Icebox Records » Remembering

BOREDOMS 9/9/9

Jason Cooley — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:56:34 +0000

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Crystal

Jason Cooley — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 00:42:23 +0000

I bought two old magazines that both had a great affect on my life. I purchased them at Speaking Volumes, a great record/book/art store here in ol’ Burlin’ton. I went there initially to get an old Playboy but found a copy of an old Rolling Stone I’ve been thinking about lately.

The Playboy. September 1971. I wasn’t alive yet, but Olsen was. Somehow when I was 23 this issue fell into my hands. The centerfold is Crystal Smith, who is stunning in both her beauty and her taste in American Flag bell bottom pants. Among her favorite films at the time are M*A*S*H and Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. So, there’s that. Whenever my old band Bag Of Panties would play I would always put this centerfold up. There’s no bush, so it seems sort of innocent. And cool. If a gig was going bad or if I just needed some inspiration to play better than I was, I’d just look at Crystal. I know I’m way too young for her, but…Then there’s an interview with Jules Feiffer, a weird “surrealistic nudes” pictorial, movie reviews of Two Lane Blacktop and Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (which I’ve sampled many times), a negative review of McCartney’s “Ram” (lame, but fun to read) and the ads. My god, the ads. Apparently in the early 70s the kind of man that read Playboy was into leisure suits, Hush Puppies, and newfangled stereo equipment. TONS of ads offering new turntables, reel-to-reels, portable 8-track players, etc. There’s also a Datsun ad in there that I once used to design a ticket for a Wide Wail CD release party. Anyway, the centerfold is getting custom mounted and framed tomorrow.

The Rolling Stone issue which just happened to be there also changed my life. It’s the Best Albums Of The Last Twenty Years issue, August, 1987. When I was 14, the upstairs college student neighbor (C.K. Walls) gave me this issue. All I listened to at the time was metal and The Beatles. It’s an informative issue that explains very well why each album is great and why you should have it. It also has impressive reproductions of the album covers which is what drew me in initially. Through this issue I found The Sex Pistols, The Velvet Underground, Television, Otis Redding, New York Dolls, R.E.M., Todd Rundgren, The fucking STOOGES…they turned my feeble little mind on to great shit. I spent years finding these albums. Looking through it today I realized I don’t own 6 of them. Someday I will.

Hotter Than Hell (after a few beers and waxing on the virtues of young instinct)

Jason Cooley — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 13:38:18 +0000

In December of 1986 I remember sitting in my room on a Saturday night listening to KISS’ “Hotter Than Hell” and getting incredibly sad at the realization that there would one day be a time where I would be old and dying and not able to listen to that album again. Someday I wouldn’t be able to pull that record out of that (fucking) awesome sleeve and hear the click of the needle adjusting to the groove and as the octave/chord/whatever you call it riff of “Got To Choose” came ringing through the speakers I wouldn’t be able to look at the back cover and let the image of Paul Stanley making out with some chick enhance the experience…well, a few years later I scoffed at this notion I once had. I ridiculed myself.

These events have a way of finding their way onto your back and biting your ear. Yeah, I spent years alone in my crappy bedroom thinking I was the only person in the world smart enough to realize the virtues (ok, I wasn’t smart enough to know that word back then) of both KISS and the Beatles, and with help from my tormentive (is that a word) classmates I hid my obsessions of BOTH bands. Now they come onto my iPod and I relish each minute I get. How is it 20 years later I still find the same satisfaction from both “I Am The Walrus” and “Goin’ Blind”?

I’ll tell you why. It’s because I’m fucking smart, and the only stupid thing I’ve really done that caused massive wastes of time and money was listening to tasteless idiots dictate (vaguely…I mean, I did keep listening to KISS and The Beatles alone in my room all weekend for years instead of getting short spiky rich-kid haircuts with OP jams and Banana Republic t-shirts…oh, who am I kidding: if my parents could have afforded them I would have taken them…except for the jams) what I listened to. For fuck’s sake, in February ’86 I saw the video for “Rise” by PiL and got caught by some dumb hick girl singing the chorus to myself. She told me I was a geek and the lyrics were stupid. Great. How many years could I have saved if I’d discovered “Metal Box” at 13?

Anyway. Don’t let Joe-87-spiky-cut-guy laugh at you for buying that copy of “Billion Dollar Babies” (or it’s equivalent). Once around early-’86 these kids in the Peterborough Town Library made fun of me for taking out the soundtrack to the movie “Popeye”. I felt pretty lame at the time, but guess what? The music was by Harry Nilsson and the movie was directed by Robert Altman. Those kids were listening to the shit radio music that only southern NH could offer them (from Boston, actually) while I was delving in dual genius. “He Needs Me”? FUCK THOSE GUYS. A motto for all.

I love you, Ashley.

Death is what becomes of us

Eric Olsen — Thu, 24 Jun 2004 13:15:35 +0000

This is my grandfather, Bernt Anker Olsen. We call him Pop. He was born in Norway in October of 1912. When he was 15 he applied for a position on a boat, lied about his age, and began his sailing career. For quite some time he was moving rice from Hong Kong to Bangkok, or something like that…I can’t be sure…on a British commercial ship. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harber, his ship was considered the Enemy and he was taken captive and was a POW in Japan from 1941 until 1945. He wrote a small book about his experiences here. During this time his brother, Rolf Sigurd Olsen, my real grandfather, the father of my father, died at sea. When Bernt was released from this imprisonment, he stopped in Brooklyn on his way back to Norway to visit the widow of his brother and eventually married her. Her name was Beattie Olsen, and she died 1 week ago. On Monday morning I will be in Bay Ridge, and we will remember her during a Catholic service, and then we will gather on the 69th Street pier and empty out her ashes out over the East River. She always wanted to be with Rolf at death, the brother of her husband of almost 60 years.

I am coming home from the bar, after a shift of serving death, and I am tired of it all. I want to live in a house with my children, the first of which shall be named Anker, regardless of sex. The days are growing shorter now…this is my dear friend Austin’s wisdom a few solstices ago: June 21…it’s all downhill from here, the days dwindling, diminishing as we speak.

It is too late to blather, the sun is rising, and I still have a bar towel hanging from a pant loop. My woman is beautiful, and as much as I romanticize a bullet in the head sometimes, I’m the happiest I’ve ever been. Really, when I think about it, nothing is stopping me.

Welcome to my world.

Uff Da

Eric Olsen — Mon, 28 Apr 2003 17:34:04 +0000

Syttende Mai is Norwegian Independence Day … May 17th. After 400 years of Danish rule, Norway peacefully declared its independence by calling a constitutional convention, and on the 17th of May, 1814, the Constituent Assembly at Eidsvold ratified a Norwegian constitution that provided for a separate Norwegian government and national assembly. (Norway really only entered a looser union with Sweden which lasted until 1905, but that has nothing to do with this).

All growing up I remember being wrapped up in clothes I’d never seen before … I had no idea where they came from … and my family, along with thousands of Norwegians from all the boroughs would converge in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to march down 3rd Ave in celebration of our pre-independence. There are women adorned just like my mother in the picture pushing baby carriages with little infants dressed accordingly, red white and blue streamers (our Norsk colors, don’t get them confused) hanging from the handles … both my grandfathers carrying little flags and dressed to the nines, the inky gloss of their well-buffed shoes swallowing light and blinding the rest of us.

This year I celebrate my Norwegian heritage by playing a rock show at a coffeeshop/bar in Vermont. Come see it– I might be dressed.

If you’re in NYC, the 52nd Annual Norwegian Constitution Day Parade takes place on Third Avenue in the heart of Bay Ridge in Brooklyn. Two visiting marching bands from Norway will participate.The Parade theme this year is ”Norwegian/Americans honor the Family”. The guest speaker will be Finn Kristian Marthinsen of the Norwegian Parliament. Entertainment and the crowning of Miss Norway at conclusion of parade in Leif Ericson Park. The Parade starts at Marine and Third Avenues, and concludes with a program at the Grandstand, 6th Avenue amd 67th Street, Brooklyn, NY. The parade starts at 1:30 pm, program at Grandstand at approximately 3:30 pm. (212) 531 4877.

The fucked up thing about the parade is that its on the 18th … WTF?

Blessed be the late at night

Eric Olsen — Sun, 27 Apr 2003 17:30:58 +0000

It always starts small, I think. Life, war, a good story. Not sure what I’m thinking exactly, but its there, like someone in your bed or a wart on your finger or the smell of Spring.

We’ve got all the time we need, and we’re running out of time. That’s what I’m trying to say, maybe. The infinite has been duly noted and is presently secure in a warehouse outside Pittsburgh. We start off small, a welcome mistake maybe, or the result of hard hard work. We find out what our neighbors smell like, what blood tastes like, what anger feels like when its snapped and slapped against our skin. We learn the craft of deceit. We grow accustomed to the thin dry air of dejection. Someone else has pointed out the idea of a horizon, and ever since then we’ve followed it like a gilded carrot.

Working hard. I’d prefer not to. Pointing out the obvious.

Vær så god

Eric Olsen — Sat, 26 Apr 2003 17:26:37 +0000

The first thing I remember was getting “hoofed” in the head by a cow in Norway. I was a wee lad, and I’ve always held that moment somewhat responsible for the occasional birthmark between my eyebrows … that, and the time my girlfriend in 6th grade, Jennifer Dzurus, tried to kick me but had clogs on and so it flew off her foot and landed squarely there, the forehead, and oh the zing. The 2nd time I went to Norway was with Mormor and Affar, and I embarrassed them as we boarded the KLM flight to Oslo by telling the pilot, who had just asked me if I could speak any Norwegian, “Dra hjem og ligg ned,” which is roughly translated as ”Go home and lie down,” which, innocuous as it sounds, was a little bit of a diss back there in mid-70s Scandanavia.

Affar used to walk me down to Shore Road in Bay Ridge and we’d sit on one of the benches there and have a vantage point of the Verrazano Narrows and the mouth of NY Harbor, and he’d point to giant tankers and cargo chips with his burly Norwegian finger and tell me this and tell me that. He died when I was 11 or so, and I was home alone when Tante Lillian called and told me that “Morfar has gone to be with the Lord.” I was aware of my lack of tears and sorrow … mostly, just confused, really … huh … and when my parents pulled up in the green Datsun 210, hatchback open for some lumber they had lugged from wherever, I jumped into the back and made them stop their slow and short journey backing up the driveway and feigned some good tears for my mother’s sake, I think. I remember my skin feeling weird and numb, like plastic.

There was never a shortage of milk at Mormor’s. Always pouring me glass after glass, tall thick glasses with diamond shaped etchings in them. Nice silverware on a cold white metal table, a small radio on a shelf above the salt and pepper, and a Lord’s Prayer plaque beside it. I would always play with her fancy cutglass perfume atomizer with the silky pump ball with fraying tassles, not really spraying perfume around, but just checking it out, so strange and foreign to me … mostly I remember the ring she stopped wearing, laying on the mirror counter beside the perfumes and powders … 4 square stones set in a thin gold band, different colors, pastely … pink, green, blue, and yellow … one for each of her children. When she died I was “living” at the Glenwood on Broadway and Marcy in Williamsburg, a $7 a night hotel for junkies, like myself, or for forlorn old men to die in … my brother found me there– I think I left a phone number with him once– and picked me up to go to her wake, and I made him stop at a Dunkin Donuts to use the bathroom, and I shot a good speedball into my neck and got back into the car and we continued on, and just before we got to the funeral parlor I looked at myself in the visor mirror and noticed the small bit of blood staining the collar of my dirty shirt.

adventures with Sonic Youth

Jason Cooley — Fri, 25 Apr 2003 17:24:57 +0000

I’m here listening to a recent SY show on my MD walkman…great versions of “Cotton Crown”, “Candle”, etc…reminds me of fun weird times I’ve had with Sonic Youth, like the time when I was still in high school, listening to “Daydream Nation” on headphones, tripping on acid by myself in the dark. The CD started skipping during “Total Trash” and somehow I thought it was just SY bashing on some crazy rhythm, I sat there listening to it for a long time before I realized what was up. A few months later I got “EVOL” on vinyl and put it on. I fell asleep somewhere during side two and woke up hours later to the locked groove churning superloud like some alarm clock from hell. Or the time a friend of mine took me to NYC for the first time to see them play for free in Central Park. Sensory overload looking at all the buildings and lights, trying to be cool, but definitely not being cool. Or getting advance vinyl of “Experimental Jetset” only to have my apartment building burn down later that night. Or getting destroyed by Lightning Bolt in Rhode Island. Sonic Youth won’t be breaking up any time soon, and that’s a good thing.

2 Xmases before me

Eric Olsen — Wed, 23 Apr 2003 17:23:09 +0000

No time for shit.

Work from 9 to 6
go to Kinkos and cut up some shit for the new 3″
package em up with Cooley at our cold white table
write this
go to job #2 until just about 4am.

Yeah Mom. This is why you did it. Good to see that Christmas has always been your favorite holiday.

Cough Cough Cough

Jason Cooley — Wed, 23 Apr 2003 17:18:27 +0000

Fucking sick again. This sucks. You know how it is, no need to explain.

May is going to be a busy month around here. Finishing up the School Bus ”Blue Button” CD, mixing some Kochalka tracks, finishing up the Kochalka album, preparing for the very first School Bus live performance (May 17, w/ Swale at Radio Bean), Kochalka gig opening for Mike Watt (May 3, Higher Ground), tooth extraction (May 16), and finally, picking up Led LO/CO at the airport (always a fun job) and driving them to their marathon gigs at Red Square (May 9) and Nectar’s (May 24).

James Kochalka depicts me in his comics as a dog with a robot brain. When we went to Oklahoma last year (which has become the subject of a tune on ”Blue Button”) we were presented by a girlie named Heather Peanut with sculptures of our characters. Thanks, Heather.