Don’t let me down tomorrow, you. We’re living in a fantasyland of our own creation made up of nostalgia. What about you? Gabe can’t wait till we get to hell. What about you? On the 10th of April Gabe’s book A Survey of My Failures This Far will be released and on the 1st Big Trouble in Little China by the Liszts will be released. What about you? This week’s Book You features a reading from David Lee Roth’s autobiography, Crazy from the Heat. Felder of the Dark Cloth, what about you?

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Remember way back when… Of course Malcolm and Gabe remember. Throughout the last few shows there has been much reminiscing, but also much taking too seriously, and during this show perhaps a little less. Post-punk? Grunge? Retro? Yay! Gabe is living in the 90’s, as are the people of Eugene where Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies was Recorded. “Thereby by the grace of God, go I.” For Book You! this week Gabe reads from Kurt Cobain’s favorite book, Perfume, by Jean-Baptiste Grenouille. Gabe almost fell through the earth in the 90’s. What about you? Both Malcolm and Gabe have enjoyed watching Friends recently just for its nostalgia factor (no cell phones), and are now convinced the 90’s saw a “renaissance of humor”, although honestly that’s nothing compared to other more notorious renaissances, of Harlem and Florence to name just two.

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Wallace Shawn in D.C., 2005

(Fact of the matter is that we here at Mutable have always been fans of Wallace Shawn and when we discovered the article that is sampled below (“The Secret Life of Wally Shawn,” written by Don Shewey for Esquire in 1983), we exploded with glee. Although we didn’t want to appropriate the entire article to our site, a tasty tidbit has been sampled below, but the whole article is remarkable, everything from Mr. Shawn’s initial introduction, to the description of Shawn’s plays as “a cross between Chekhov and Lewis Caroll,” to Mr. Shawn’s own myriad comments on his influences, the bizarre details of his biography, his reaction to a broken teacup, to his revelations about the writing of My Dinner with Andre and comments on contemporary politics. This article is thoughtful in a way magazines no longer seem to be. Certainly not Esquire in any case, and of course, Mr. Shawn has always held a special place in our hearts, both as a playwright and actor, the most famous cross-over of these two roles being Louis Malle’s iconic film, My Dinner with Andre. Sample of article below.)

Shawn stops and coughs. End of speech. “So I’ve come to believe,” he says, “that artistic works may have their place in saving the world.” It was that conviction that encouraged him to write his first play for a contest at Oxford. “I thought it was the best play that anybody’s ever written,” says Wally. “I thought it was the answer to the war in Vietnam. I thought they would rename the country after me when people saw that play!” Instead, most people reacted to the play, which has never been produced, “as if they’d been given a handful of blank pieces of paper.”

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Malcolm and Gabe are continuing their tip of the hat to the Facebook phenomenon and specifically what is commonly known as the List Phenomenon, and this week it is the list of songs that changed the way Gabe thinks about music, a sort of musical autobiography. From high school and Thelonius Monk, to Daniel Johnston at the office, is it possible that Gabe has lived his life solely for the purpose of creating the perfect mix tape? From Malcolm and Gabe’s first meeting at the Coolidge Corner Movietheater, to cokeheads in Brooklyn and raw sewage shooting out of the toilet, to the year Gabe wouldn’t leave the couch. This week for Book You, Gabe reads from his own A Survey of My Failures this Far, to be released by Mutable Sound on April 10th, the release party to be held at Quimby’s in Wicker Park, Chicago, at 7 pm, with the cover band, Normal Feelings. And of course another episode of Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies.

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Another week in your ears. Malcolm has been getting inundated by invitations to write his favorite records of all-time on Facebook. Apologies for even mentioning Facebook, but be that as it may, some people have lists concerning music that shaped their lives, which is something like ripping your skin off. Instead of playing his favorite records, however, Malcolm is going to play records he thinks you should own that you probably don’t. Gabe’s life has been full of discoveries, of an aural, visual, and tactile variety. Among Malcolm’s favorite discoveries was Bruce Haack, while for Gabe perhaps it was the french film, Fantastic Planet. A whole new dimension to hearing? Your legs are gone? Speaking of legs, it’s interesting the different directions the different Beatles took when they split up. This week, for Book You, Gabe reads from The Idler’s Glossary by Joshua Glenn, published last year through Biblioasis. Gabe thinks one of Malcolm’s purposes on this globe is to educate people concerning the world of sound, although Malcolm finds this to be a bit presumptuous and describes himself instead as the creepy guy at the record store. The podcast ends with episode seventeen of the radioplay, Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies.

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George Carlin had something to say about the making of war, but here at Mutable Sound we are curious what the men and women of the street have to say about it. Gabe’s Guide to Winning in a Fight is this week, although his only advice is to run. He does have a very well-built younger brother who enjoys lifting him up by his slender frame and rubbing sweat all over him while Gabe punches him in the back as hard as he can. Fighting as children? Malcolm remembers having a baby sitter who used to bully him as a young boy, and what happened? Why is Lunch Mothers not a band name? Is the IRA still around? Is Benny Hill Irish? Is Benny Hill a better enemy than the Taliban? A truly strange episode of Twilight at the Lady Jane Grey College for Little Ladies. Malcolm is waging a psychic war against the postal service. Gabe reads from The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon for Book You. If you are a creative person, please feel free to send us your jingle for Book You. Gabe tells compromising stories of his younger brother’s uncontrollable rage as a young tyke. In closure, Gabe talks about his time in the choir school, The Pupil Patrol, his career as a porn-dealer, and his style travesties of the period.

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Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues, the second full-length album by Boston-based musician and producer Kevin Micka (aka Animal Hospital ), presents a satisfying, forty-three-minute set of guitar-based instrumentals and electro-acoustic explorations. Not having heard his 2004 self-titled release, I can only imagine how it compares to the new material but I’m willing to bet Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues represents a significant advance (something I’m sure we’ll also hear when Micka’s Barge recording, Memory, is released). The range of sounds he coaxes from the guitar shows he’s clearly a resourceful player, and one who, to his credit, eschews histrionics for a subtler approach. He proves equally capable of folding repeating patterns into hypnotic lattice-works (“Good or Plenty”) as he does sculpting meditations both vaporous (“What If They Are Friendly”) and shuddering (“Labor Day”), and he’s also got a nice way of using well-timed stabs to kick the material into a higher gear when necessary; hear, for example, how the otherwise polite funk workout “Barnyard Creeps” springs to life the second Micka’s guitar roar enters. Contrasts abound: a seeming septet of electric guitarists collectively threads melodic patterns into a ruminative whole during “Novel Moments” while steely tones and washes stretch across the background; waves of guitars swarm and cascade throughout “11 18 07″ while a plodding rhythm keeps funereal time; and the jubilant and light-footed “March and June” drapes wordless vocals by Katharine Fisk Shields and Micka over a lightly swinging, Afro-tinged rhythm base, with acoustic guitar and a celeste-like melody adding further colour. Good or Plenty, Streets + Avenues doesn’t radically advance the guitar-based soundscaping genre but there’s still much to admire about Micka’s execution of his material and his conceptual approach (love the album cover too).

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