My relationship to Great Northern is weird. I liked what I heard off Remind Me Where The Light Is enough to buy it, listened to it a lot for a while, and then just…stopped. I can’t even explain why I stopped. It’s a mystery, like the waning of a pestilence. That album is superbly crafted Shoegaze-tinged pop that sounds bit like Tamaryn.
“Radio,” an earlier effort off Sleepy Eepee, is a different sort of beast, like Mazzy Starr crossed with some buzzy low-fi band. Singer Rachel Stolte has a compelling voice.
Despite not listening to them for years, YouTube occasionally offers them up in my feed. A good thing, too.
They evidently toured with Smashing Pumpkins this year, and are supposedly working on a new album.
I saw the Peter Gabriel concert at the Moody Center in Austin on October 18. It was the third time I’d seen Gabriel perform live, and he put on a good show. We had tickets facing center stage in the mezzanine section, and they were quite pricey.
About half the songs are off the forthcoming I/O album, while the other half are from other parts of his career (“Sledgehammer,” “Solsbury Hill,” etc.). His tour ensemble was a mixture of old familiar faces (the always excellent Tony Levin, Manu Katche and David Rhodes) and new (cellist/vocalist Ayanna Witter-Johnson, who was very good).
They had an interesting multimedia setup with projection surfaces on different stage elements that they could move, as well as close-up cameras for projecting on either wing (and occasionally the giant circular moveable hanging surface that was the centerpiece of the set).
I think the best song of the concert was an absolutely killer version of “Digging in the Dirt,” which had a nasty, funky, bass-heavy sound to it. There’s not a version with great sound on YouTube, so this will have to do:
They also did an extremely good version of “Biko” as the final encore.
Here’s the set list, which seems to be constant across venues.
I think the last two shows of the tour are in Dallas tonight and Houston Saturday, and overall prices are a bit cheaper than the Austin show. It’s well worth catching if you’re a Gabriel fan.
As for the Moody Center, the sightlines are very good, the concession prices are exorbitant, and the seats are too small and not particularly comfortable.
Delany, Samuel R. The American Shore. Dragon Press, 1978. First edition hardback, #77 of 100 signed, numbered copies, a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued. Detailed, close-reading non-fiction critical analysis of Thomas Disch’s “Angouleme,” a segment of 334. Weedman, The Starmont Reader’s Guide to Samuel R. Delany, page 22 (“Here Delany exercises himself as the critic’s critic, remaining fairly inaccessible to a general audience.”). Chalker/Owings, page 132. Replaces an unsigned copy.
Delany, Samuel R. The Einstein Intersection. Easton Press, 1986 (stated; the Locus database lists this coming out in 1991). First edition thus, a special leatherbound collector’s edition, a Fine copy, sans dust jacket, as issued, inscribed by Delany to the previous owner and with an Ex-Libris plate and “Collector’s Notes” laid in. Nebula winner for Best Novel, Hugo finalist. Magill, Survey of Science Fiction pages 703-707. Supplements a signed copy of the Gollancz first hardback edition. Strictly speaking this is just a “nice to have,” but it is signed, and Easton Press makes attractive books.
Delany, Samuel R. The Straits of Messina. Serconia Press, 1989. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket. Delany essays on Delany. Chalker/Owings, page 390 (“these at least are readable”). Replaces a copy with a less attractive dust jacket.
Two more books from that private collection purchase, both of which are 1-to-1 swaps of Fine/Fine signed copies for Fine/Fine unsigned copies.
Blaylock, James P. Lord Kelvin’s Machine. Arkham House, 1992. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine Mylar-protected dust jacket, signed by Blaylock. Joshi, Sixty Years of Arkham House 179. Nielsen, Arkham House Books 185. Replaces an unsigned copy.
Blaylock, James P. Winter Tides. Ace, 1997. First edition hardback, a Fine copy in a Fine Mylar-protected dust jacket, inscribed by Blaylock to the previous owner. Replaces an unsigned copy.
I was surprised that my existing Lord Kelvin’s Machine wasn’t signed, since Blaylock was a semi-regular Armadillocon attendee in the 1990s. i will have a number of Blaylock firsts (some signed) in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog.
A private collector downsizing his library sold me some of his books, most of which was for Lame Excuse Books stock (hopefully that catalog will be out near the end of November), but there were a few things I found to add to my own collection.
Vance, Jack. Night Lamp. Tor, 1996. First edition hardback (precedes the Underwood Books edition), a Fine copy in a Fine dust jacket, signed by Vance. This is one of the rare cases where adding a new book will actually free up some space in my library, as this volume will replace both a Fine unsigned copy I’ve already read, and a signed copy with a remainder mark, both of which should show up in the next Lame Excuse Books catalog. Cunningham, 61a. Supplements the Underwood Books limited edition. [Edited to add: I misremembered: It’s Lurulu I have the signed, remainder-marked copy of. But I’ll still have two firsts of Night Lamp, one signed, in the next catalog.]
(Vance, Jack) Laws, Robin D. The Kaain Player’s Guide: A Supplement for the Dying Earth RPG. Pelgrane Press, 2002. First edition (“First printing June 2002”) trade paperback original, a Fine copy. Supplement for the Dying Earth RPG. My role-playing game days are long behind me, and I haven’t really made a point of picking up RPG stuff for authors I collect, but this was cheap, and I have some books from the Amber Diceless RPG I haven’t cataloged yet from the last Bob Pylant purchase. Now I just need to find a place to put them…
(Vance, Jack) Parmentier, Gregg. The Vance Phile issues 1 through 6. First edition center-stapled fanzine originals, each #5 of 30 copies, signed by Parmentier (and sometimes other contributors), each a Fine copy. Fanzines full of interesting articles from Vance fans, from reprints of rare Vance works to a lot of bibliographic updates (include some from Jerry Hewett to his Vance bibliography). Strangely, I’ve been on a private Vance collector’s list with Gregg for decades now, but I believe I started getting those only after his period of publishing these, so I never heard about it. There was evidently an Issue 7 I’m still trying to track down a print copy of. I seem to be picking up quite a number of Vance fanzines this year. (See here.)
Once again, The Simpsons “Steamed Hams” segment has inspired the Internet to produce an alternate version, this one in terrifying Soviet-style animation.
Here’s a nicely creepy borderlands of science/urban legend/conspiracy theory video about a hole that has no bottom.
80,000 feet worth of fishing line found no bottom. Plus animals avoided it, and radios went crazy, when they weren’t picking up signals from 30 years before.
Then the government took it over.
Much more paranormal weirdness ensues
Was it real? Well, as real as anything else with a Wikipedia entry featured on Art Bell.
I guess that technically one of these is a magazine, but it looks and feel just like a paperback.
Brunner, John. The Traveler in Black. Ace, 1971. First edition paperback original (no statement of printing and 75¢ as per Currey), a Fine- copy with slight wear at points and a drop of discoloration to bottom page block at heel, otherwise a very nice copy. Celebrated fix-up of linked stories. Currey, page 74. De Bolt, The Happening Worlds of John Brunner, page 57.
Moorcock, Michael, editor (John Brunner, Roger Zelazny, J. G. Ballard, etc.). New Worlds March 1966, Vol. 49, No. 160. Compact SF, 1966. First edition magazine in the form of a paperback original, a Near Fine copy with slight glue ridging to spine, slight wear at points, a faint, thin line of abrasion down rear cover near outer edge, and a few touches of general wear. Right in the middle of Moorcock’s acclaimed run as editor of New Worlds when it became the epicenter of the New Wave, with a murder’s row of writers in this issue. The Zelazny is the first appearance of the classic “For a Breath I Tarry” (Levack, Stories 69a), and both this and the above came from the last purchase of books from Bob Pylant’s Zelazny collection.
I have cover scans, but for some reason BlueHost isn’t letting me upload pics right now, so you’ll have to wait to see them…
