Blind Lemon Momus

[imomus]

This is the last mp3 I'm making available here from the sessions for my 2005 album. I've signed the contract for the album now and it's someone else's property, so bootlegging is marauding and a-thieving. The last song (the recording will continue, but the results will be kept under wraps until the record comes out) is called Mr Ulysses and Momus Zelig seems to have a spot of the Blind Lemons coming on. The rain was recorded at the Berlin botanical gardens, and some African ethnographic recordings taped in the Dahlem anthropological museum turned -- quite by themselves -- into a scratchy old blues song with a teensy touch of T. Rex to it.

What's it like to be a half-blind loon? I liken it to a balloon: you just keep going up and up and away. Dollar, Mister?

Mr Ulysses

Sorry, this track is no longer available. Please buy the CD when it comes out!

Thank you everyone who has contributed over the past two months. You made a success of the experiment. You gave me the space to create music like this. See you at the show!

Mr Ulysses

Porcupine razor
Palatine Mill
Garbage on a laser
Monkey on the hill

Dive me through the bottom
Climb me through the chill
Got a gabardine sausage
Platinum pill

Get a new lover
Spiritual lie
Shining on cable
Cussing all the time

Stink brown cupboard
Guinea pig's eye
A skinny old lover
Porcupine pie

It's raining on a Sunday
I've been shooting on the job
I'll be dying on a Monday
See me jumping like a hog

Soft poke Jigger
Dread blue bone
Big jewel dagger
Soft black foam

See me building for the future
See me saving for the dawn
Got another woman
Better all the time

I've been weeping on a sleeper
I'm a skiving on the raise
Skeeting like a cheater
Looking hunger in the face

Mr Ulysses
Tell me where you been
I stole some kisses
From your dark-eyed queen

Been to Philadelphia
Seen you in your gown
Papa was a sailor
Way across town

Your papa was a sailor
Your mama was a tramp
Your sister was Ophelia
Your brother ran a bank

I've got another woman
Way across town
I see her in the evenings
When I'm down

Calling on a woman
Calling on the Lord
Saying it's been a long time
Open your door

Take off your clothes, Lord
Lay down on the bed
Answer all my prayers
Like the Bible said

I've been riding on a tiger
Only go the way
Old pale fire
Never fade

Soft poke Jigger
Dread blue bone
Big jewel dagger
Soft black throne

Raining on a Sunday
Shooting on the job
Dying on a Monday
Squealing like a hog

Stink brown cupboard
Guinea pig's eye
Skinny old lover
Porcupine pie

Get a new lover

Comments

Blues Irony

[(Anonymous)]

Although I know where your coming from, this is my least favourite track of the new material, due in most part to my dislike of blues rather than your song. Your earlier takes on this genre were more tongue in cheek and Po-mo . As some of the songs seemingly move closer to authentic emotions ( or the 'sampling' of them ? ), I am less comfortable (or am I misreading things ) ? I am curious to know what you thoughts on this observation.

That's me I guess; I need a good dose of irony with my soul music. I liked Devoto's "System Blues" on "Buzzkunst" precisely because he made it a more atonal primal drone with the blues part reduced to just a title. So I'd be interested to see it pushed more in that degraded direction.

After listening to the song again after writing this, I like it better ! In particularly the backwards atonal guitar could be even further up in the mix. First impressions can reveal one's preconceptions !

Richard G

Re: Blues Irony

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I think what interested me here was the idea of the primitiveness of sound that old blues recordings have. I really like Sleepy John Estes and Leadbelly, and it's as much for the sheer presence of the recordings as for what the songs are saying. Crackle, grunge, crickets, the boxy sound of the guitar wood and the floor being struck... The paradox is that I've achieved the mysterious quality of those rough and ready recordings only after hours of digital editing. This song has an amazing amount of cross fading and weird stuff going on in it. It kept trying to make it more dirty and more irregular and more mysterious. It's all about sound: the lyrics are doggerel, though I like doggerel. There were a lot more, and much sillier, verses, and I picked the ones which were in an ambiguous place between spoof and sincerity. It kind of reminds me of 'Table Top Joe' by Tom Waits in the way it affectionately parodies the genre.

By the way, I bought the Buzzkunst record over a year ago and I still haven't listened to it. I think I'm terrified that it'll be awful. In fact, I think I've decided it's awful anyway, and don't want to be dragged down into hell with it. Because Howard Devoto came round to my house and played me the demos of some of these tracks, and I said 'I'd be happy to put these out on my label just as they are'. But they've gone... somewhere else.

Re: Blues Irony. Now Digital Irony !

[(Anonymous)]

Nick, many thanks for your explanation; the 'ambiguity' is obviously what was coming through. The actuality of that blues sound obviously is due to its lo-fi recording nature with few microphones and it being a live recording with no overdubs. Maybe you need to strip things down more to capture that sound more clearly and rely less on electronic processing although I like the digital irony that it takes a lot dirty processing to capture this. Was this the same approach that "Yokohama Chinatown" had ?

Maybe you need to adopt a more homemade "Flying Lizards" approach on an ancient eight track analog deck? Actually, this reminds me that I was listening to some Holger Hiller over the weekend and I was struck by his use of found non-instruments being juxtaposed with the clean electronics ( "Koniginnen" ). A kind of Holger Hiller type of song might be brilliant from you; Berlin Dada crossed with "Wir Bauen Eine Neue Stadt" ( a return to that German Oskar thing ) ?

"Buzzkunst" is really great, I was not disappointed at all and played it death. It's edgy Devoto writing and definitely is back on form (after the disappointing 2nd Luxuria album ) . Maybe not good to listen to now though as it has been compared to the Berlin-Bowie "Low" era thing that you have touched on before on LJ. I quite understand your disappointment with not getting it released and that having coloured your view. Nevertheless, give it a listen !!

Richard G

Re: Blues Irony. Now Digital Irony ! Footnote

[(Anonymous)]

This song is defintely a slowburner. It gets even stranger and hypnotic, the more times you listen to it. I really think it's really GREAT now !

Richard G