5. Sitting down to draw comics again now that I have 3 weeks off work
4. Lloyd, Nick, and Adrian's sets at Dubai Brooklyn... also, Metal On Metal @ Trophy August 16!!
3. This guy:
2. Emynd and 4AM Jess's new bass mix because apparently she'll never blog about it.
1. The Ramones ~ Danny Says
...could this be the 3rd best Ramones song after Judy Is A Punk and KKK Took My Baby Away?
Saw my fellow alumni play at McCarren Pool on Sunday... they are totally 100% a jam band in disguise, not that this should surprise me coming from merry old Wesleyan, home of Zonker Harris Day and the Clothing Optional Dorm. The crowd was a strange new mixture that I've noticed a lot more of recently, the highly unlikely hipster/hippie blend that is slowly but surely taking over. I saw creepy old party photographers/fake Richard Kerns shooting girls and a bunch of twinks in American Apparel underwear, and joked that since everyone in Brooklyn was at the show, I probably could have walked through the empty streets of Williamsburg breaking into people's apartments.
Good for you MGMT! Go you! You have 3 catchy songs and I'm not mad at that.
What I am mad about is biting into a delicious cheeseburger for dinner and having the grease splurt a herpes-looking burn into my lip, and then getting home and discovering someone stole my serato laptop from my fucking apartment. The narrative symmetry is not lost on me. Ahhh, summer!
MGMT ~ Kids
For anyone who hasn't yet, I highly recommend picking up the Scott Pilgrim series. As a comic drawing guy I'm very inspired by it -- the series keeps getting better and better and walks that very difficult balance of cute/charming/bittersweet without becoming repetitive or annoying. I was introduced to it by my best friend a few years ago, when I was in the uncharacteristically lot-worse-than-it-sounds situation of seeing 2 girls, one of whom was super young (the 1st issue deals pretty much exclusively with this). In many ways the story is a different take on the themes of Peter Bagge's "Hate" (young 20-somethings, directionless, their lives/music/loves) but it approaches the subject from the complete opposite angle. Where Bagge is all meltdowns and anger, Scott Pilgrim is light, video gamey, ephemeral.
They're making it a movie soon, with the director of Hot Fuzz/Shaun of the Dead directing, with Michael Cera and my future wife Mary Elizabeth Winstead in the starring roles.
Here's a playlist that the creator Bryan Lee O'Malley created to go with the comics... it's a lot more twangy than I expected but it's a good listen nevertheless.
I randomly went into Norman's yesterday on a whim and went through some of their basement records. Normally when I do this it's a giant ugh-fest of Rell/Chamillionaire 12s, but for some reason they had a few crates of decent 12s, and everything's half price too, presumably because the stale-air cave of the basement is so grim that even record nerds who thrive in subhuman conditions can't tolerate its claustrophobic environment.
Anyways they had a LaLaLand and Dance Electric 12 for like 2 bucks each, which whenever I'm record-digging, always makes me hunker down twice as hard ("I already have these records, but if they have gold like THIS for 2 bucks there MUST be something better in here too! Also it's 95 degrees in here and I need to go to the bathroom!"). After some relatively fruitless searching I came up with a Slow Hand 12 (Pointer Sisters in the building!), You Can't Hide Your Love 12 (with instrumental/acapella!) and some other random shit. The best part about record shopping is that you can always still be surprised at what you'll find. Totally mint Starship 12? An Information Society cover of ABBA? Check!
So here's 3 records I got yesterday, hope you enjoy...
New Order ~ Thieves Like Us INSTRUMENTAL
***
Was (Not Was) ~ Out Come The Freaks (Ze 12" Version)
***
Frankie Smith ~ Double Dutch / Double Dutch Bus (Special Disco Remix)
Here is some entertainment...
Okay guys here is the info on this voicemail. One of my friends from work and her friend were out one night in the SF Marina district and were hanging outside of the bars trying to find a cab. One of the girls Olga ends up meeting this guy Dimitri and they talk for at the most 2 minutes. She hands him her business card and says call me.
*via helene
New muxtape up, suckafools!
THE FLAMINGOS / FLEETWOOD MAC / LINDSEY CRAZYHAM / HOLLIES / STRANGLERS / TOADIES / SOLID GROOVE + SINDEN / MISS KITTIN / JOHN DAHLBACK / LIAM LYNCH
UPDATE:
Muxtape is no longer a digital jukebox... after some BS it's now trying to be the new myspace music.
can't... stop... watching this... over and over again...
kind of have... respect... for... billy corgan again... out of assocation...
*for the discriminating nerd
Here are 2x jams that I always play back to back, and with the right crowd can turn the party into a ROCKABILLY SLAUGHTERHOUSE. The Cramps have always been pretty no duh when it comes to awesomeness -- they share that stoopid love of all things Americana (Mad Magazine, surfing, Frankenstein) the same way that the Ramones/B-52s/Dictators did. The Elvis jam on the other hand has always been a favorite basically because Elvis is like "hey 16 year old, yeah I fucked your sister now how about you take a ride on the balogna pony?"
The Cramps ~ Domino
Elvis ~ Little Sister
While I am on the subject of "big up my friends" my friend Manic recently made a pretty cool song. It's a remix of the Queenbridge classic "Killaz Theme" by Cormega featuring Mobb Deep. The song came out in 1998 and he made a 2008 version. He gave me the record this weekend (yes a record). For once in my life I am enjoying a song that isn't like 400bpm. Maybe I need to relax or something. Also Burt Fox, another friend of mine mixed it for him. I recommend his podcast, Riot Control, along with sideproject Crunchy White Music. The first time I saw the Crunchy White Music page I didn't know whether laugh or be absolutely terrified. Valissa and I must have listened to Dead Bitch in the Club 20x at dinner one night during WMC and couldn't breathe because we were laughing so hard. Ladies and Gentlemen I present to you the Killer's Theme. What were you listening to in 1998? Leave a comment I wanna know.
Manic- Killers Theme
Cormega ft. Mobb Deep- Killaz Theme
This is me and my friend Chris Thomas aka CT Burners. In this picture it is probably 6AM in the basement of a creepy Mexican Restaurant that I will not say the name of. A few years ago we threw everyone's birthday there (I swear there was one once a week) and once 4 oclock hit the owners and bartenders would let us lock ourselves in there and have dance parties. Really really fun ones. Too bad I am boring now. He made this mix that I am feelin. Enjoy.
Whenever I feel down, I put this on and it never fails to light a fire under my ass.
Blake ~ Glengarry Glen Ross Speech
Human League is pretty much the best. Esp because when they started they were singing nonsense about Buddha advising against silk-worm production (which somehow inspired Vince Clarke to start DM?), and then after Oakey recruited 2 foxy high school jailbait girls (although they were British, so how foxy could they realistically be) to serve as eye candy onstage (sort of the opposite of Bumface J Olderson from Arrested Development), they became like the biggest selling synthesizer group ever. Also, Oakey recorded with Moroder and his dressing style could basically be broken down thusly:
Consequently, the man had to vehemently deny he was gay in the press and be like ultra-hetero and slip in references to his wife/hetsex at all times!
Human League ~ Hard Times
Human League ~ Love Action (I Believe In Love)
Wow, this is so no duh as a blog thing I can't believe I didn't do this earlier. The premise is simple: these are my favorite 12s.
The Next Plateau pressing of "How High"is pretty much findable in any record store, but these 2 mixes come from the slightly less ubiquitous import version, with 2 mixes not on the domestic one. The NY mix has the chorus vocals dipping in and out but for the most part is pretty dubby/spacey, while the Garage one is more instrumental-y.
Spencer Jones ~ How High (New York Mix)
Spencer Jones ~ How High (Garage Mix)
I figure what's the point of having a blog if I can't put up some totally dumb shit I used to like. Here, unapologetically, are 3 of my favorite trip-hop tracks.
DJ Cam ~ Gangsta Shit
Taken from the "Mad Blunted Jazz" album. OK just the TITLE should clue you in on how dated this is. Cam was pretty good for a freedom-hating Frenchman, but all he really did was take Sade/Premier loops and layer some other shit over them. Anyways, there was this guy from college who originally put me onto everything TRIP-HOP related. It's funny because at the time it wasn't corny at all to like stuff like this, in fact I felt real cutting edge liking this "fringe music" and started buying all the DJ Krush/Squarepusher/DJ Cam shit I could find while everyone was buying "The Love Movement." I still remember when I realized that Krush and Shadow had that one track "Duality" that was like Pacino VS Deniro. I even distinctly recall having a moment where the breakdown kicks in and its just drums and this piano over it (at 4:42), and I was like "whoa, THIS is the center of the universe" and then took another BONG HIT (basically literally true).
Money Mark ~ Underneath It All
Money Mark gets a bad rep for being a corny dude basically b/c of guilt-by-association with the Beastie Boys and recording not-fully-realized weepy/upbeat ballads about his dumb life, but every once in a while he would strike TRIP HOP GOLD (yes I said it, dear reader!) with tracks like this (BTW, anyone got the live version of "Cry" by Money Mark that was on that Mo Wax Faces Z comp, holla!).
Coldcut ~ More Beats & Pieces (DJ Qbert I Miss You Blobula Mix)
This was originally released on Qbert's Pumpkin Demolition mixtape, one of those turntablist breaks tapes that used to be so ubiquitous. This is signature Qbert -- super expressive and weird SKRATCHING. Also, this track prefigured the entire Wave Twisters album by having weird sci-fi children's records samples (I'm pretty sure that's like a Fantastic Four 7" or something) over one of his insane outer-space instrumentals. I will admit it's still pretty amazing hearing the wobbly sounds he would coax out of the records he used. He was like Tom Morello!
In conclusion, all this shit ended up costing me WAY too much money at the time of purchase, and even now I'll see a Headz 2B boxset at a record store for $50 and smile because that means someone else out there is still waiting for the trip-hop resurgence. Some of this actually sells for US cash American dollars on eBay!
Double nerd bonus!
Jazzanova ~ Coffee Talk (DJ Krush's Code 4109 version)
Dr Octagon ~ Moosebumps
Hey everyone, Farika from Trophy Bar put up a podcast of my party there a few weeks ago. That's me up til about 39 minutes, then Rok One from the Bangers gets on. You can listen/download it to your heart's content:
WOODMAN & ROK ONE LIVE @ TROPHY BAR June 21
I haven't listened to it yet but it's all live so hopefully I don't fuck up too much. Get yo' dance on!
Don't listen to this mix if you are trying to relax.
Jubilee-4AM
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