L.A. Stories Part I

On a clear day you can almost see two blocks...

A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies!

A chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure! 

Announcer

Tyrell: What... what seems to be the problem?
Batty: Death.
Tyrell: Death; ah, well that's a little out of my jurisdiction.

Tyrell: "More human than human" is our motto.

“I could hear everything, together with the hum of my hotel neon.

I never felt sadder in my life. LA is the loneliest and most brutal of American cities."

Jack Kerouac - On the Road

It started like any other night...

"Millions of galaxies of hundreds of millions of stars... in a speck on one in a blink.

That's us, lost in space. The cop, you, me... Who notices?"

All quiet on the western front.

Various people are asleep.

Various people are awake.

They come and go in cars, pickups, taxis.

Other than that, we watch the air move.

Vincent Hanna: So you never wanted a regular type life?
Neil McCauley: What the fuck is that? Barbeques and ball games?

Fiery the angels fell
Deep thunder rolled around their shoulders
Burning with the fires of Orc

"Whether or not what we experienced was an According to Hoyle miracle is insignificant.
What is significant is that I felt the touch of God. God got involved."

Sometimes people need a little help.

Sometimes people need to be forgiven.

And sometimes they need to go to jail.

"The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men."

And it is in the humble opinion of this narrator that strange things happen all the time.
And so it goes, and so it goes.
And the book says,
"We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us."

Dumb Baby Sounds debut single 'Rain Dancing' now available at iTunes , Amazon , CD Baby and most other leading digital outlets. Please feel free to share wherever possible...we are a small but wanton paper boat set out on the oceans and need all hands to the pumps... Thank you xxx

RAIN DANCING by Dumb Baby Sounds


"The past isn't something I'm looking for..."

This announcement is brought to you by the Shimato Dominguez Corporation...
Helping America into the New World.



When the sunshine don't work, the good Lord bring the rain in.

L.A. Stories Part I - Featured the words & images of Ridley Scott, Hampton Fancher,
David Webb Peoples, Jack Kerouac, Michael Mann, Stuart Beattie, Quentin Tarantino,
Roger Avery, Paul Thomas Anderson, Roman Polanski, Robert Towne, Steve Martin.

L.A. Stories - Part II

Some of these buildings are over twenty years old.

Come to Los Angeles!

The sun shines bright, the beaches are wide and inviting... the orange groves stretch as far as the eye can see. Life is good in Los Angeles... it's paradise on Earth.... Ha ha ha ha. That's what they tell you, anyway.

If there's one thing this last week has taught me...
It's better to have a gun and not need it, than to need a gun and not have it.

It's dangerous to confuse children with angels.

Seventeen million people.
This is got to be the 5th biggest economy in the world and nobody knows each other. I read about this guy who gets on the MTA here, dies. Six hours he's riding the subway before anybody notices his corpse doing laps around L.A., people on and off sitting next to him. Nobody notices...

Esmeralda: What is your name?
Butch: Butch.
Esmeralda: What does it mean?
Butch: I'm American, honey. Our names don't mean shit.

Mr. Pink

Excuse me, Mr. Pink, but the last fucking thing you need is another cup of coffee.

Mr. Perdue, Maitre D' at L'Idiot: Your usual table, Mr. Christopher?
Carlo Christopher: No, I'd like a good one this time.
Mr. Perdue, Maitre D' at L'Idiot: I'm sorry, that is impossible.
Carlo Christopher: Part of the new cruelty?
Mr. Perdue, Maitre D' at L'Idiot: I'm afraid so.

Mr White, Mr Orange, Mr Blue, Mr Pink, Nice Guy Eddie.

Lara: How far can bullets go?
Daniel: They go pretty far but they usually get stuck in something and stop.
Lara: What if they don't?
Daniel: Are you thinking about that bullet that came through your window?

There are two modes of transport in Los Angeles: car and ambulance.
Visitors who wish to remain inconspicuous are advised to choose the latter.
Fran Lebowitz - Social Studies,'Lesson One'



Boy that was really exciting...
I bet you're a big Lee Marvin fan aren't ya! Yeah me too. I love that guy.
My heart's beatin' so fast I'm about to have a heart attack.

Just because you are a character...

doesn't mean you have character.


You can't trust Melanie...
But you can trust Melanie to be Melanie.

This announcement is brought to you by the Shimato Dominguez Corporation
Helping America into the New World...

It rains... you get wet...


I was the night
Home of the night
Clothing your eyes
From the cold and the blues and the wild
(Chills - Dumb Baby Sounds)

CHILLS by Dumb Baby Sounds

Do bullets go bad?
No, it's not like milk.
They don't have expiration date or anything.

Only in L.A.

Ordell Robbie: Is she dead, yes or no? 
Louis: Pretty much.

L.A. Stories Part II - Featured the words and images of Curtis Hanson, James Ellroy,

Brian Helgeland, Paul Haggis, Robert Moresco, Michael Mann, Stuart Beattie,
Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avery, Paul Thomas Anderson, Fran Lebowitz, John Boorman,
Ridley Scott, Hampton Fancher, David Webb Peoples, David Lloyd, Steve Martin, Elmore Leonard. 

In Gods We Trust

Hubcap Diamond Star Halo

La Madone au coeur blessé, - 1991

Pierre Commoy et Gilles Blanchard
When boy meets boy...

Nathan Coley's installation. 'There Will Be No Miracles Here'
The Dean Gallery lawn, Edinburgh

Pieta (1876)
William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825-1905)

Reach out and touch faith...

Your own personal Jesus

Someone to hear your prayers

Someone who cares

Personal Jesus - Martin Gore - Depeche Mode

My Soul Afire - Charred hymn book

Cornelia Parker

Always the dead bridesmaid, never the dead bride...

El Día de los Muertos originated in Mexico, some three thousand years before the Spanish conquest, where indigenous peoples believed that the soul did not die, that it continued living in Mictlan, the 'Place of Death.' For Mexicans, the symbolic visits from the dead are celebratory, not morbid or macabre...

Flesh and the Devil...

Leo von Harden (Gilbert) to Felicitas von Rhaden (Garbo):

"Forget you? Not while I live... not if I die!"

Probably just a bit of chutzpah, but it was said that director Clarence Brown, was so overawed by the developing romance between John Gilbert and Greta Garbo that at the end of one particularly passionate scene he neglected to call "cut," instead motioning the lighting and camera crews to stop filming. They withdrew from the set and, after a few hours, had dinner sent in.

Known as 'The Great Lover,' John Gilbert was one of the major stars of the silent movie era, rivaling even Rudolph Valentino at the box office.

Throughout his time at MGM, Gilbert had frequently clashed with studio head Louis B. Mayer. One notorious event occurred in September, 1926, while guests were waiting for  Garbo to show up (she didn't) for a proposed double wedding ceremony - Garbo with Gilbert and director King Vidor with his fiancee, actress Eleanor Boardman - Mayer allegedly made a crude remark about Garbo to Gilbert, who unsurprisingly, flew into a rage and physically attacked the mogul. Eleanor Boardman described Mayer's final look at Gilbert as "terrifying."

Garbo & Gilbert - 'A Woman of Affairs' 1928

(An ironic title, Gilbert, Mercedes de Acosta and Marlene Dietrich might all find apt).

"We're always looking for monsters under the bed.
They're not under the bed... they're on the bed."
The Baby David - Dumb Baby Sounds

Peggy Van Alden : "How dare you think such cheap tactics would work with me!"
Vince Everett : "That ain't tactics, honey. It's just the beast in me!"
Judy Tyler & Elvis Presley - Jailhouse Rock

Jesus' blood never failed me yet

Jesus' blood never failed me yet
Never failed me yet
Never failed me yet
Jesus' blood never failed me yet
There's one thing I know
For he loves me so..

The piece was released in 1975 on Brian Eno's Obscure label and a substantially revisited version was re-recorded in 1993 with Bryars Ensemble and Tom Waits adding a vocal. I found this mostly unseen version on YouTube recently... I'm not certain it's even Gavin Bryars conducting since there seems to be no information with it but for a place and time. It's beautiful all the same...

The story on this beautiful piece, for those unlucky enough not to come across it, is that in 1971 Gavin Bryars was working with Alan Power, on a film about people living rough in the area around Elephant and Castle and Waterloo Station. In the course of being filmed, a few of them broke into drunken song,  some operatic, some sentimental ballads. One of the people, who in fact did not drink, sang a religious song 'Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet.'

"When I played it at home, I found that his singing was in tune with my piano, and I improvised a simple accompaniment. I noticed, too, that the first section of the song - 13 bars in length - formed an effective loop which repeated in a slightly unpredictable way. I took the tape loop to Leicester, where I was working in the Fine Art Department, and copied the loop onto a continuous reel of tape, thinking about perhaps adding an orchestrated accompaniment to this. The door of the recording room opened on to one of the large painting studios and I left the tape copying, with the door open, while I went to have a cup of coffee. When I came back I found the normally lively room unnaturally subdued. People were moving about much more slowly than usual and a few were sitting alone, quietly weeping." Gavin Bryars

Again...

'Rain Dancing' - The debut single from Dumb Baby Sounds
Release date 9 September 2011
xxx