It doesn’t feel like 24 hours have passed since the last “Swimming” post. Time seems to stand still when your brain is floating in a beer marinade that’s constantly being refreshed.
Yesterday, all but one of your dedicated NCS servants spent several hours at Seattle’s Zion’s Gate Records, poring laboriously over a quadrillion metal CDs and LPs, while having our minds pulled apart by pincers in the form of an endless loop of sanity-threatening, void-like electronica playing in the store.
Half a day later, I still have the urge to kill myself or someone else as a result of that music. However, I have not actually killed anyone because the experience was such that, after dropping wads of cash at Zion’s Gate, I and my fellow NCS scribes, along with assorted other friends, self-medicated for the rest of the day and evening with additional oceans of beer, which dulled the homicidal/suicidal impulses.
Undoubtedly, while medicating, we uttered many observations about albums and bands that would have revolutionized music criticism had anyone recorded the conversation for posterity. As I write this, however, my brain is so pickled with Boundary Bay Blonde that the recording apparatus contained therein has irreparably malfunctioned. All I can manage is to put up another NCS staff photo.
Stunningly, yesterday’s photo was spotted as something less than a 100% authentic portrait of the NCS staff. I overlooked the fact that my stand-in was missing arm tats. Otherwise, it totally would have fooled everyone. Some have wondered who my stand-in was, and in fact, she is one of the people who started this blog with me in November 2009. Unfortunately, she lost her way, found other things to do with her time, and missed out on the rise to greatness that later occurred.
I continue to learn things about my fellow NCS scribes now that I have met them in person. For example, I have learned that Andy Synn and DGR are capable of writing posts despite drinking enough beer to float a battleship, whereas I am only capable of compiling the kind of drivel that you are now reading. I am beginning to hate them intensely.
Nevertheless, I will be posting their latest reviews today, despite the fact that one of them may be focusing on Miley Cyrus’ performance at the MTV Awards.
In a few days I will post an NCS staff photo that includes heads, because that will give me an excuse to write more drivel.
On tap for today: a massive feedbag at Beth’s Diner. And, undoubtedly, the remaining two or three microbrews from the States of Washington and Oregon that we haven’t yet sampled.
And possibly (gulp!) a deathcore show at El Corazon tonight.
12 Responses to “SWIMMING IN AN OCEAN OF BEER (Part 2)”
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Have a blast! Looking forward to some new reviews 🙂
Thank you — and double thanks for the beautiful comment a day or two ago, which I neglected to acknowledge.
Oh haha no problem, drinking beer is a demanding and amnesia-inducing activity, so I completely understand it might have slipped your mind 😉
so if i guess that you’re the one in the middle do i still get a prize?
Yes! Your laurel, and hearty handshake, are in the mail, figuratively speaking.
whoohoo!!
Funny I went into a record store last week, and the same shit happened!… I can’t even remember the actual song (probably blocked from memory by some saving grace of psychological trauma), it was some old stuff that gets thrashed on ‘hits of the 80’s’ style radio… and I remember thinking ‘holy fuck I think I’m gonna have to leave just because this music is so bad, why would you play this in a record store!’.
PS. I say keep the heads a secret, it’s kind of a thing now…. “Who is Islander?”… “I dunno, he could be anyone, I’ve never seen his face…maybe he’s that guy there, maybe that homeless guy over there… maybe that creepy dude who just keeps staring…” 😉
Whatever was playing in Zion’s Gate had the odor of “experimental” about it, that is, if the repeated tapping of a synth key for five minutes followed by five minutes of a different key (and so on) against some kind of spooky ambient background can be termed experimental. It felt like ants were crawling under my skin.
Whatever was playing was incredibly ambient. A combo of theramin, drum, guitar, and synth keyboard tuned to church organ setting. Then, the keyboardist fell asleep on it and held out notes for incredibly extended periods of time while the Theramin did its best to attempt an arpeggio. Andy and I were convinced we were going to die. I felt myself levitating and leaving my body in the corner of a record store whilst staring at a fifty dollar Nasum vinyl. It was surreal.
Heads? Don’t do it man, then what’s left to imagine!?
The insides of their trousers?
I got The Qontinent 2013 this weekend from iTunes. I dig it.
I’ve been going back and forth between The Qontinent and Emptiness Error the past few days. What you said about electronic music made me think about it. I keep giving all music some crazy pounding bass even though it’s not there.