More Robert

Head on over to Yep-Roc's website where they're streaming the whole of Robert Forster's new LP The Evangelist. IMHO the LP is his best solo record, better even that Calling From A Country Phone for those of you who were wondering.

The songs bring to mind many different eras of the Go-Betweens. "Pandanus" reminds me of Spring Hill Fair. "It Ain't Easy" sounds like it could have fit snugly on Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express. "If It Rains" kind of reminds me of Tallulah-era Robert songs. And "Did She Overtake You" has a 16 Lovers Lane feeling to it, and it's prolly one of the sweetest tracks on this set.

However, the best songs here remind me of nothing else, and transcend anything Mr. Forster has done. I've talked about how moving "Demon Days" is, and it truly is worth the price of admission alone. The final track, "From Ghost Town" is Robert's moving farewell to Grant, and it sounds like no other song he has ever written to my ears. A truly beautiful track, a sweet goodbye, and a fitting end to the LP.

Buy this record when you get the chance. There is not much music out there as moving, or sincere.

Robert Forster, Ubik to my Ears

Robert Forster's new album will be coming out here in the U.S.  April 29th on Yep-Roc. It's his first solo album since Warm Nights, and the first new music we have heard from him since the death of his long-time collaborator, Grant McLennan.

Three of the songs on the upcoming LP were some of the last written by Grant before he died. Robert completed the songs and put them on his new album. Kind of like a good can of Ubik that brings us back to Grant.

One of these last songs, Demon Days, is particularly poignant and haunting. In the same vein as some of the classics of his later period such as Boundary Rider and Finding You, one can actually hear Grant again in this song. It is truly moving. 

If you'd like to hear it, just click on Robert Forster, Ubik to my Ears (or the title of this post).

On a side note, the photo above could be Grant and Robert dressed up as Deckard and Rachel for Halloween. Robert captured Rachel's make-up perfectly!

Pares, Manses and Heebs!

So I've taken up dwelling with the Clans of The Alphane Moon for a night of chips, dips and dorks!  Clans takes place on a moon that housed a psychiatric hospital populated by people who got messed up because they couldn't handle colonizing the galaxy. However, the moon and hospital were abandoned, and the patients have set up a little society of their own. Imagine New York's Roosevelt Island and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest set in the near future.

The Manics (Manses Clan) are warlike, and like to build innovative weapons; also an apt description of the Republican Party. The Paranoids (Pares Clan) are the leaders, and are scared of everything; kind of like politicians in general. The Schizophrenics (or Skitzes) are the artists and philosophers, like PKD himself.

Clans has some of PKD's most far-out supporting cast (with colorful names to match), like the alien Lord Running Clam and lawyer Nat Wilder.

This book is literally crazy, and the 1972 Ace version has one of my favorite PKD covers. Depicting the requisite PKD android (or Simulacra) in the book, Dan Mageboom. I have no idea who did the cover, but it is really cool. This publication, like may of the early 70's Ace books also has advertisements in it (like a magazine would today). This one has an ad for True Cigarettes. "Regular or menthol, doesn't it all add up to True?" Bunny Hentman smokes 'em, why don't you?

The Game Players of Titan, Marriage and Knight Rider

The Game Players of Titan, like most PKD novels, is a total trip. It's set in a future Earth, where most people have been wiped out by  massive war. Earth is ruled by some aliens, called Vugs, from Titan who have set up a "game" which they say will help repopulate Earth. The game, Bluff, is like Monopoly. Property owners compete with each other. The stakes are not only their property (whole cities such as Berkeley), but their wives as well (protagonist Pete Garden claims to have been married 16 times). PKD exposes the trophy wife syndrome to the full here.

Now, Philip K. Dick was a guy who knew a lot about the institution of marriage. He was married something like 5 times. So in this way, Titan seems to be one of his more auto-biographical works. While the plot is totally twisted and the "game" a far-out idea, this book is basically an amalgamation of Desperate Housewives and Knight Rider. PKD ruminating on suburban couples and talking cars. As in most PKD novels, the machines seem more human and have more humor than the humans. Some of the funniest lines in the book are spoken by Joe Schilling's car in this exchange...

"This is Joe Schilling. Come and get me."

"Come and get your fat-assed self," the car said.

Again, another example of PKD eerily prefiguring 80's prime-time television!

Vast Active Living Cosmic American Music

I figured I better start getting some non-PKD related material in here soon. I was finally moved by the angelic voice of Dolly Parton. You won't find a better Dolly LP than Coat of Many Colors (although I do love Jolene). Nor is there a finer example of what Gram Parsons described as "Cosmic American Music." Indeed, the purest strain of Cosmic American Music you'll find this side of The Flying Burrito Brothers is Dolly's "Here I Am" on side two of the LP. This is Aretha, Dusty, and Loretta all rolled up in a blast of pure Country Soul. 

You'll often find me singing "Here I Am" in the shower at the top of my lungs.

Like PKD's Valis (of recent Lost fame), but for the music world. An amalgamation of Country, Southern Soul and Rock and Roll. This LP makes me want to praise the Vast Active Living Intelligence System up above!

PKD, the Police State, and the Poll Tax

It's 2008. The election year. And PKD and Flow My Tears are more pertinent than ever. The novel, which is included in the next Library of America volume, deals with a near future America after a second Civil War. The country is ruled by a police state. If you're caught without your ID, you'll be sent to a concentration camp, or worse. Indeed, vast portions of the U.S. population are behind bars.

Interestingly, I often feel a disoriented state of reality when I read PKD novels so I was(n't) surprised when I was reading the paper last Sunday and noticed an article that stated one out of every 99 Americans is behind bars. Had I too, like Jason Taverner, entered some dystopic future? Or was this some bizarre flashback brought about by Substance D abuse back in High School? No, it was "real." I have the newspaper clipping in front of me now.

However, these kinds of reality shifts keep confronting me as I read Flow My Tears. Just recently, the Supreme Court recently heard a case in which Indiana's voter ID laws are being challenged as an unconstitutional infringement on the right of the poor to vote. No picture ID, no vote. Given the make-up of the Court, the law will be upheld, and we will have poll taxes once again. Back to the future.

The moral of the story folks, is make sure you have your ID handy.

Things are getting kind of weird around here, so I think I'm gonna roll the dice with The Game Players of Titan. Stay tuned.

Jason Taverner, American Idol

If I were to cast a movie adaption of Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said, certainly Ryan Seacrest would play Jason Taverner. I guess he would have to be artificially aged a little bit. But I don't think anyone could argue with the fact that Seacrest captures all the qualities of a "six". Additionally, his air of being the center of the universe would be essential to capturing Taverner's psyche. Indeed, like Taverner, Seacrest is on T.V. every Tuesday in front of 30 Million adoring fans.

Simon Cowell would make the perfect Felix Buckman. He thinks he knows everything, can outsmart everyone, and would love to deem himself a "seven". Plus he's got that military hairstyle, so we wouldn't have too spend to much on hair and make-up

Paula Abdul will have to play Alys Buckman, Felix's sister/lover. She's far-out, trippy, and obviously knacker'd most of the time, just like Alys. Her interest in dangerous recreational drugs will give her a wealth of material to draw upon to play Alys.  This would be another perfect case of life imitating art.

I guess Randy Jackson could play Officer McNulty or Maime. He seems kind of like an enforcer sometimes. However, given the social-political climate in the novel, Randy may have to be cast as the guy in the parking lot that Felix hugs in his moment of crisis. While it's not the most glamorous part, it is a crucial scene, and Jackson exudes the kind of empathy that is required by the part.

Finally, I think I'll have David Archuleta play Barney Buckman, son of Felix and Alys.