February 2006 Archives
and I love reading everyones posts even though Sam writes about tracks every day that I never get the chance to listen to.
One of these days I'm going to put them on my ipod first thing in the morning every day and I'll listen to them on my way in to work.
I am greatful for Ryan's entries about things I don't understand except that I do but I don't really think about them so reading about them is totally new and interesting.
You know?
And as for Karen, well, she gets ideas just forgets to write them. Plus I hog the computer at home.
Speaking of hogging the computer, mine blew up. It is now an ex-computer. My hope is that my way-too-expensive video card is intact, as well as all of my data, but I do know for sure that the computer is not POSTing. Which is a biggie but a smallie.
It basically means that the motherboard is kaput.
Which means I have to buy a new one.
But do I buy a new one AND a new chip? Or just a replacement?
Please consider that I only got the chip a matter of months ago. It IS an AMD64, after all.
I just can't find any reviews of socket 754 motherboards dated later than august of last year, and it makes me feel like a dinosaur.
| Author | Entries | Height (Aprox.) |
| Dylan | 2 | 5'11'' 3/4 |
| Karen | 0 | ??? |
| Sam | 13 | 5'11'' |
| Stephen | 3 | 6'2'' |
| Ryan in Exile | 8 | 6 Foot |
Read more for indepth analysis.
Leadbelly "In The Evening When The Sun Goes Down" 1944
Constantly beating the shit out of people, killing like eight dudes, and getting out of jail by singing to the governor, Leadbelly is a complete badass. Songs he wrote and/or popularized include "House of the Rising Sun", "Goodnight Irene", and "Where did you sleep last night". I mainly like to imagine him beating up Woodie Guthrie, Bob Dylan, and Devendra Banhart after drinking all their booze and telling them to pack it the fuck up.
Entrance "Wandering Stranger" 2004
Guy Blakeslee may be a johnny-come-lately to the blues biz, but this mother fucker can sing, and is from Baltimore.
Note:
Mr. Flagio "Take a Chance" 1983
When I was assembling my DJ set for our past vs future party last month, I stumbled on this gem. My friends who are in fact real DJs already know about this one, but its new to me. I've liked Giorgio Moroder and Yello for a while, but I haven't been able to find any other proto-disco or italo disco trakcs that suit my fancy, until this one. I'm pretty sure Larry Tee already mined the irony out of this kind of music, but I really like it. Wikipedia on Italo Disco.... DFA, Prins Thomas and Lindstrom really have the right idea about what parts of old, cheesy disco records to reference...
Lindstrom remixing LCD Soundsystem "Tribulations" 2005
I guess this turned into dance music day. I listened to this track for about four days straight when I first got it. Something about that bass line and sloppy hi hat really stroke some dark, secret part of my soul; a part that is constantly giving itself haircuts and sniffing coke off of dorm room keys. I'll post some obscure rock tracks tomorrow, I swear...just give me a few more moments on my idealized dance floor.
we're a week old. yay.
Howe Gelb Love Knows (No Borders) Expected 2006
Will probably have a chorus where someone, perhaps Howe, goes Looooooove Knoooooooows, and then an actual chorus effect goes NO BORDERS. I'm thinking of a Everything I Do (I Do It For You) but will probably end up with a I'll Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That.) I'll give it a quality luncheon meat, but then again, I'm a vegetarian.
Voxtrot Mothers, Sisters, Daughters & Wives 2006
The titular track from Voxtrot's 2nd EP. I'm hoping for a sort of sonic treatsie on Ivan Turgenev's seminal Fathers and Sons a favorite for gloomy Latin students, Bolsheviks-in-training and etymologists for an early apperance of the word nihilism. However, if Voxtrot is thinking of unupping the Fathers and the Sons by adding Wives and Sisters as well as the natural counterparts, they may be overplaying their Anglio-Roman linguistics. You see, according to the forward in the Norton critical edition of F&S, a more appropriate translation of the title would have been Fathers & Sons & Mothers & Daughters, but kept with the traditional translated title. I'm not saying the song is going to be a second class citizen, let's just say it probably won't be able to vote anywhere (with the exception of unincorpirated parts of Wyoming,) for the time being.
Apperently when viewed on IE our site has gigantic font size. It looks like it was made for blind people. Can anyone fix this?
Yngwie Malmsteen "Far Beyond The Sun" 1984
In my version of history this song lead directly to the creation of Castlevania. You can hear the Simon Belmont all over this mother fucker, whipping stuff.
The Tubes "White Punks On Dope" 1975
This song is the answer to the riddle: How can you possibly get away with the lyric "Hang myself when I get enough rope"? This is the classic indictment of wealthy punks...you know, the St Marks kids. Also contains:
1) an out of nowhere choir at the end
2) the "fake" ending
Cropped, de-interlaced xvid trailer for Tales from Earthsea from Ghibli. Sure to be better than the asstastic Sci-Fi miniseries from while back. Even without Isabella Rossellini. Read more for some quick pics. Trailer Get! 36 Megs.
Disclaimer: This is kinda boring trailer. Will still be better than Sci-Fi.
In reference to Sam's Paganini post, I wanted to post about the badass composer Berlioz. In fact he loved the composer so much that he gave him an open ended 20000 frances. "My dear friend", wrote Paganini in his accompanying letter, "with Beethoven now dead who could revive him if not Berlioz?" Loved the motherfucker.
So if Paganini was the first rock star, that makes Berlioz the first rock stars idol. For more on Berlioz...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlioz
As has been suggested, my daily song picks are now on our server. Let me know if anything doesn't work and I'll bang on it till it does.
Celebration "Lost Souls" 2005
Oh my god, if you haven't got this album yet, get on top of it. Speaking of getting on top of things: me and every other hipster on the planet has a big ole cruch on Katrina Ford, the singer for Celebration. Last time I saw them was at the bowery opening for Calla. They pwned it hardcore, so much so that I think I heard Calla say "Ah fuck it, lets go home and play XBox."
The Call "I Don't Wanna" 1987
I don't know how exactly to catagorize this song. Imagine a Journey without notalsgia, or humor, but with all the bombastic progressions and lyrics. Tell me if I'm crazy to love this song. Maybe my sense of kitch has gone so far it doubled back to sincereity. I honestly don't know. What I do know is when I'm listening to this on the subway or on the street, life takes on a whole new purpose and clarity, and we race towards the future, hands on brows towards the horizon. Fuck you.
Shower in a cheap room from The Standard in downtown. I need a haircut.
This is from our friend eric's brain:
Frank Miller Has the Crazies
Ugh.
For those of you out of the know, there was once a great comic book author by the name of Frank Miller. You’ve probably heard of him if you’ve ever asked that friend of your’s who’s really into comics for a place to jump into the world of tights and flight:
“Dark Night Returns. I know it’s a superhero comic, but give it a try. You’ll love it.â€
We’ve all said it and we all mean it. Frank Miller has produced some of the most defining works of genre literature in the history of sequential art (fuck off, I like the term). From his revolutionary noir storytelling in Sin City, to his reinvention of superhero morality in Dark Knight Returns, this dickhead has blown a lot of overweight, acne-scarred minds.
And then he stopped.
Techrat represents a triad of nostalgic neurosi furthur twinned in conflicts: ridiculous/awesome hair, gay lisp computer hacker and animated counterpart to the good guy's AI construct, Synergy which makes some sort of Janus god thingy, though more internal/gender than temporal. Also, I was never a fan of headbands at that age. 
But I actually check this blog now almost as much as I check gothamist and boingboing.
I love that.
And now I have to get some laundry out of the dryer.
Would anyone like me to post pictures of my hemorrhoids?
Love, Me
Niccolo Paganini "No. 3 in E Minor" ~1815
Niccolo Paganini was, in most people's opinion, the greatest violinist who ever lived. He is also credited with being one of the first musicians to tour, if not the first. From wikipedia:
"A pervading myth about Paganini is that he sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his fearsome technique, a rumor which he delighted in and may have even started himself. During a performance his eyes would roll into the back of his head while playing, revealing the whites. His swaying stance, long unruly hair and thin, gaunt stature would add to this rumor. He played so intensely that women would faint and men would break out weeping."
In my opinion he is the first rockstar.This is my favorite of his compositions.
Angels of Light "My True Body" 2001
If you are a fan of the Southern Gothic asthetic in any way, this is your new soundtrack for being a badass. Press play, pull on your black boots and dusty coat, pull out a hand rolled cig, light a strike anywhere on your leathery palm and blow smoke through your nostrils, you embodiment of awesome you.
I'm a sucker for wierd historical connections and this is one of the best. It is a story of a chess playing automaton called the turk, (which was in fact a fake...) touched on the lives of Ben Franklin, Charles Babbage, Anton Mesmer and eventually led to Alexander Graham Bell seeking out Harry Houdini. It makes me feel like history is just one big club of famous figures who hung out together and acted like badasses. Sweet.
http://www.robmacdougall.org/archives/2005/01/turk_182.php
Also, ICO is great. Expect these paper darlings to appear in an upcoming Cinematech if I can slide it by the bossman.
Asa-Chang & Junrei "Parlor" 2005
Self-proclaimed experimental musicians in other countries use musical devices other than Noise (capital N). Come on America, lets get it together, there are lots of good, new ideas out there that people actually want to listen to...as this track shows us. I'm not saying you can't get drunk, pummel your guitar, wreck your vocal chords, and give your drummer a heart attack. I'm just saying that sort of thing is being moved out of the "experimental" section and put in the "budget" section of your local record store.
Freur "Doot-Doot" 1983
Alright, I've been OBSESSED with this song for well over a year now. "Obsessed" in the deeply personal, emotional way, not in the wacky irony way. On paper, it doesn't sound that good:
-Made by guys who went on to be Underworld
-The chorus consists only of the words "Doot Doot"
-Contains serious amount of roto toms (the Phil Collins drum sound. You know what I mean.)
-Featured at the end of Vanilla Sky
But believe me, this is a great piece of music. Throw this on a mixtape to a girl and watch the pants fly off.
He was born and raised in the Bronx, is black, and does not fart. Not around me, anyway.
"Burritos? I want burritos. You can eat whatever you want but before we leave this island I need burritos."
"Burritos is cool with me, man, that's fine."
"No, really, we can stop anywhere you want and get food you like but I need to have a burrito. I could eat a burrito every day for every meal for the rest of my life and die happy. I need a burrito."
He laughed. "Cool. Burritos."
Once he figured out that you pronounce C-H-I-P-O-T-L-E as "chip-oat-lay," Sam knew exactly where to find one of their fine restaurants on our way to JFK. We stopped and I wrote down my simple vegetarian order on a scrap of paper. He even had the good sense to call my cell from inside and ask me what I wanted to drink.
I was reminded of how earlier in the day he held back as we loaded heavy equipment into the production office. He held back to keep the door open for me and when it was my turn to return the favor, I let it close in his face.
"Oh shit. I'm sorry."
"No problem," he said without any hint of frustration.
I am an idiot.
So, once he returned from Chipotle with two burritos, a water and an apple juice, we took off on our supersonic rocketship, actually a KIA minivan with one of the back seats taken out, and he asked me, "You ready for that burrito now?"
I was and said so. I ate the fucker one handed, navigating with the other hand through single lane one-way streets with cars parked on each side, the midtown tunnel, and JFK traffic. By the time I had popped the butt of the burrito in my mouth there was a coating of guacamole shellac on the steering wheel. I wiped my fingers off on the bag and held on to the steering wheel with oversized napkin mitts.
We were on the hunt for Building 77 at JFK airport. We had been charged with the task of... well, it wasn't exactly clear. We had to get customs to check out some cases that we had been given, but we were never told what the proper verb was or what we were to return with. The Production Manager had called me specifically, he said, because he needed someone willing and able to gatecrash the bureaucratic bullshit they expected to encounter at the airport and fight through to success.
The Knife "One Hit" 2006
Their 2nd album just came out, and Pitchfork gave it really high marks. Most of the album is pretty run of the mill, but three tracks are amazing, and this is one of them. Kate Bush + Basement Jaxx.
Sparks "Tryouts for the Human Race" 1979
If you ever find yourself walking down the street and saying to yourself "I need the next six minutes of my life to rock....hard.", then this is the track for you. This is the best Sparks and Giorgio Moroder collaboration song, and easily one of the greatest dance songs ever made.
I'm sick to death of the FPS genre. Please, for the love of God, this a plea to all video game makers in the world, please please please stop making FPS games.
We all played Doom and Doom II ten years ago, and more recently we played Half-Life and Half-Life 2. We thought that bullet time was pretty neat in Max Payne, Max Payne 2, and F.E.A.R. Commanding other guys was good in the ten Rainbow Six games that have come out, plus in SWAT and the other one that Konami just did. But even while we were slogging through terrorists and vampires with telekinesis, we were all thinking that the shit was pretty tired. It's still just Doom II with a few new features and better graphics.
Please, I beg of you video game developers, let it die.
I fear for the future of my children. I grew up in an age where the FPS, MMORPG, RTS were born and blossomed, and finally a few years ago the Sandbox genre exploded with Grand Theft Auto and its many successful franchises, but once you've played GTA then Vice City, San Andreas, Ultimate Spider Man, True Crime New York (or whatever it's called) and the 800 other Sandbox games... well, you're just playing GTA all over again with a new skin.
I know that the market for video games has expanded, as have the budgets, and so it's becoming riskier and riskier to produce games. And I feel for you, I really do. Nobody likes to lose money.
So I beg of you, for my children's sake primarily, but yes, also for the sake of your precious profits and the continued profitability of the video game market in general... experiment. Be willing to make a few duds for the sake of the next GTA, Dune, Doom, and the rest of it. With ever-expanding technology there should be ever-expanding possibilities for video games. But the industry has suffered a lapse reminscent of the Hollywood bug that has been plaguing the studios worse than if you could distribute 35mm prints over the internet. They've stopped trying, they've stopped having fun, and they're just doing terrible bullshit copycat "products" that they feel safe producing and releasing because their new game is just exactly like the twenty other games that came out before and were successful.
I was browsing a local retailer recently and stumbled upon a new game from Konami for the PC. Konami! I thought to myself. They typically produce material for the console! I wonder what strange new offering they have for my powerful processor back home! I flipped the box over and saw something that made my blood run cold: screenshots of a view over the barrel of a gun which was pointed at some nasty looking guys standing around on a rooftop, in an office environment, and in a sewer who were also all holding guns. And I thought to myself I wouldn't download this shit for free off the internet. Who would pay for this?
Please. Stop it, video game industry. I beg of you.
And by the way, if anyone was wondering, Call of Duty 2 is great if you haven't already played Call of Duty 1. If you have and you play CoD2, then you'll be wondering if you clicked the wrong icon. I got it two months ago because I was so impressed with the first, and it's so similar to the first that I never even bothered to clear the first campaign. It just felt like replay.
On the other hand, I have been playing Battlefield 2 from time to time, and still get a lot of enjoyment out of that. But I fall out of my chair when I get killed by someone bunnyhopping. When will developers ever fix that?
My next post will be relevant to life, I swear.
Monday: Wolf Mother, Black Lips at Mercury. I don't know anything about Wolf Mother, but I do know that having "wolf" in your band name is cool yesterday. The Black Lips suck really bad, but they know how to act like rock and roll douche bags better than anyone, they are from atlanta, and they're cute!
Tuesday:Nothing
Wednesday: Nothing
Thursday: Yeah Yeah Yeahs at bowery ballroom. However you feel about them, you should see this show. If you like them: they are playing stuff from the new album (early demos I heard are Zinnerific[that means rad]). If you hate them, then its your duty as a hater to call "SOPHMORE SLUMP!" during the quiet parts.
Friday: Gotta go with Bad Brains at CBGB. I mean, you haven't been there since you moved here, so this would be a good time. Start buying a t shirt and then say "sike".
Saturday: Weird War at the Syrup Room. I don't know where that is either, but Weird War is killer live, Ian hasn't lost "IT" yet. Still sassy.
Sunday:Nothing, unless you like RJD2, which I don't.
Some people might say that it is a little late in the game to start a blog; that all the niches are filled, and the top dogs will continue to dominate their respective fields. I agree with these people.
