness. It's just perfect.



"World Where You Live" (1986)


Quite a bit of their catalogue was recorded in the 80s, and you can tell. But if you listen past all the padded-shoulders reverb and reinforced-gusset snare drums, as I learned to, there are some smashing tunes. There aren't any rhymes in this song, the chorus appears to belong to another song entirely, and (in the video, at least) they all look like they're auditioning for Dr Who. Works for me, ridiculously well.



"Whispers & Moans" (1991)


"When You Come" (1988)


"Into Temptation" (1988)


There's a sexuality in these songs that I really respond to. It's an unabashedly adult sexuality, unafraid of awkwardness, and accepting of so much excluded from mainstream discourse - fidelity, infidelity, conscience, guilt, desire, fallibility. Even when I was 16 I could see that there was something really daring about that, and the slow disintegration of my uptightness began here. For which, many thanks.



"Don't Dream It's Over" (1987)


This gets used on TV shows and sports coverage entirely too often, but it's still one of the most perfect pop songs anyone's ever written.



Crowded House Screwed Up at Hyde Park Calling (2007)


"Four Seasons In One Day"


They're also a really great band to see live. "Smiling as the shit comes down" is also one of the greatest lines to ever open a second verse. (At their 1996 farewell concert in Sydney, a charity fundraiser for the Sydney Children's Hospital, there were somewhere over 100,000 people in the audience.)



On "MTV's Most Wanted"


Good interviews, too. This clip starring the brilliant Paul Hester (in the white shirt). Paul, who suffered throughout his life from depression and mood swings, committed suicide in 2005. He is dearly missed.



"Pour Le Monde" (2007)


Crowded House reformed in 2007 and released Time On Earth. It's lovely. Their most recent record is 2010's Intriguer.

My favourite Crowded House song - as of this evening - is this one, from Together Alone. There are so many things about this tune that seem quite, quite perfect that I won't presume to waste your time explaining any further.



"Walking On The Spot" (1993)
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p.s. Hey. Today, the always masterful Dreadful Flying Glove draws your attention to the elegant, complex band Crowded House. It's a total beauty of a post, so please enjoy, explore, and talk back to your guest-host accordingly. Thank you so very much, Mr. Glove. Otherwise, I have two alerts for you today, both of which offer terrific opportunities, so please give them your attention. The first comes from the writer, thinker, and d.l. Allesfliesst:

'Together with my colleague Bettina Brandl-Risi, I’m editing an issue of the Performance Research Journal on “Participation,” which will come out in September 2011. While the word ‘participation’ has come to have an almost entirely positive meaning in art, politics, sociology, etc., many of us may remember moments when we were made to participate in something and the experience was just terrible, and we couldn’t find any good point in the whole thing even in retrospect. As we do not want to brush that aside in our issue, we plan to include a collection of reports on ‘My worst participatory experience in a theatre or art event.’ I know that many members of this blog’s community have a close relation to art, actively or as dedicated theatre and exhibition goers, and I’m sure you will have interesting (and truly terrifying) stories to tell. Therefore I’m kindly asking for your cooperation. You can send accounts of your worst participatory experience to kveikels@zedat.fu-berlin.de. If possible, please let them be short (up to 400 words, they may be much shorter though); and tell me whether you want your name to be published with them or remain anonymous. Our official deadline for contributions is March 2011, but it would be helpful to have your texts until the end of this year. Thanks a lot in advance & all the best, Kai aka allesfliesst.'

The second comes from the artist and d.l. Blake Wood and regards a new and guaranteed amazing literary magazine he is editing:

'Dear Friends-

Rumbelow Review is seeking works of writing, short stories/essays, poetry, letters, lists, ramblings, opinions, diaries...

This journal will be printed biannually with a limited edition of 500 copies available in major cities worldwide as well as online through Pharaoh Press.

Deadline Sept. 30th 2010

Please send all submissions to RumbelowReview@blake-wood.com by end of this month as we are scheduled to print early October.

Technical guidelines:

When submitting specially formatted work, please specify spacing etc.
If submitting in another language, please attach english translation.
For handwritten scanned work, please send images at 300dpi.'

I strongly encourage you to submit to either or both of these superb projects. Thanks. The only other thing I'll say briefly is that I still feel sick/ crappy, and I'm very frustrated about that, but I will do my level to keep the side effects out of the p.s. Still, fyi. ** Chris Cochrane, Hey, C. So, we talked, and I'll do my best to finalize my end of the discussion in the next day or so. Some kind person who shall remain nameless snuck me the new Superchunk, yes. Xenakis' string quartets totally rock. I've been listening to some of his percussion pieces. They're incredible too, if you haven't heard them. ** Allesfliesst, Hey. Hope the alert helps, man. Well, I guess I will weave it into something when you least expect seeing as how I come to you unprepared to be tricky this morning. Hope your body's 'maybe' learns the benefits of saying no. ** David Ehrenstein, Yeah, Louis Garrel, sorry. That was my cold or whatever misspeaking. I think you'll find the new Honore quite dandy. I hope it gets some US screenings at least. ** David, Yikes. I have two friends who have OSA. Hm, I'll try to get in touch with them. Let me ... Everyone, listen up, here's d.l. David: 'The results of my sleep study showed that I have OSA - obstructive sleep apnea. The whole idea, wearing a CPAP mask while sleeping, the other radical-seeming changes in lifestyle really give me the major league fantods. If anybody here is dealing with OSA, I'd appreciate hearing what you have to say.' Please do speak to David via the Comments arena if you have any experience or thoughts at all. Thank you! ** Jesse Hudson, Hey, Jesse! Thanks a lot for adding your two upward turned thumbs to mine re: Mr. Blanchot. So nice to see you. Talk to you pronto. ** Sypha, Hey. Oh, I saw there was an email from you first thing this morning, and I'll open it when I get done here. As almost ever, I'm being very slow on the email front. Nice, very incorporable dream snippets, yeah, I agree. ** Pilgarlic, I could practically feel Tybee's heat and sweat and salty smell in your comment. Which is a good thing, of course. Paris is in the neither warm nor cold early fall phase. I like it, but it's like invisible weather, which is kind of eerie or something. Geez, don't get tazered much less castrated. Those thongs need your full equipment. ** JW Veldhoen, I bet they don't have Sour Patch Kids here. They don't have official Gummi Bears here either, but they do have this extremely popular GB-like candy sold in myriad forms and packages and collectively named Haribo that takes the GB principle to representational extremes. It's also vaguely interesting because Haribo does everything humanly possible to make you think it's a Japanese candy company, but it's German. Pavement tix, superb! ** Patrick deWitt, Hey, Patrick! Oh, I'd like to see Hagerty's band, of course. Hm, the 15th would be my only chance. I'll check. Oh, right, you'll be over here then. That so sucks (for me). Thanks, man. ** _Black_Acrylic, Yeah, it is a very interesting post, and I could sort of glean that reasoned structure as I perused it, but it's very interesting to have the machinations laid out. Thanks and kudos, Ben. ** Plexus, Yeah, I saw you deleted. When people delete, the deleters' identities are revealed here in the secret headquarters of this blog. I'll just imagine what splendors it must have held. So, are you not sick anymore, or are you just a discrete sick person? I love you too. ** Kiddiepunk, Howdy, neighbor. Uh, I'd get the Station Hill Reader. For the price of a single book, you get most of Blanchot's fiction works together in one pop. Oh, so, Agnes B in a bit? I'm still sickish, but I'm very game. ** Pisycaca, Glad you liked my premiere story. I guess it went so well that they've decided to have an official, old fashioned Premiere in a few days. I guess I'll go that too. I'm excited about Halloween coming up. I'll get to do my month of Halloween-themed blog posts like I do every year whether anyone else likes it or not, ha ha. Yury has the Best Coast album on his iTunes, and he's going to play it for me tonight. Best day to you, pal. ** Steevee, I think I missed 'Carlos' when it was theaters here. The five hour thing made me skittish since the only Assayas film I love is 'Irma Vep'. I'll definitely get the DVD when it hits. Sounds very interesting. I'd heard Noe's next film might be a 3D porn film. I love the whole idea, naturally. ** Syreearmwellion, That is definitely a strange, beautiful story about finding the hallmark note. Think you might use it in something fictional? I can imagine myself redeploying it if I were you, I guess. Chocolate when it's 72% to 85% is the shit. People still say 'the shit' to mean 'the greatest', right? I'm way over here in France, so I don't know. Thanks a lot for wanting to add another reader to my select readership. Very kind of you. ** Bernard Welt, Greetings. ** Nb, Thanks, man. I'm trying. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Hey. Uh, I don't know if the Honore film will get released in the States. I hope so, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up just playing film festivals and gay film festivals. Great dialogue with your friend. You're such a good writer. Speaking of which, have you been writing, by which I mean writing fiction? Weird and bad that your headache grew while you were writing your comment. That's exactly what happened to me while I was writing the p.s. yesterday, which I guess is the start of my day report. Uh, while I was exiled, I bought a muffin and ate it on the stoop of the Recollets while reading the last issue of Mojo. Oscar and Kiddiepunk popped out, which shocked me because they were supposed to go to Italy yesterday, but I guess their flight got cancelled because of the strike, and now they're leaving on Friday instead. When I was allowed back into my room, I finished the p.s. Then I worked on my novel as best I could with a headache which means not very well. Most of the day's events were phone call-related. Gisele called me. We were supposed to meet up, but I told her I felt too awful, so we'll meet up this weekend instead when Stephen (O'Malley) plays a gig at Point Ephemere. We talked a little about 'Homme au Bain'. She didn't like it at all. She doesn't like any of Honore's films. She finds them irritating. I guess I argued for the film. I guess it got a little tense 'cos after we hung up she sent me an email saying she hoped she didn't offend me, and I wrote back and said no, no, no because she hadn't offended me. I was just headachey and in a bad mood. Kiddiepunk called to see if I want to go see this show at Agnes B's gallery today that features new work by Harmony Korine, Ryan McGinley, and by the deceased Dash Snow, and I said yeah, for sure. I got an email with a bunch of writing samples by the writers who have applied to read with me in New York. Spank Magazine is, like, co-sponsoring the reading or something, and they did a call out for queer writers who want to be my opening acts. I was supposed to pick 3 to read with me, and I did. I'll just say that one of them is a d.l. of this blog, woo hoo! At 10 pm, I had a Skype call/ meeting with the people (Ishmael, Chris, Travis, Ben) involved in the production of 'Them' in NYC. My part of the call was about when I'll be there, where I'll stay, and whether I'll perform in the piece or not. No definitive answers were arrived at on any of these questions, but they will be nailed down in the next day or so. I was really tired and feeling like shit by then partly 'cos I'd had a bad headache all day and evening, and you know how that is. Then I slept. I'll go do today now, and you tell me how Thursday worked out for you. ** Paul Joseph, Hey. There seem to be four existing photos of Blanchot. I think I printed three of them. There's a fifth one that is supposed to be of him too, but the experts don't think it's him. Yes, I did read about the latest Bernhard. There have actually been two new Bernhard books in English this year, I think. One of fiction pieces and a newer one of essays and letters and so on, I think? That's back when nihilism meant something amazing, yeah. Now it's like ... I mean I get called a nihilist by critics a lot, and, I mean, come on. If I'm a nihilist, who isn't? Best to you, man. ** Misanthrope, I think he should have sung it in a suit of armor. Yeah, I think Blanchot is a really particular thing that one either gets or doesn't. He deliberately denies the reader a ton, and if one doesn't become excited by the voids he creates, the work can seem uneventful and flat. You kind of have to reinvent the act of reading in order to read and get the work. It's a lot to ask. That's part of what makes him an ultimate God to me, but it's also why his work isn't for everyone or whatever. And then there's Will Self, ha ha. I sincerely hope that book gets delivered to you as quickly as possible, though. I do. ** Statictick, I know. I really think I might be only person the world who doesn't like honey. Yuck. The great, classic line up of Guided by Voices -- i.e., circa the early '90s -- reformed recently to play Matador Records' birthday concert, and they decided to extend the reunion into a tour. Long story short, if you don't go see that GbV gig, you are insane. ** Brendan, Leads, cool. I miss LA, trust me, sigh. Dude, you might be amazed by how many women like my work. If they're not biting re: your profile, it's not entirely my work's fault. Or maybe it is. I'm sorry. I wonder if that psychotic preacher would be willing to burn my collected works instead of those Korans? ** Bill, Hey. Well, yeah, it kind of is. It and Bresson. And Pollard. And select porn. Hope your today isn't as long as your yesterday was. ** Blake Wood, Hey there, Blake! Very awesome to see you! Yeah, I did a call-out up top. Hope it helps. I think it's so very cool you're doing that publication, and I'm excited to see it. Glad your busyness has been good. Mine too, I guess. The summer really did race by. Weird, huh? Yeah, B., just excellent to see you! ** Alan, Yikes. No, no one has ever said I look like Bataille before. Or not to my face, ha ha. Really? Weird. I'll look at him again with newly trained eyes. Yeah, that Sartre quote's phrasing was crazed. It was in that form when I found it. I was hoping Blanchot's greatness caused his language to fail, but I'm sure you're right. ** 'Stoopid Slapped Puppies', Thanks for the Xmas greetings. They can't help but help. I'm going to walk and talk like Santa Claus today and see what happens. Which I guess means waddling and chuckling and nothing else. That sounds nice. I always think through my relationship to my characters beforehand, but then I sort of try to forget what I decided and let myself improvise when I'm writing 'cos I figure the improvising will probably happen within the space mapped out by what I decided to begin with. Does that make sense? I think locking characters down completely before you write is a negative idea, for me anyway. What's your approach regarding that? Excellent that you've finished the first part of 'TMitO'. Is all up on your blog now? I'll go check shortly. Yeah, it's great to be able to have something finished before a huge life change. You can then dedicate your imagination to the next work and let the newness guide you rather than have your writing mired in something that belonged to a different place. Or something. Wow, you leave on Tuesday? How are you wrapping things up? Are you going to have a bye-bye party or anything like that? Love from me. ** Slatted Light, Hey, David. You know, you actually so nailed what I liked and was uncertain about re: '[03]' that I'll just have to say that yeah, that's really my feelings about the book in a nutshell. Barring the miraculous appearance of that invisibility suit, you could pretend you're a member of Sunn0))). You know, monk robe, as black as nothingness. Wait, I guess the stares would be counterproductive, wouldn't they? New and recommended music: mm, Perfume Genius, Failing Lights, the new Deerhunter tracks, the latest Emeralds album, Kevin Drumm's 'Necro Acoustic' box set, the new Panda Bear single, Owen Pallett's 'A Swedish Love Story' EP, ... Off the top of my head. I'm de-fluing, I hope, but the funk is pre-de-. ** Renaud Cerqueux, Hey. Yeah, let's definitely meet up. That would be great. I might be out in Brest as soon as January to work on this new installation/ maze/ theater work I'm doing with Gisele Vienne. I look forward to the EP and to the contact info. Good day to you, man. ** Destroyed beyond emptiness, Hi, Darren. Yeah, 'The Space of Literature' might just rip you a new ... something. In the meantime, 'Flowers of Evil'! Niiiccce. Yeah, write some poetry. I so throughly agree with that idea, man. I'll keep feeling better, I'm sure, or at least I imagine. Thanks, and love ... ** Okay, enjoy TDFG's Crowded House festivities, and I'll see you with hopefully more sparkle in my text tomorrow.