HOLY RIPPLE “S/T” (Defective Tapes) 2020
My surfing vocabulary is novice at best. I’d offend the bras and barneys if I were to assume a mondo wave out by the cove in late August was the “Holy Ripple”. I can afford to risk that offense, and suffer a gnarly knuckle sandwich. It would likely increase my street cred.
1. A strong introduction, casting Robert Duvall as a crestfallen Mountie with painted pewter figurines in his vest pockets. Open hands, the esteemed method actor reminisces on his filmography and contemplates another Coppola sequel, “Napalm Beeb II”: whatever happened to the surfing general?
2. “Gold & Smoke” rises and meanders the same beachfront properties trespassed by Real Estate’s hi-powered RC dune buggy with a six-pack of PBR in tow.
3. When the last tall boy is crushed into a silver dollar and the hand-cranked drum-machine is hacked by the neighborhood medicine man, your only recourse is a barefoot hike around “Bald Mountain”.
4. This diner doubles as a time machine. The waffles are the optical disks of memories, such as study hall paper airplane construction. Last period’s physical education is insufferable as usual. A brutal round of dodgeball results with the “Hometown Hero” standing alone, center court, clutching seven Nerf blobs in his never-washed Slipknot tour t-shirt.
5. “Sour Grapes” [RIP John Prine].
6. Side B: different from Side A, if only because “Radwood” showcases an authentic swipe at the guitar solo from YES’s “Owner of a Lonely Heart”. [Unrelated: RIP Eddie Van Halen]
7. So… what if you’re stuck in bumper to bumper, and see the license plate in front of you says: “Kill 4 Luv”? What kind of life events result in said vanity plate? Why or why not? Support your answer.
8. Further cinematic fan-fic: Consider director John Cassavettes still going strong in the 1990s, removing Tarantino from his boy-king VHS throne of delusion. In a return to form, he recruits Ben Gazzara and Peter Falk as back in business, down on their luck wise-guys, and of course, Gena Rowlands as the “Getaway Blues Driver”.
9. While stepping into the pond of unconsciousness, behold a dusty old Mason Jar labeled “Delia’s Demon”.
10. The two or three chord droning penultimate track, “Swim on, Slayer” may be a miniature in this version, but I think it deserves a 13+ minute burner variant, preferably live in front of a studio audience avec fog machine and home movies projected onto a fitted bed sheet.
11. Finally, phanstasmagorically, HR connects the dots between the standard, “Dream a Little Dream of Me” and Suicide’s “Dream Baby Dream”. (yeah that’s a good one too, Bruce, but…) But “Dream a Crazy Dream” is an unexpected dance floor call to action, be it in a large anxious crowd or an unlit bedroom late at night with earbuds and the Twilight Trilogy.
adam padavano
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