Give Me Back My Dreams

[vovat]

Have any of the rest of you had certain unreal locations turn up in multiple dreams? Both a dream yesterday and one I had a little while ago had me living in a house that was twinned with another and located behind a bigger one. I don't think it's based on anywhere real, but my subconscious saw fit to use it twice. I also remember having two dreams about a small mall that had an uncrossable room full of dogs. I think a board game featuring Garfield but looking kind of like Chutes & Ladders appeared in at least one of these dreams. Those are the only recurring locations (not counting real ones) that I can recall offhand, but there might well have been others.

It looks like having my toe examined by the podiatrist is going to cost me a pretty penny. I thought I was told that I'd only have to pay the co-pay, but I probably misunderstood. It's all ridiculously complicated. But I'm sure I'll have plenty to say about health insurance issues after seeing Sicko (which I hope to do sometime soon), so I won't get into it anymore right now, other than to say that this makes me reluctant to go to any more doctors while on my current plan.

On a less expensive note, I'm currently listening to Hyacinths and Thistles, the second album by the 6ths. The roster of guest artists this time around seems more impressive, at least so far as I've actually heard of more of them. Looking at the list of guest singers' bands from Wasps' Nests, I think Yo La Tengo is the only one I've heard anything by, and I don't remember any of it. On this one, even just going over the names, I'm pretty sure I've heard at least one song each by Bob Mould, Melanie, Miho Hatori, and Gary Numan. Brian Dewan plays his infamous electric zither on the first track. And I think I might have seen Neil Hannon (the guy from the Divine Comedy, according to the liner notes) open for Ben Folds. His contribution, "The Dead Only Quickly," is one of my favorites, despite its shortness. I also quite like "He Didn't," "I've Got New York," "Lindy-Lou," and "You You You You You." On the less positive side, while I know Odetta is a favorite of the beatniks in Hairspray (and, for that matter, of Stephin Merritt himself), her vocal performance on "Waltzing Me All The Way Home" is a little too weird for me. Nice accordion work by Daniel Handler, though. And while the actual song part of the minimalisitic "Oahu" is pretty good, the decision to end it with about twenty minutes of the repetitive instrumental part wasn't so cool. At least it's at the end, so I can skip it pretty easily when listening to the album in the future.

Finally, travspence did this, and while I couldn't come up with any suggestions for him, I still think it would be cool if people did it for me. Does that make me selfish? Anyway, here it is:

Leave me a comment and list not less than 1 but no more than 3 musical acts I probably haven't heard of and tell me why I should give them a listen.

Comments

[revme.livejournal.com]

Hm...

Betty Davis -- Miles Davis' wife, and she does some really sassy-type funk stuff. They just reissued a couple of her records.

Foetus -- really cool industrial-type stuf from J. G. Thirlwell, who also does the music for the Venture Brothers. _Love_ is an OUTSTANDING record with great, great orchestral bits. It's like orchesdustrial. Or something.

Coil -- More really awesome industrial type stuff, but a bit more wide-reaching. Definitely give them a try.

(this was hard, because I was trying to think of acts I hadn't put on a mix CD that were both cool and that you might not know. I think Betty Davis is probably the only sure thing....)

[3x1minus1.livejournal.com]

i'm constantly having dreams that take place in a building that's a combination of my old high school & middle schools. i suppose that's unreal. {g}

[vovat.livejournal.com]

The combination places also show up in my dreams from time to time. There are also often places that I'll recognize in the dreams as being real places, but they barely resemble the actual places. I seem to recall one where Beth's house was laid out like my grandmother's.

[yosef.livejournal.com]

I know there are one or two dreams-only locales I've visited, although they're somewhat connected to "real" locations. My street is a dead-end near a field in real life, but in my dreams, there's always a whole new neighborhood attached. I think it has varied somewhat and once there was a castle there. Another dream area has this weird broken down carnival feel (it's outdoors and never quite the same, but it always "feels" the same I guess). All the other locations I frequently visit are my own house, my grandma's house, my grade school, my old daycare that was at a church, real and fake areas around my neighborhood and rarely my jr. high or high school. Of course, they're always completely messed up and I get stuck in dark rooms and on dark streets as some criminal type is trying to catch me and all my friends and family have abandoned me... (I think my parents must have left me in my closet for a few weeks when I was a baby)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

My street is a dead-end near a field in real life, but in my dreams, there's always a whole new neighborhood attached.

Yeah, that kind of thing has come up for me as well, where I'll be in a familiar place, but it turns out to have sections I haven't explored, or to be connected to other places. It's also not uncommon for places that are actually quite far apart to be really close together in my dreams, and I'll think something like, "Hey, I never knew how close this place was! I must have been going the long way every other time!"

[bec-87rb.livejournal.com]

Have any of the rest of you had certain unreal locations turn up in multiple dreams?

Oh, sure. These last two weeks I have been, on and off, in a big square kitchen with a square center island cooking with Flansburgh and Linnell.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Are they any good at the cooking?

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

My dreams take place in awesome locations, and yes, many of them repeat (though sometimes in dreams I will say "I had a dream that took place here before" and when I wake up I'm not sure if I really DID have a dream there before or if I just dreamed I did, how's that for complicated). I can't think of any in particular off the top of my head, except maybe for the big house with lots of windows on the hill above the forest. Also, there's a diner down that hill on the other side of the woods by the highway. I'm not sure when I realized the locations were so close to each other, or if they always just were.

You know so many obscure musical acts, that makes it hard! Well, I guess I do too, they're just most likely no longer performing. Let me look at my playlist for ideas:
going in backwards alphabetical order... have you heard of the Small Faces? Probably. Psych-pop. Then Rod Stewart joined and they became just the Faces and then started sucking because it was Rod Stewart.

Os Mutantes-- a brazilian political underground psych/folk/general weirdness group. Sound a bit like something you'd hear on Sesame Street.

The Marmalade? -- british pop/psych-pop from the 60s (as is most psych pop), some quite lovely.

Ah, the Idle Race -- Jeff Lynne's first band! The early precursors of Electric Light Orchestra! Rock! Jeff Lynne is a genius.

Oh, that's four. But I'll bank on you having heard of the Small FAces before and they don't count.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

My dreams take place in awesome locations, and yes, many of them repeat (though sometimes in dreams I will say "I had a dream that took place here before" and when I wake up I'm not sure if I really DID have a dream there before or if I just dreamed I did, how's that for complicated).

Yeah, I've had that same confusion as well.

I've heard of the Small Faces, but don't really know anything about them.