Swans: Classic or Dud?

ordered this alongside the new dave gahan/soulsavers release (in order to qualify for the free delivery from amazon of course).

i feel very happy with my selection of dark and miserable grooves.

£13 for the swans 3cd set : cannot complain re that at all.

even if the extras are crap i would have paid a lot more for the main album a few years ago on cd ..

I can assure you that some of those extras are definitely not crap ("Dream Dream" is one of my favorites from this period)

I wish they'd just reissue "Ten Songs From Another World" exactly as it was. Sequencing is really great on that, especially the beginning.

agreed! other than a vinyl version of "Great Annihilator" and a reissue of Omniscience, I think that's the only other loose end

And The Burning World, no?

reissued on vinyl recently, dunno abt CD

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forever_Burned 2003 OOP

Has anybody found out if Omniscience is duplicated in tracks on the bonus disc here? Or if the versions are different? Seem to be some of the same titles at least.

Some, but far from all.

I had forgotten that The Burning World was reissued by Water in 2012 and remains in print.

Weird question that I never thought of before, but is Jarboe's age per Wikipedia accurate (January 30, 1970)? I never thought of her as particularly young looking, but that would make her like 14 or 15 when she gets involved with Swans. Wondering if that's possible. Gira born in 1954. Kind of hoping that Wiki has her birthdate wrong.

Still waiting for my copy of the White Light/Love set to arrive, but I also just ordered the reissue of The Burning World from Amazon.

No way is that date of birth accurate.

I'd say it would be about 10 years out. Might be 1960. She was certainly older than me in the mid 80s when i met the band a few times.
Probably still is in fact.

http://www.swans.pair.com/PRESS/int_com.html :

Oh, thats not samples, thats tapes which Jarboe recorded as a little girl, about 12 years old.

The "Her" tape mentions the Grateful Dead playing Piedmont Park "this afternoon" = July 7, 1969.

so... she's from 1957.

/investigative journalism

but she has chosen not to reveal that officially so um, if you get a cease & desist, it wasn't me :-)

ok, it's slightly weird not to have the tracklist anywhere in the 3CD box/packaging & to have to go look it up online but anyway (the booklet only contains the lyrics and "#5, #9, #13 etc originally appeared on World of Skin" etc, not what those tracks might be)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Light_from_the_Mouth_of_Infinity -> "2015 remaster version" for the differences
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_of_Life_%28album%29 -> "background" and "2015 bonus tracks" for CD 2 & 3 details

my head hurts now

can someone tell me the current status of swans song "black hole man"? i have a live recording that's like 19 min long and i was wondering if there was a not-live version of it.

No, the only officially released version at the moment is on The Gate, live, as the second part of "Bring The Sun" (28:16).
(Maybe they'll record a studio version for the 2016 album, I don't know)

hope so!

Larkin Grimm has accused Gira of rape.

https://t.co/iO2IF5x1ZX

Dud

ugh

Don't know if legit:

http://i65.tinypic.com/2jcvbo.png

(Me = not me, obv, just found this being linked to somewhere else)

Larkin has commented further to Pitchfork:

http://pitchfork.com/news/63780-swans-michael-gira-accused-of-rape-by-former-collaborator-larkin-grimm/

I am not in this for vengeance. I am not angry. I do not want Michael Gira to have his life destroyed. If one in four or five women has been raped, we have to acknowledge the possibility that one in five men might be rapists. What are we going to do with them all? Send them to jail for 10 years and cut off their dicks? NO. It is the whole culture that has to change. We have created this epidemic of harassment and disrespect and violence together. We have to end it together.

I believe I will stay off the internet for a few days until this whole thing blows over

Gira has responded.

https://www.facebook.com/mgira/posts/10201368018239159

well that got ugly fast

Made mistake of reading comments to his post.

And for fucks sake, has anyone listened to his songs speaking out against rape??!??
Like · 4 · 13 mins
Dennis Mandarin
Dennis Mandarin EXAAAACTLY
Like · 1 · 13 mins
Dennis Mandarin
Dennis Mandarin Anyone who believes this probably doesn't listen to swans.

^^^^ "but his best friend is black!"

yeah that one stood out

fuck what a depressing story

Gira's wife reacts as well

https://www.facebook.com/coveredwithstars/posts/10206691239732330

god what a mess

Damn :-(

kinda wondering what the hell this "proof" is gonna be

They're claiming it's emails the woman sent to him through the years that show a pattern of vindictiveness and erratic behavior.

Obv that's not "proof" of anything. This is going to be a long, ugly debacle.

I believe I will stay off the internet for a few days until this whole thing blows over

This was the second instance of exactly this kind of announcement on FB I saw this week (curiously enough both involving NY musicians), and would be very surprised if it was the last. And yeah, keep away from the comments if you don't want to get angry.

xpost

Yeah, reading Jennifer Gira's post I was thinking that even if that pattern of behavior is true, it wouldn't exactly be inconsistent with what Grimm is saying. "Traumatized victim behaves erratically, threatens revenge" is not an unlikely scenario.

"actual rapist accuses victim of being mentally unstable & bent on revenge as soon as the truth comes out" is not an unlikely scenario either

otm

yup

the super-gross victim-blaming response is maybe more distasteful than the actual allegations, which were (despite the graphic detail) so couched in qualifications as to be almost polite ('I heard he stopped drinking, so hopefully he doesn't behave like that anymore' = !!)

Oh I don't know about that the actual allegations are pretty gross (esp. the pattern of harassment).

xp ... not that I'm tryna write a thinkpiece about it or anything, but it feels like there's this weird double-bind characterizing our particular cultural moment: people assume that the "rape allegation as character assassination" narrative still makes sense, even as we try to move towards a culture in which the stigma of "being a rapist" is, if not lessened, then certainly different*... in which case, the real crime** is being tethered to an outdated mentality which demands smearing the accuser to protect one's good name

*: because keeping that stigma intact allows us to think of rape as a rare occurrence, perpetrated by insane people
**: "the real crime" = in the eyes of the gossipy internet-driven public sphere that passes character judgments -- obviously from the standpoint of the legal system, the real crime is still rape

anyway, that's the last I'll say on this subject. I'm on the verge of tears listening to The Seer right now. it's been a tough week.