like tigers on vaseline

Hüsker Dü: “New Day Rising” (1985)

I was just doing some Hüsker Dü fact-checking for work. I had known they took their name from the board game Husker Du? (without the umlauts), but I hadn’t known why:

They owed their new name to a rather sloppy rehearsal of the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer”. Unable to recall the French portions sung in the original (“qu’est-ce que c’est”), they began shouting any foreign-language terms they could remember, when someone said “Husker Du?”, a board game that had been popular in the 1970s. The term, without the umlauts, means “Do you remember?” in Danish and Norwegian. The group added heavy metal umlauts to complete the name.

I’ve been on a Talking Heads kick lately, so it all comes around. (And I’m perhaps a bit too pleased that I’m cited as a source in Wikipedia’s entry for heavy metal umlauts thanks to a David St. Hubbins interview I did more than a decade ago, though back then I thought that Hüsker Dü’s diacritics were authentic.)

April 25

“A Frog Sitting on a Bench Like a Human”

Does exactly what it says.

April 22

Stereolab: “Jenny Ondioline” (1993)

Best song of the ’90s, and almost as long.

April 8

scienceside:

Mitosis

(via melaniegarza)

April 4

[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Reblogged partly because it’s great, and partly because I misread this as being by Phyllis Diller and thought: “I had no idea she had a rocksteady phase!”

semperidem:

Phyllis Dillon - “Don’t Touch Me”

Please, Mister,
Don’t ya touch me tomato
Naw, don’t touch me tomato
Touch me on the pumpkin, potato
For goodness sake, don’t touch me tomato.

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Bruce Mozert: “Underwater” (1940s)

(via faredisfare)

Mostly I like that you can see other people swimming around in the background.

March 30

Raghubir Singh: Grand Trunk Road, Durgapur, West Bengal (1988)

I wish Raghubir Singh’s official site had larger scans of his photography, but it’s a good place to start. His books are worth seeking out.

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sixbucks:

Here is the baby tapir you ordered.

You’re welcome.

(via Meet Marjorie, the Little Malayan Tapir - ZooBorns)

I would totally wear those pants.

March 29

Attention Tumblrers! We have reached the lifetime quota of reblogs of Joel-Peter Witkin’s “The Kiss.” There are plenty of other totally disturbing photos out there; I’m sure you can find them. (Klimt’s “The Kiss” is getting close too, but at least it doesn’t make me go GAH NOT THAT AGAIN. Prince & The Revolution’s “Kiss” is fine.)

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newwavetimewarp:

Robyn Hitchcock’s Groovy Decay album came out March 26, 1982. Here’s “Fifty-Two Stations” from it.

March 28

By Michael Peck.

(via inneroptics)

March 27

seaofempties:

Tillatoba strays

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[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]

Swell Maps: “Blam!” (1979)

(A Trip to Marineville)

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Hugh Delap: Untitled (2011)
Oil on paper, 30 x 38 cm

(via)

March 26

William Eggleston: Untitled (1973)

Speaking of Big Star: The girl in the red dress is Eggleston’s 18-year-old cousin Lesa Aldridge, who dated Andy Hummel while she was in high school and later was Alex Chilton’s girlfriend during the Sister Lovers era. This article details the story of the late-late-night photograph, which is more painterly and carefully lit than most of Eggleston’s work. Lesa is comforting her best friend, Karen, who was distraught about boy trouble and had just tipsily fallen in a bathtub — hence her wet hair and photogenic borrowed blue bathrobe. Eggleston, meanwhile, happened to have a large-format camera and some lights, which he’d hauled to a Memphis bar and this subsequent after-party. It was probably around 4 a.m. Lesa was leaving for college the next day.

Here is much more gossipy (and condescending toward Aldridge) blog post about Aldridge, Chilton, Hummel, Eggleston, and the whole early/mid-’70s Memphis scene, which had its share of drama but certainly spawned great art.