Soon after SLING BLADE became a left field hit, Billy Bob Thornton got a proposal for "Carl Comics." "They said that it would be like: Ever' month, Carl comes to a different town, and solves folks' problems,his way." (Diagnosis: "Erh-hm." [Chop.]) Although we may never know for sure (C'mon, give it a sling Beeba!), resluts *might* have been as memorable as those of Comets On Fire and The Homosexuals [In Exile]'s coming to Yourtown this summer.(Check their labels, subpop.com and morphius.com, respectively, for gig info, although some's listed at end of this.) COF's new BLUE CATHEDRAL so far seems uneven, but sympathetically and perhaps even unavoidably so, since their basic alibi-premise-persona is like La Brea Brainiacs, Caveman vs. Saucers, Blue Cheer King Kong vs. Airplane, a brave/indiscreet mosh tapestry fetish.Minus any immediate "Summertime Blues""Spmebody To LOve"-type focal points for newbies like me to first grok Cometjuice ingredients.(Note to self: must, slide,manually, along, all, slots, linked, to: late-,pre-,para-,proto-,meta-,beta-,[count backwards & it's nooo problem].) But they do got for instance what Science Fictioneers like to call "extrapolation" of (even-on-"Somebody To Love"'s-AM-Radio-edit) Jorma twangbar cramps and moans, and even, just when I was getting used to their colorful vocabulary, a Stooges-like "Free Jazz" sax.(Guitar starts chahnging into an Easter bonnetful of Sonny Sharrockian machine parts, so they even listen to each other, it seems.)Re via vaunted Prog bonus element, we're served pale blue eyes of storm as setup for volcanos ringing round Uranus.(This last is also the last and I think longest, anyway my fave rave, "Blue Tomb.")The Homosexuals(pre-[In Exile]original version, the one on newly assembled THE HOMOSEXUALS RECORD and ASTRAL GLAMOUR) are being hyped as more of ye "post-punk pioneers." True, they did seize the right moment to move past punkthrodoxy (which early tracks prove they so bad at). But not to slide those ol' enosizers out of the closet for dance class, like Go4, Joy D., etc. No, the 'mos just let it rip and trip, into twin barrels of four-eyed Nerd Power, much less anal than Elvis Costello's or Devo's. Foreskinners of current shatter-trope spewcore, of which Mars Volta might be one of the more conservative examples.(Homosex of recs are more like Freedie and the Dreamers x vulcanized lick and proto-jangle enhanced by digital x Wire-asides x Mars V. x Fountains of Wayne? As high as I can find things to count on right now.) Spirit of punkadelica outside the laws of style and cool, and kind good, once they get a no-handle on it. But after all come to think of it including poptones, ground and oops into the goo-goo, so I guess Lydon *might* or o course certainly should have approved this,however reluctantly, and thus it's "post-punk" after all. Well that's a relief isn't it? The current Homosexuals, sic'd [In Exile], include only one orig. member, but he was and is the very frontman, I'm reliably informed. Shows! Comets on Fire: 7/26 with Viet Nam at Delancey Lounge;7/29 with Hidden and Sunn 0)))[not sure if this second date is same location; check subpop.com)Homosexuals [In Exile]:7/23 with Suicide (historically and histrionically perfect!) and The Flesh, at Knitting Factory; 7/24 in Brooklyn, bill and venue TBA. (see "Afterword re me piece below," for corrections and explanations of this one.)
  ¶ 7/14/2004