THE SEANCE: March 2016

Meant to put this up yesterday as I was working on it. Another lovely afternoon here working on the Jimi mixes. Just spinning through the lovely --149(Beautiful Face*). Again, I forget how good this era is, and how different. This is one of the shorter ones for a change.

I'll also direct your attention to the last two pics in particular. One of the nerdy fun parts of the iPOD project for me is, when I think of it, looking into information about albums that I've never looked at before. In this case it was "Earthquake Glue" by GBV. A dark horse from late in the pre-breakup era. Still haven't spent enough time with it to know where it sits for me but I do have a particularly fond memory of this album, walking along the bank of the Charles outside Harvard Sq. but on the Allston side, going in the direction of Western to Harvard. It was a lovely sunny day, green grass and trees, blue river. It is, in fact, the one and only memory I have of listening to this album. Aside from the track on this mix which I cleaved to immediately. I have a lot of memories tied up in those between place places in Boston and Allston and a lot of memories of albums like this, anchored in one single moment, one random listening, one out of the ordinary time or place, an iceberg tip or skyscraper top that juts up above the clouds of other memories for reasons I can never fathom. I like those a lot and some of those are serving as inspiration for some of the bands and albums I'm trying to work into new KINGS mixes. More on that as it happens I guess.

Anyway, apparently one of the working titles for "Earthquake Glue" was,

wait for it...

"Live Like Kings Forever."

Thank you Bobby Pollard.

Thank you KINGS.

It is 2:23 p.m.

This is the seance.

.

Thank you KINGS for joining me on this journey as it always should have been and always will be from now on.

Tonight: working on the Coco iPod Project still, aka just "The KINGS Project".

Something in the conversations these last couple days has put the Jimi Sharp/Seance era mixes in my head, aka "The Second Great Epoch of KINGS", perhaps. We all know there were several stages and tiers prior, the actualy at BMAX era, the immediately post BMAX era and so on.

I think I speak for all of us in saying that all of the eras have different special places in our hearts and many different amazing attendant memories. The Jimi Sharp era was so huge for us as a group and I'm sure I'll rehash it again and again some day when I get to talking in depth about all those mixes. That was the birth of us actually performing "THE SEANCE" itself, that was the point we opened up the mixes to a much broader selection of music and format and sort of streamlined and restructured our whole KINGS playing and process.

I was recently, to one of y'all, discussing an exact moment, it was at the first ever "GALA EVENT", which was like a KINGS PROM for us to commemorate finally having gotten through all the existing mixes at least one time, and at that point we were up to mix --144. We were listening to FIGURE 8 PLUS, the eternal, floating, forever-last mix, we were standing, dancing, drunk in our prom clothes, arm in arm, laughing and singing and I was holding court on the "New era" of KINGS that was going to happen, the corner we were turning and all the exciting changes and expansions to look forward to.

We had been doing KINGS for many months at that point and it was a good time to take a step back and open it up and just make some general rearrangements to freshen it up. I recall saying something like "OK, new era KINGS, here's what to look forward to: dance parties, 80's jams, double albums, new perspective, old classics" etc etc... I wish I could recall what exactly I said but I sure I'm painting it better than it really was then coming out of my mouth drunk.

When we next met for KINGS it was many chapters down the line, like I said, but also sort of a larger "CHAPTER TWO". We played a kickoff-the-epoch mix "FIGURE 8 MINUS....(I've Seen Tomorrow*) and down the rabbit hole we went. It's funny because I can remember sometime before that when Vicki still lived there (remember how that was a thing??? another roommate in THE CASTLE, dealing with KINGS madness, how weird to think about), she was like, as always, awkwardly passing through the periphery of a game in progress and we were all at a particularly drunk moment during a particularly down song (in my mind it's a Xiu Xiu song, but it might not have been) and it's also relatively early in the evening and we're all just sitting there like, dead quiet in weird moods and somber and serious and spun out and she came through like getting ready to go out or some shit and she's like why don't you guys like put on something upbeat to change the mood and bring up the energy (and again, in my mind she suggests something disco and 70's like "I Will Survive" or something) and we all kind of just cringed and looked away and I think The Captain took point on it, telling her she didn't get it and that we were in the middle of something and there was no such thing as just like changing the song or the mix or whatever, with great and understandable disdain. It was a classic moment and made me feel a swelling sense of pride and partnership with you guys. I felt so backed-up and supported, our dedicated little group. And I think the irony of that never played out for me later as we went into the Jimi Sharp era mixes which did in fact include a much intentionally greater number of dance songs and fun upbeat shit from other eras ala M JAX and DAFT PUNK, things previously, not excluded so much just not explored in the KINGS realm. I wouldn't say that was a result of my taking that experience with her to heart but it did provide a certain outsider sense of hey, how can we improve these meetings and balance these mixes in different ways to provide different algorithms of experience as we gamed them.

Anyway, all that is to say as I've been going through the COCO iPOD project, listening to every single mix and correcting all the art and song titles and minutiae, labeling, I've been usually doing it in clusters of mixes from eras, trying to bang out a whole bracket/KINGS ERA playlist folder at a time. I'll give you guys an update on where all that's at in a future post. But yeah, the JIMI mixes go in two large chunks in two different folders because they were done at two different times in life, the first being this moment when I'm talking about. And I've spent some time going through these already but only made it about half way before I went to another section. This era takes a different tack to process because a lot of the mixes are hella long (sorry), and also just very complex as entities. But, as I said, I love them and this era dearly. They're so interesting and different and have such a beautiful weird unique flavor. You can really just live in these things, and sit inside them and get lost in this beautiful way, that doesn't so much exist in earlier era mixes. It's hard for me to imagine how we gamed these, though I know we did and I know I built them very specifically to be gamed and time-release in a very intentional and successful way. Though just looking over them, the track lists, it's hard to feel, haha.

Come to think of it, what put them in my mind and got me excited to dive back into them was driving around in the car the other night and "All Night Long" by Lionel Richie came on and I just got the best feeling of that moment in KINGS history, like, MJAX and "Rhythm of the Night" and DAFT PUNK and Kanye "Graduation", that moment when suddenly hip hop was way into sampling french dance music and 80's sounds and dressing really indie rock. That was such a killer time in KINGS (Dude, THE LOOOOOOOOOP) and if anyone wants to chime in with memories or artifacts of that era on here to keep me company as I continue to dwell in these deep, layered mixes, I'd love it (in my head right here I see myself telling yall about the XIU XIU hotline phone number and then arriving one night to see the beautiful simulation pic you guys had done, and placing it, like a crown jewel in a setting, on the B MARLEY poster, RIP.)

So yeah, tonight, working on the wonderful and bizarre --150/187(Painting Of A Cat*/........) and, in a very BMAX honorarium, making guacamole and nachos.