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From The Desk Of Mercury Rev: John Lurie

The Light In YouMercury Rev’s 10th full-length and first in seven years—picks up where 2008’s Snowflake Midnight left off, with stalwart founders Jonathan Donahue and Grasshopper drawing inspiration from nature and the Rubik’s Cube of love in equal measure. There is a strong autumnal vibe about the affair—a modern Days Of Future Passed, complete with sweeping orchestral touches and wistful remembrances by the fistful. When the band’s “psychedelic rock and blue-eyed soul” finds its groove, it’s still a breathless wonder to behold. Mercury Rev will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read out MAGNET Classics feature on the band’s Yerself Is Steam.

JohnLurie

Grasshopper: The first Lounge Lizards album came out while I was attending Dunkirk High School in 1981. This album blew my mind. I had been playing clarinet and saxophone in school jazz band, doing compositions by Duke Ellington, Count Basie, occasional Thelonious Monk tunes, etc. At the time, I had also started dabbling in a punk group called the People’s Front Of Judea (name taken from Monty Python’s The Life Of Brian). The Lounge Lizards’ music connected these two worlds for me. Punks playing jazz! Punks playing Thelonius Monk! There it all was, like an Easter Basket on the Bowery! John Lurie’s winding sax lines and Arto Lindsey attacking a guitar! Perfection! A few years later, Jim Jarmusch’s Strangers In Paradise came out while I was studying film at SUNY Buffalo. There, in that film, is John Lurie! Acting in a no-wave-inspired film that eventually takes the characters to the shores of my beloved Lake Erie! When I first moved to NYC in 1990, one of the first stops I made was to the Knitting Factory on Houston Street to see Sonny Sharrock play. Who is sitting at the downstairs bar looking like Dean Moriarty? John Lurie, a star. John Lurie Art is a website that contains a mini gallery of John Lurie’s paintings and prints (many of which can be purchased on the site). Lurie’s humorous, naive folk art leaves a lasting impression. Like the paintings of the obscure forgotten movement COBRA, this is outsider art, the stuff that makes you scratch your head, thinking about the absurdity of life with a wide grin on your face and a warm glow in your soul. John Lurie is genius. There I said it.

Video after the jump.