Arthur Russell
Omega Day
by Bill Fay, 1971
Inside a bar of a sleeping town
There lay a sleeping man he wore a frown
A stranger woke him he looked around
Then he spoke I wrote it down
He said, “My climbing rope is broken,
And I cannot stay awake
Better fix it son no joking
For the omega day is come”
I went over to the stranger’s side
I began to speak but he read my mind
He said, “You know me from long ago”
Then he turned I watched him go
I said, “My climbing rope is broken,
And I cannot stay awake
Better fix it son no joking
For the omega day is come”
JT was on the cover of Time on March 1, 1971 — The New Rock: Bittersweet and Low
The sales numbers of Pitchfork’s top 50 albums. The ones with suspiciously round numbers are estimations based on when an album dropped out of the top 200 and the fact that it has to sell less than 300 copies in a week to do so. If you have verified numbers to fix any mistakes or omissions, send them along.
1. Bon Iver Bon Iver - 317,355
2. Destroyer Kaputt - 30,000
3. M83 Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming - 59,573
4. PJ Harvey Let England Shake - 62,000
5. Girls Father, Son, Holy Ghost - 30,000
6. Oneohtrix Point Never Replica - 3,800
7. Tune-Yards w h o k i l l - 40,386
8. Drake Take Care - 967,560
9. Real Estate Days - 20,700
10. The Weeknd House of Balloons N/A
11. St. Vincent Cruel Mercy - 44,334
12. James Blake James Blake - 47,372
13. EMA Past-Life Martyred Saints - 6,100
14. Shabazz Palaces Black Up - 14,767
15. Fleet Foxes Helplessness Blues - 277,541
16. Kurt Vile Smoke Ring for My Halo - 28,013
17. Clams Casino Instrumentals N/A
18. Atlas Sound Parallax - 12,411
19. Danny Brown XXX N/A
20. Nicolas Jaar Space is Only Noise N/A
21. Jay-Z/Kanye West Watch the Throne - 1,143,674
22. The Caretaker An Empty Bliss Beyond This World N/A
23. Bill Callahan Apocalypse - 9,900
24. Juliana Barwick The Magic Place - 1,000
25. Gang Gang Dance Eye Contact - 8,600
26. The Field Looping State of Mind - 4,900
27. Beyonce 4 - 971,264
28. Cut Copy Zonoscope 51,000
29. DJ Quik Book of David - 29,000
30. Tim Hecker Ravedeath, 1972 - 4,80031. Ty Segall Goodbye Bread - 2,800
32. Panda Bear Tomboy - 46,000
33. Fucked Up David Comes to Life - 19,000
34. Katy B On A Mission - 1,400
35. Frank Ocean Nostalgia, Ultra N/A
36. Kate Bush 50 Words for Snow - 27,199
37. Iceage New Brigade - 2,000
38. Sandro Perri Impossible Spaces N/A
39. War on Drugs Slave Ambient - 14,283
40. Araabmusik Electronic Dream - 1,000
41. Liturgy Aesthetica N/A
42. SBTRKT SBTRKT - 12,346
43. Lykke Li Wounded Rhymes - 27,000
44. Colin Stetson New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges N/A
45. Kendrick Lamar Section.80 - 27,460
46. Cults Cults - 25,000
47. Sepalcure Sepalcure N/A
48. Toro Y Moi Underneath the Pine - 15,000
49. Wild Flag Wild Flag - 27,349
50. Youth Lagoon Year of Hibernation - 13,282
So proud to be working with Bear in Heaven. Their new LP I Love You, It’s Cool is a beauty.
am all fucked out. That goddamn woman has absolutely screwed me from one end of the room to the other for three goddam nights. I went back to the Ambassador this morning, and I said, “You know it’s a great assignment, but I just can’t go on.” And the Ambassador said, “Roald, did you ever see the Charles Laughton movie of Henry VIII?” And I said “Yes.” “Well,” he said, “do you remember the scene with Henry going into the bedroom with Anne of Cleves, and he turns and says ‘The things I’ve done for England’? Well, that’s what you’ve got to do.
(via fatherfigurine)
I cannot wait to see what Azealia Banks does in 2012. Her “212” is my favorite video of the year.
(Source: yungjun)
One of the greats, Dwight Yoakam.
Killing Flies
by Michael Dickman
I sit down for dinner
with my dead brother
again
This is the last dream I ever want to have
Passing the forks
around the table, passing
the knives
There’s nothing to worry about
One thing I want to know is who’s in the kitchen right now if it isn’t me
It isn’t me
The kitchen is full of flies, flies are doing all the work
They light on the edge
of the roasted chicken
The bone china
That’s what they do
Light
*
I will look
more and more like him
until I’m older
than he is
Then he’ll look more like me
if I was
lost
The flies need to be killed as soon as we’re done eating this delicious meal they made
They serve us anything we want
in toxic green tuxedos
and
shit wings
My brother and I wipe our mouths
scrape our chairs back from the table
and stand up
These are the last things we’ll do together:
Eat dinner
Kill flies
*
You have to lie down
next to the bodies, shining
all in a row
like black sequins
stitching up
the kitchen floor
It’s hard to do but you have to do it
Quietly lay down
and not sleep
We were killing them with butcher knives but moved on to spatulas to save time and energy
Sticking their eyes
onto our earlobes and wrists
like Egyptian
jewelry
My brother and I work hard all night
He is my emergency exit
I am
his
dinner date
Kate Upton
Terry Jacks “Seasons in the Sun” (1973)
Dr. Hook “Sylvia’s Mother”