Scary Crazemas

Been serving up Omar Rodríguez-López for the Twelve Daze of Crazemas. Now for my Crazemas gift to all, a trio that ties everything up into a beautiful holly daze package.

Going back to The Mars Volta, the source material for my appreciation of all things OR-L.

A few months after their September 2022 self-titled seventh album heralded the return of Omar Rodríguez-López / Cedric Bixler-Zavala as The Mars Volta, the group recorded a potent reimagining of that reunion opus. Much more than a simple "unplugged" reiteration of The Mars Volta's 14 songs, this acoustic rendition furthers the mission of the source music, sharpening the focus of the traditional Latin influences that have always inspired TMV's music. 

 

The Mars Volta - Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Corazon, Clouds Hill CH308, 2023.
all decryption codes in comments

Blacklight Shine
Graveyard Love
Shore Story
Blank Condolences
Vigil
Que Dios Te Maldiga Mi Carazon
Cerulea
Flash Burns from Flashbacks
Palm Full of Crux
No Case Gain
Tourmaline
Equus 3
Collapsible Shoulders
The Requisition

 

 

Next, one from another of Omar's projects, El Trio de Omar Rodríguez-López.

From the Liner notes:
     "We wrote these songs together with the desire to celebrate the kinetic energy and imperfection of live music. The entire album was recorded in three days and each song was conceived in its entirety just before it was recorded. I only allowed us three rehearsals of the song and three takes (almost always using the first take as the final one). Three people, three microphones, three rehearsals, three takes, three days, all live. Thanks to this exercise, I have understood how much I still have to learn and how talented and almost perfect the other musicians who accompanied me are. I hope you enjoy it."

 

 

 

El Trio de Omar Rodríguez-López - Ciencia de los Inútiles,     

Rodriguez Lopez Productions – RLP006, 2010.

Side A -
Lunes    
Viernes    
Miércoles    
Noche Día    

Side B -
Martes    
Jueves    
Sábado    
Domingo

 

 

 

I mentioned in the First Daze that in the first part 2017, Omar continued his craziness with another ten releases every two weeks. I've put together a compilation of tunes from those offerings, the last NØ comp of 2024... 

Omar Rodríguez-López - Roman Lips to Doom Patrol: a Taste, NØ Comps., 2024

Roman Lips
Nowhere Sides
Hor
mor
Deseos Para Quemar
Merit
Sandra
Te Adoro
Loveless
Paint Yourself a Saint
Your Hazard Name
Nuclear Mysticism
Chew, Devour

 

 

 

Be back after the Crazemas craziness levels off,
NØ

The Source of a Bad Joke

All right. This is the last mea culpa you're going to get from me. Here are the source codes for the HATED Last Call comp. Follow the links to their delightful ends. Wonders abound.

The Last Call source codes...All decryption codes in comments.

"RL wasn't no real man. A real man gits born, does what li'l he can, and then he dies. That's it! You could remember a real man and say how he lived an' how he died. But RL fooled you. He played guitar when he shouldn't'a been able to, an' nbody knows how he died. Maybe it was the pneumonia, maybe a jealous man. Satan coulda come an' made him bark like a dog 'fore takin' him home.

But us po' fools lookin' fo' his story is lost 'fore we begin. 'Cause Robert Johnson wasn't never born an' couldn't die. He was Delta blue from the bottom of his soul. He was the blues; he is today. Ain't no start to his misery. An' death could not never ease his kinda pain."

from Back Road to the Blues
Soupspoon Wise

=============================================

track 1 --- "Something on My Mind" - Primitons
from: Don't Go Away: Collected Works

track 2 --- "Mission Impossible" - Lizzy Mercier Descloux
from: Press Color

track 3 --- "Had It" - Mosaico
from: Magic Midsummer

track 4 --- "Pulled to Bits" - The Mars Volta
from : Bedlam bonus tracks

track 5 --- "Another Bad Day" - Beat Ride (Antigoni Kostala)
from : Dreamers EP

=============================================

Written for a Musician

Hungry for music with a desperate hunger
I prowl abroad, I threaded through the town;
The evening crowd was clamoring & drinking,
Vulgar & pitiful --- my heart bowed down ---
Till I remembered duller hours made noble
By strangers clad in some surprising grace.
Wait, wait, my soul, your music comes ere midnight
Appearing in some unexpected place
With quivering lips, & gleaming, moonlit face.

from The Congo & Other Poems
Vachel Lindsay

============================================= 

track 6 --- "Help" - Yargo
from : Bodybeat

track 7 --- "I Want My Minutes Back" - Snapped Ankles
from: Come Play the Trees

track 8 --- "Just Get High" - The Desert
from: The Disappearing Act

track 9 --- "The Last Dance" - St. Paul & the Broken Bones
from: The Alien Coast

track 10 -- "Everything is Coming to an End" - London Underground
from: Through a Glass Darkly

=============================================

"He was going now. It was like being washed down a roaring river. & he could see the falls ahead. He was going over the falls & they were rushing toward him with the water roaring in his ears.

He could see the abyss beyond the falls & the drop was long, very long, & he thought his brain would burst.

& he burned all along his nerves as he dropped into a place where the world did not exist, all of it entirely destroyed."

from The Knockout Artist
Harry Crewes

============================================= 

track 11 -- "It's Noy Over Yet" - Klaxons
from: Myths of the Near Future

track 12 -- "Over My Head" - Moloko
from: I'm Not a Doctor

track 13 -- "Final Service" - Ritual Howls
from: Turkish Leather

track 14 -- "Something for Nothing" - 1000 Mexicans
from: Dance like Ammunition

track 15 -- "Or So It Seems" - Duet Emmo
from: Or So It Seems

=============================================

“Pain moved up the old man's hipbone like a plow breaking through hard sod. So much pain he could barely think. He shit himself on the long walk from the shelter toward home and fell in the street more than once. No one moved to help him --- passersby steered a wide path to get away from the smell. Soupspoon Wise staggered up Bowery toward the East Village imagining being home again, away from the dormitory of disheveled men. Those gibbering and farting men calling out to people who weren't there.

Three blocks from the apartment he felt a crack come into the bone. A blood-black splinter that went so deep he cried out, "Oh no!" His diaphragm trembled and the choked sobs came out in a broken whine. He went down on his left knee while trying to keep the right leg straight. He could have died on that frozen street, counting out the time between sighs --- fingers drumming on his chest.

Music thrummed in his body; the rattles of death in the tortured song of his breathing. Soon he was moving his head to this rhythm; even the crackling pain in his hip pulsed in time. He got back to his feet and hobbled to the new music; reeling and rocking on a river of unsteady feet. Maybe he'd die before he got there. But he'd die singing and making music out of his life the way real men did it a long time ago.”
 
from RL's Dream
Walter Mosely

============================================= 

track 16 -- "What's Wrong with Me" - Skye Edwards
from: Mind How You Go

track 17 -- "Be About the Future" - Oneness of Juju
from: African Rhythms (1970-1982) CD1

track 18 -- (unlisted in tracklist) "APRIL FOOL"!!! - Patti Smith
from: Banga special edition

track 19 -- "The Sound of Silence" - Chromatics
from: Closer to Grey

track 20 -- "The End" - Dr. Echo
from: Dr. Echo Presents: Cure for the Dubless

Dig deep,
NØ

Even with Twilight as My Guide I've Crashed on Mars

I've never really shied away from the fact that I'm a big fan of The Mars Volta (I’ve actually called myself "a fan-man" & "queer for them")...TMV from here on out. I've never really explained how it all came about, but I’d like to, in the self-inflated belief that hearing my bizarre journey with TMV might spark a chord with anyone.

It all began with The Itsy Bitsy Spider.

I'd alway been a fan of ATDI & was saddened when they ceased (for a time). But after the Drive-In, I got Tremulant. "Cut That City" was ATDI becoming something else. "Concertina" is perhaps the first true TMV song. Then "Eunuch Provocateur" played & I heard strange backward masking. I spun it around. "Have Mommie or Daddie ever had to...have Mommie or Daddie ever had to spank you?" then a voice out of some crazy dream sez: "I’m very fond of this..." & goes on to recite The Itsy Bitsy Spider. I felt a flash of satori. I'll just have to keep an ear on this band.

!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!

The first full-blooded TMV came in the form of a strange tale of madness...De-Loused in the Comatorium. It tells the story of Cerpin Taxt, a man who goes into a week-long coma after attempting suicide by intentionally overdosing on a mixture of morphine & rat poison.  In his comatose state, Cerpin enters a dream world where he is put through a series of trials by the Tremulants (here we go again, layers on layers & a storybook to boot [included here]), creatures from his own mind that inspire his art. In the end, he comes out of the coma. He feels only fit for the dream world. He once more attempts suicide, this time by jumping off of a bridge, this time succeeding.

The story of Cerpin Taxt alludes to the death of El Paso, Texas artist & close friend of Cedric Bixler-Zavala...Julio Venegas (1972–1996).

I've included the essential "Drunkship" / "Eriatarka" / "Cicatriz Esp" arc & two more.

!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!

Next came Frances the Mute. I've only included "The Widow", "L'Via L'Viasquez", & "Miranda (excerpt)" here to introduce the other female members of the cast. The entire five sides of this opus are the most cohesive musickal work I know. Listen to it in its entirety for maximum enjoyment.

Frances the Mute is about a diary discovered by former TMV bandmate Jeremy Ward while he was employed as a repo man. Ward saw resemblances to his own life.  It's mainly about the search for his biological parents. Before Ward's 2003 death from an apparent overdose, he took it upon himself to finish the unknown writer's work. TMV frontman Cedric Bixler-Zavala later used the writings as a blueprint of sorts for Frances.

Frances the Mute is Cygnus' mother, L' Via's sister, & Miranda's daughter. Although possibly a deaf-mute, this could be completely metaphorical. If it is in fact literal, she may have been in the care of the Church somehow, or working for them in some capacity. In any case, she was raped by at least one priest while others looked on. Her sister L' Via was a witness to this act. She ran away. Frances bore a baby, Cygnus, who it appears was taken away from her & most likely raised in a Church-run orphanage. It seems that Frances fought the Church on this, trying to protect her baby from them, vowing they would not take him. They did. She may have threatened to go to the secular authorities with her story as a means of blackmailing them into giving her Cygnus. It appears she was killed to silence her.

Vismund Cygnus is a twenty-five year old, HIV positive, IV drug-addicted prostitute. He seems to have some deep guilt for being born male. His hatred of himself combined with his male aggression lead him to rape & murder. Cygnus takes his revenge through raping & infecting (thus effectively murdering) 25 people, becoming the very thing he most fears & despises in other men.

One of Cygnus' sexual liasons is The Widow.

!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!

Amputechture...Cedric sez. "I love the way that Rod Serling's 1970s series Night Gallery had that common thread, that it was a gallery & every painting told a different story. I guess I'd like that to be true of this album, too. The subject matter is all different, but the song do all come together in a strange way. Every song would be a different episode that kind of relates in the way that Paul Thomas Anderson's 1999 film 'Magnolia' has all these different characters who all come back together in the end."

This one blasts off with a bang, let's listen to the Vs..."Vicarious Atonement" / "Vermicide" / "Viscera Eyes". "Vermicide" is such a perfect capsule that the only minor minor complaint I've ever had was that it is much too short for a TMV song...only 4'15".

!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!

The Bedlam in Goliath...As origin stories go, this one's a doozy. While on tour, Omar Rodriguez-Lopez bought The Soothsayer, an antique talking Ouija-style board at a Jerusalem curio shop. The band used the board as a game, part of its after-show wind-down ritual. Then, according to Omar, things got strange.

Through the board, certain spirits started visiting night after night. Their communications partially inspired the lyrics & sounds TMV developed for Bedlam.

When the band went into the studio to record, chaos ensued. Rodriguez-Lopez says the messages coming through the Soothsayer board got scary. The studio flooded. There were a series of equipment malfunctions. Fearing the spirits were behind the problems, Rodriguez-Lopez says he broke & buried the board so the group could finish the album. It sounds preposterous, but spend some time with The Bedlam in Goliath. The paranormal visitations begin to seem almost plausible.

For the the Mars Landing compilation I've chosen "Agadez" & "Conjugal Burns".

!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!

Octahedron...Similar to the band's third studio album, Amputechture, the album does not contain a single unifying narrative. Vocalist Cedric Bixler-Zavala notes that the album is "not really" a concept album: "I thought it was going to be but never really got around to writing about anything in particular. Just a lot of instant song composing & regular themes that I wouldn't even want to elaborate on (kidnappings; vanishings; 'what if' scenarios about how to get Republicans out of the White House if they'd got in."

I decided to drag out the "EVIL" here: "Since We’ve Been Wrong" / "With Twilight as My Guide" / "Luciform".

!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!&!

Noctourniquet is a concept album centering on a character based on the mythical Greek figure Hyacinthus & the English nursery rhyme Solomon Grundy. The main character lives under The Whip Hand. His mother is The Malkin Jewel (her local stripper nom de pole). She loves to leave our poor boy alone at night while she strips. She sarcastically calls him Lapochka (li'l dear) & at the same time scares him with tales of the boogeyman Moloch.

I posted my favorites...The Malkin Jewel / Lapochka before here.

I’m including "Empty Vessels", "Imago", & "Vermalady".

Mars Landing: A Splattering of TMV

With Twilight as My Guide
Drunkship of Lanterns
Eriatarka
Cicatriz Esp
Miranda (excerpt)
Vicarious Atonement
Ambuletz
Imago
Vermicide
The Widow
Since We’ve Been Wrong
Vermalady
Conjugal Burns
Televators
Viscera Eyes
L'Via L'Viasquez
Agadez
Empty Vessels
Luciforms

Enjoy,
NØ

Más Márs

Even in death, the Mars Volta still manages to entertain us.

Unreleased The Mars Volta material

published on Aug 17, 2013
decryption code in comments

Tracklist –

1 - Clouds/Orchestrina
2 - Molochwalker (early demo)
3 - Sea Is Rising (demo)
4 - possible Omar Rodriguez-Lopez solo demo
5 - possible ‘Casate Colmillo’ demo
6 - Postulate
7 - elements later used in the live version of “Trinkets Pale of Moon”
8 - another possible ‘Casate Colmillo’ demo
9 - Whisper To Your Flinch/Peeling Off
10 - Happiness (demo)
11 - needs a name
12 - Clouds/Orchestrina (demo)
13 - Asco Que Conmueve Los Puntos Erogenos/New York City (demo)
14 - Vicarious Atonement (demo)
15 - Clouds (Early Omar demo)

Available elsewhere, but also here.

NØ

Refinding Frances & so Much More

At some point in the past someone borrowed my The Mars Volta Frances the Mute CD.  I have a burned copy & the tracks archived on my external, but not the real deal. This previous Thursday I was perusing music & literature at a local thrift store as is often my wont & I found a nearly pristine copy for $2. That got me listening to all their material, as anyone who’s been around here enough will know, I’m a crazy TMV fan-man (no longer a boy).

The depth of their catalogue & progression of their story has for me made each release a jewel. I listen to the Tremulant EP & am still in awe. Don’t get me wrong here, I was a huge fan of ATDI before TMV, loving the punk-prog things that they did. I was saddened at their demise. But I was enthralled by the leap TMV made coming out of the gate. Then Deloused, which until Frances, was my favorite. With each successive offering, my appreciation grew. With each new release I would go back & listen to all the previous outings & still feel the same or greater love for their artistry & musicality.

When Cedric announced last year that he was no longer a part of TMV & that the band was no more, I was saddened but understanding. So much great music from the band. Everything is transmutable. When I saw Bosnian Rainbow later last year I felt the certainty close in even more.

After refinding Frances the Mute, after listening through their history, the power of Scabdates, the unified quartet that is Amputechture, Bedlam, Octahedron, & Noctourniquet, I couldn’t resist the overpowering urge to post up some Mars Volta here.

The Mars Volta – dEMOS 2001 – 2003.
all decryption codes in comments

Tracklist –

Roulette Dares (The Haunt of) [2001 demo]

Inertiatic ESP [2002 demo]

Roulette Dares (The Haunt of) [2002 demo]

Drunkship of Lanterns [2002 demo]

Eriatarka [2002 demo]

Cicatriz ESP [2002 demo]

This Apparatus Must be Unearthed [2002 demo]

Take the Veil Cerpin Taxt [2002 demo]

Eunuch Provocateur [2002 demo]

Televators [2003 demo]

Concertina [2003 demo]

The Mars Volta – New Year’s Eve 2007 Live Acoustic, Bill Graham Auditorium, S.F.

Tracklist –

Intro

Televators

CedTalk 1

The Widow

Ced Talk 2

Miranda, That Ghost Just Isn’t Holy

CedTalk 3

Asilos Magdalena

CedTalk 4

Vermicide

CedTalk 5

New Song

The Mars Volta – Live at Aragon Ballroom, Chicago, April 20, 2008.

Tracklist –

A Fistful of Dollars

Roulette Dares (The Haunt of)

Viscera Eyes

Wax Simulacra

Goliath

Ouroborous

Pre-Tetragrammaton

Tetragrammaton

Pre-Agadez

Agadez

Cygnus Intro

Cygnus

Pre-Aberinkula

Aberinkula

Drunkship of Lanterns

 

The Mars Volta – The Bedlam in Goliath bonus tracks

Tracklist –

Pulled to Bits (Siouxie & the Banshees cover)

Things Behind the Sun (Nick Drake cover)

Back up Against the Wall (Circle Jerks cover)

Memories (The Soft Machine cover)

Birthday (Sugarcubes cover)

Candy & a Currant Bun (Pink Floyd cover)

Mr. Muggs (Vinyl edition)

Goliath (El-P remix)

Enjoy,

NØ

Jewels from Mars

UPDATE: This post was re-uploaded 09/07/2013. Enjoy, NØ.


I’ve got my night stump tied with a Noctourniquet.

I’ve been called many things in my lifetime, but no one has ever accused me of being a prog-dog. I’ve listened to my share over the years...I think Amon Düül is one of the all-time great collectives in musick. But anyone familiar with this Nothin’ that I spew forth here is well aware that I’m totally queer for The Mars Volta.

As everyone who probably cares probably knows, The Mars Volta has a new release coming out March 27th called Noctourniquet. It is the only thing I’m listening to right now. Especially through good headphones...shit, the channel seperation will blow yer mind. I dug up some of the liquid 1394 I had buried in the backyard & oh what a trip it was. There is much here in common with MV’s debut De-Loused in the Comatorium, but it's tied to the tail of a blazing comet that is the monstrous drumming from Deantoni Parks.

This sucker starts out with an explosion & builds from there. By the time “Dyslexicon” kicks in, they have got the beat & don’t let go. The second track to be pre-released by MV, “The Malkin Jewel” is perfection. I’ve included an extended version here. (decryption code in comments)


I could go on & on about this but there are no words...so buy this sucker if you value my opinion at all. Listen to it yourself & be amazed & awed. It is so typically MV & yet so diverse, exploring musical landscapes where Ms. Rodriguez-Lopez & Bixler-Zavala have never gone before. Every time I listen I am once again rewarded with something new & delightful I missed before, yet challenged by the complexity to listen & grasp for more.

The Mars Volta - Noctourniquet, 2012.

Tracks -

The Whip Hand
Aegis
Dyslexicon
Empty Vessels Make the Loudest Sound
The Malkin Jewel
Lapochka
In Absentia
Imago
Molochwalker
Trinkets Pale of Moon
Vedamalady
Noctourniquet
Z & Ø Ø

I’ve never meant this more...
Enjoy,
NØ