Advance, Australian Ford

“You Should Have Killed the Monkey First” Adam Ford – To date, I think Adam Ford is the person from farthest away who I met first on the internet and then in person. He’s from Australia. It was in New York, the winter of 2000, when I went up to Fliptone Studios to do some recording and timed it so a bunch of Barbelith people were meeting at the same time. Adam was there just to be in New York, I think. He gave me a copy of his book of poems Not Quite the Man For the Job. The title piece from that book is a kind of retelling of the Green Lantern origin story, only funny and poignant at the same time. Adam Ford is my kind of person; a man of letters, a man of science, and a man who’s not afraid to let his geek banner fly high and proud. A man not afraid to demand his pedipulator. Not all of his poems or spoken word pieces (or even his novel) are about comic books, but some of the best ones are. This is one of those.

“Metamorpho” The Songs and Stories of the Justice League album – Some time in 2001, Mr. Ford was generous enough to not only tell people about this album, but also to record it and swap it for mix tapes. It’s a treasure from 1975, although it feels between 10 and 20 years older, alternating short “radio play” pieces with theme songs for the various heroes. The Justice League roll call is pretty funny, but the Metamorpho song has this weird kernel of pathos buried under the forced “let’s be hip, kids!” tone. It tells its own eerie story, complete with a heart-wrenching narrative twist at the end. Plus, you can dance to it. Well, maybe that’s just me. Anyway, you can read more about the record and see scans of the covers over here (scroll down to “music”).

“Music is Crap” Custard – The flip side of that same Justice League tape got really worn out. It was a mix of Australian surreal spoken work performers and indie pop bands like Custard that I’d never heard of, but were beautiful, catchy, and should have been global superstars. Unfortunately, not too many people in the States seem to have heard of any Australian independent popsters other than Ben Lee and Darren Hanlon. But the country is full, I say! Full of rich, earthy indie pop loam! Vast herds of bizarre, docile-eyed indie pop animals, grazing in plenty! This song doesn’t really have anything to do with comics, but it is about aliens who hate music, and is really, really happy about it. The only Custard I can find on Amazon is this album, and a record by some speed-metal band I can only assume is totally unrelated.

True love 4ever, grant.