teamsweeting

The Pogues // Sally MacLennane // Old Grey Whistle Test

What we now know, with absolute certainty, is that capital will not achieve these tasks. Trusting the profit motive to deliver already left us a world of homelessness, hunger, debt, imprisonment, exploitation, addiction, racism, premature death, international strife, and rising temperatures before the pandemic struck. While these worsening crises are rooted economically in the regime of capital accumulation, their political intractability—the defeats thus far of the movements to address them—depends on the asymmetric conflict between the generations. The old have formed into battalions to mount a defense of the predatory and destructive capitalism we have known. With their votes especially, but also in their practices as managers of workers and owners of property, they have forced the young into compliance. Lacking structural power, the young have done our best to resist up to a point, then mainly fallen in line.

Jens Lekman first released “What’s That Perfume That You Wear” on the WWJD Mixtape in 2014. Later, he rereleased a fuller studio version on 2017′s  Life Will See You Now. The song is very, very good.  The video is really fantastic. Frustratingly though, the song does not answer it’s own central question. I am always left wondering: WHAT IS That Perfume That They Wear?!?!?

Luckily, Jens left us a series of clues and, well, I think I’ve pretty much figured it out. 

What’s That Perfume That You Wear mentions seven fragrance notes—sandalwood, lemon, ginger, pink pepper, vetiver, lavender, and the promise of something so sweet, that could never be. 

I poked around Fragrantica.com and, as far as I can tell—setting aside the possibility of a custom fragrance—the closest match available from a major perfumery is Chanel’s Allure Homme. This may be the stupidest thing I have ever spent forty minutes doing. 

The cologne, which is described as “difficult to define, impossible to resist” and “the expression of a man's charisma and inner strength” has fragrance notes matching Lekman’s description almost exactly. The only thing missing is “the promise of something so sweet, that could never be.” 

Here is an old clip of The Hold Steady playing 212-Margarita at Sound Fix Records in Williamsburg. I think this is from 2006 or so. It is great. 

Craig Finn introduces the song asking if anyone has seen the law firm advertisements on the subway pushing 212-MARGARITA as the number to call for representation. He calls them “one of the mysteries of New York.” The laughter of recognition from the crowd is a little strange because the number on the advertisements Finn is misremembering was actually 1-888-MARGARITA. 212 is Manhattan’s area code. Let’s chalk up the confusion to Finn’s addled mid-2000’s brain. 

Trolman, Glaser & Lichtman trademarked the number in 2005 and used it on all of their Spanish language advertisements. In addition to being a risibly offensive and horrible thing for a law firm to glibly use in their Spanish language marketing efforts, it is also a deeply bizarre phone number to have associated with your law firm. TG&L just uses 1-888-627-4274 nowadays. 

212-Margarita though, 212-Margarita is an incredible song. People call it a “rarity” but there are two versions on Spotify and it lands on set lists every now and then. 

"Whether he was channeling cuckold or tomcat, he sang like a spirit for whom despair has the weight of predestination. Like the gasp of a man letting go.”

“The architecture [Google and YouTube] have built to extract the maximum revenue from online video is being hacked by persons unknown to abuse children, perhaps not even deliberately, but at a massive scale.”  

Tom Waits // Live In Denver 1974 // Ebbets Field 10/8/1974

Tom Waits was just twenty-four years old, and a year out from the release of his debut album, when he played this show at a tiny club called Ebbets Field in Denver, Colorado. 

This recording was made for a radio rebroadcast of the show and later got bootlegged a bunch of times and was also somehow released as a “Fan Club Import” under the title Dime Store Novels Vol. 1.  I found an old MegaUpload link on a fan forum a few years ago and never really listened to it until now.  It is apparently a pretty coveted recording for Tom Waits weirdos. 

Waits is recognizably drunk and raspy throughout the set. He really seems to love the crowd and wanders off into stories and banter in between most of the songs and, by the end of the show, he is taking requests.