'Australian made something or other'
'Suicide dumplings dropping testicle bombs'
'Bring on the bogan she-males hopped up on meth'
I know he spent some time in Australia this year but even I don't know about bogan she-males!
When i finally get a physical copy of this record I hope there is no lyric sheet. I like the mystery. Something on Before Today was ruined because I read the lyrics in the cover. Anyway then there is the title track Mature Themes which sounds to me like a Joe Jackson song if Joe was good, maybe he was, I only know that one radio song. What is it? Real Men which always seemed a bit wrong to me can't remember why. Does it say something about fags? Anyway Ariel's version I suspect is a bit dodgy too.
'I wanna talk about Mature Things/Taboo things.'
God knows what he wants to talk about and maybe I'd rather not know. Maybe he should have called The LP Taboo Things. On one of the tracks I think he says something about the bad breath of a cross eyed goat. Seriously I haven't dropped acid and well I didn't know it was back in fashion and seemingly readily available on the streets in LA. God knows what Pink Slime is about. What does he say about North Korea in Farewell American Primitive and what the fuck is it about? I like not knowing and just chuckin in my own theories. And fuck me if it's not Robert Forster guitaring on some tracks or whoever played guitar on The Go-BetweensSpring Rain. The ghost of Grant McLennan for all I know and it wouldn't surprise me. He could do entire albums of shit like Nostradamus & Me or slow Jamz like Baby and I would lap it up. I am starting to think it's better than Before Today just maybe.
*Pre-Fab Hearts by The Reels was a single for Polygram in 1979 and it was the follow up to their debut single. So Quasimodo's Dream was 2 years after that and their 2nd LP, with Beautifull being the 3rd. Right!
**Alan Lamb was the experimental telephone wires guy and had this record Primal Image. There might be another one but I don't have that.
***Wasn't there a cricketer called Alan Lamb in the 80s?
****Thought I'd mention Ariel Pink again just to say that perhaps Mature Themes is better than Before Today, just maybe.
*****Probably the last issue of Smash Hits I ever bought was this one with Michael Hutchence on the cover and it was a special on the filming of Dogs In Space. Anyway I remember there was a little article on the little bands scene. Then thought 'what there's more people like The Primitive Calculators? That's fucking mental!!' Suffice to say first time I ever heard of Too Fat To Fit Through The Door and Thrush & The Cunts. The later turning up in the movie singing diseases. This was in Smash Hits. I wish I still had that copy, I remember holding onto it for a while. It didn't end up in the incinerator with the rest of The Countdowns & Smash Hits. Although some articles were removed before their fiery death only to die somewhere else later on.
******How about incinerators and that we used to just burn everything!
******* "a rats toss bag" was a Malcolm Blight tongue.
Just read The Wire cover story on Ariel Pink and loved it. Well done Nick but you seem to think there were only 3 records previous to Before Today as well as Thrash and Burn,the early experiments, which I must admit I have rarely listened to but you know there was Sacred Famous, Lover Boy, FF>> etc. which are, I reckon, just as good as the ones released on Paw Tracks but always seem to miss getting attention in articles on Ariel. Don't worry AP you won't be getting a soundcloud track sent to you from me. You are a Star! The best thing from LA since Arthur Lee and just as awesome.
So I think they have or are going to release Baby as the first single. Disappointingly it's not Tina Turner on backing vocal but an impersonator. I liked not knowing and having that fantasy of Tina and Ariel gettin down and dirty in some seedy studio in LA. Baby is a fuckn great song and may even get airplay. It's a cover apparently. Anyway I was listening to the album again and thought 'What else could be a single?' Only In My Dreams has already been a free download. The catchiest song on the record and really should be the next single in the perfect world would be Symphony of The Nymph. That is a classic pop song but I just can't see it gettin commercial airplay with mentions of lesbians, nymphomaniacs, colonoscopies and Ariel referring to himself as a lesbian, a MILF or a Nymph or whatever...... We live in a sad world if this cannot be a hit! But you never know Lou's Walk On The Wild Side was a hit. Katy Perry can kiss a girl and we liked it. Fingers crossed!
Here's the only track off the new LP that I can find on the youtubes, it reminds me a little of The Go-Betweens well instrumentally anyway because nobody sings like Ariel does. Just listening to the album again and is it Tina Turner on Baby? I'm thinking now these tracks could've been recorded anywhere between The Doldrums and Before Today. It's more upfront in it's new waviness ie. not swathed in so much hiss or noise but also not as overtly Hi-Fi or reverby as Before Today.
*What I meant by it not being his In Utero (Nirvana's follow up to Nevermind) is that he wasn't trying to go back to street cred/noncommercial roots due to a loss of nerve ala Cobain Stylee. You know second guessing himself and all that and being torn between mainstream and indie culture. I don't think Before Today sold that many units for Ariel to be having such an artistic/existential dilemma of this kind. It was probably good in the end that it wasn't his Nevermind (Before Today that is) now.
*And what I meant by it not being Ariel's Dirty (SYs 2nd major label LP) Sonic Youth's follow up to Goo their first LP for a major label. On Dirty is where Sonic Youth went off with budgets and production and everything. They went OTT and it was a brilliant move but a hard one to come back from. I think at the time time Thurston was calling it their Aerosmith LP. They had the opportunity to make a massive budget album so they just said why the fuck not?! Ariel going way more Hi-Fi would have been good too or ending up with something like a Tusk (Fleetwood Mac's follow up to the multi-platinum Rumours) which was great but weird and well Mr Pink already ticks those boxes.
*I had this whole theory a couple of years ago now that Before Today was his Nevermind. But instead of him pilfering from ten years of the whole of the American underground you know Flipper, Husker Du, Sonic Youth, Wipers, Mission of Burma, Black Flag, Scratch Acid, Big Black, Dinosaur Jnr, Meat Puppets, UK Post Punk and Metal, that Ariel Just pilfered from his own 10 years (at least) of underground activities as he really was the only happening thing in the US in the 00s bar a couple of misc. artists. I really thought that's what Before Today was his very own Nevermind. You know a cleaned up radio friendly version of the past 10 years for the masses to consume in vast quantities. Then when he was on Jimmy Fallon I thought yeah he's gonna do it! It was weird after like 8 or 9 records that all of a sudden someone was willing to throw money at him. He was nearly forgotten then all these acolytes turned up, swarms of them, and putting out good records as well (just before the signing/recording of Before Today). I had all these other parallels that I can't remember now something about gender issues Rape Me/Menopause Man similarities, the effeminate, being a female identified male heterosexual........... was the gist of it. So maybe it was happening in reverse-now there's going to be ten years of other groups underground activities inspired by A.Pink (we'd already be in our 4th or 5th year anyhow) I don't know how many units he shifted of his last LP. I suppose he got halfway......well probably not even that far. You know what they say in showbiz 'better to be lukewarm than hot.' He's always been hot with me but you know what I mean?
There were even image parallels. That's Ariel not Kurt!
*When I said his other classic 8 I meant from The Doldrums onwards including Oddities Sodomies Vol 1. & The Holy Shit EP. Haunted Graffiti 1:Underground is good but it's not in the same league as the rest.
