I got my Dave Cloud and The Gospel of Power CD, The Napoleon of Temperance, last Saturday in a hazy hangover and weird tornado weather. Wow, its a double CD pack with 45 crazy, killer songs. I was raving about it last night when I was out on the town, describing it like if Guided By Voices used Lee Hazlewood instead of the British Invasion for a conerstone. Lee Hazlewood is a hero of mine...I wish I had more of his records.

Bolan (Eagle in a Sunbeam)

Marc Bolan/T Rex is one of my all time favorites. I was listening to the bonus stuff on the Zinc Alloy CD last night, really killer music. Really, one of the main goals I would like achieve is to make my drawings look like T Rex sounds, beguiling and inscrutable and instantly familiar and catchy.

Dave Cloud & The Gospel of Power

Old pal and killer artist Brian Buchanan introduced me to the music of Dave Cloud a few years back when he moved from Athens to Nashville for a while. I'm pretty sure he knew Mr. Cloud and got a disc straight from the source. It was awesome...totally weird and raw but smooth and familiar. It had an unhinged aspect that reminded me of Captain Beefheart, but was totally its own creature. Recently Brian sent me a video of Cloud...he's on Myspace now, so its very easy to find songs to hear. I am ordering his records this week...It will be perfect pinball-machine-customizin' music. I'm tearing down the Star Explorer next Saturday.

Go to his Myspace page to hear some of the songs. I dig Lavender Clothes!

aboard the starship...

One big source of inspiration for me now is weird, glammy, almost sci-fi uniform-style gear that rockers in the seventies wore before punk really broke out. Its like all these bands were crews on spaceships (ELO really ran with this concept). I'm also looking at lots of starship designs from the same era, like the hand-shaped space station in Star Crash.