I HAD TO MUCH TO DREAM LAST NIGHT: SECRET FILES EDITION

I am in a Harry Palmer spy movie of some kind. 

I meet Palmer in an old car (something like a Morris Minor), and tell him I’m a fan. He is kind, but unimpressed. He tells me our “mission”, as it were, is to meet someone in a secure apartment complex. He starts the car and drives us there.

We’re both expecting it to be a luxury block, but when we arrive at the address, it turns out to be more like a YMCA dorm. We do some recon on the local layout. Palmer gives me the name of the contact: a woman named Mabel. She lives on the eighth floor.

I get past security easily enough and go up to meet Mabel. To my surprise, my old friend Animal is her roommate. Mabel’s mother is there too for some reason, so we have to make up a plausible excuse for me being there besides spy stuff.

At one point, Mabel is hiding behind some curtains with Animal, and I am pretending to hand them shower supplies to make her mom think that (1) she’s in the shower, and (2) she’s in there by herself.

The whole thing has the cadence of a cartoon, and when I’ve finally ushered her mom out the door, I turn to them and say, “When did my life become a Heckyl and Jeckyl cartoon?” It doesn’t get the laugh I expect.

And then I woke up.

Undercover,

This is dF

LISTEN TO IT #72: OH EE EE OH EE EE OH EE!

You know that rock music is still a male-dominated genre when everyone gets all amazed every time a female guitarist gets on stage and knocks out some Eddie Van Halen-style riffing and shredding. 

Even years after everyone from Joan Jett and Lita Ford to Sleater-Kinney and The Donnas already kicked down those particular doors – to say nothing of all those YouTube videos of teenage girls knocking out metal solos – it’s still the gender of the guitarist that defines how many people react (and often as not, how hot she is).

At the moment, the two guitarists at the top of the “You play pretty good for a girl” list are Orianthi and Marnie Stern. Both of them are relatively new to me (having only been hipped to them in the past year by Mr Jason Franks). And they both have new albums out this year.

I am far more excited about the latter.

Here’s why.

For a start, it takes more than chops to impress me. LOTS of people can play guitar well. A smaller subset can play guitar INSANELY well. But if yr playing music that doesn't really connect with me on some level, I’m not going to get much out of it.

Orianthi is an INSANELY good guitarist whose style can be described as “all purpose”, which is why she’s able to collaborate with everyone from Michael Jackson, Adam Lambert and Carrie Underwood to Mary J Blige, Tokyo Police Club and Alice Cooper. And her solo work is, essentially, “all purpose” hard rock songs about standard rock topics. She’s very good at it, but it’s not really my thing.

Marnie Stern, on the other hand, is an INSANELY good guitarist who plays completely bonkers indie rock that sounds like some demented tribe of extraterrestrial winged unicorns from Arcturus backed by Cindy Wilson and Kate Pierson of the B-52s.

Okay, I’m exaggerating a little. But seriously, her new album is startlingly idiosyncratic. And bonkers.

Listen.

It’s probably not for everyone. I can see a lot of people getting annoyed by her vocal style alone. But there’s something just insanely joyful about the whole album that appeals to me.

Immortals don’t die,

This dF