Music: "Rill Rill" by Sleigh Bells

Part 2 to this.

With: Helene, Eric, Sumer

Yet another Ninja Tune-era purchase. It occurs to me that some of you may not be familiar with Ninja Tune/Mo Wax, and that when I make fun of myself for being corny/into them at a certain point in my life no one knows what the hell I'm talking about. Here's a brief summary of the two labels:

NINJA TUNE
Sometime in the 90s, 2 pretentious but talented British DJs formed a group called Coldcut, and released an album called Let Us Play!, which while very dated to the breakbeat/dnb/"electronica" scene, had an amazing/iconic cut and paste jam called "More Beats + Pieces." WARNING: if you are about to hear this song and expect to get your mind blown, you must be 16-21 years old, think you're a genius because you "know about postmodernism" and be the kind of person that values cleverness above all else. Otherwise it will be just a bunch of dreck to you. Even the video, with its visual cutting/pasting, is a nerdy nerdfest of "ooh! look at what visuals they decided to sync up to the audio!" a good 10 years before Eclectic Method, who are, not uncoincidentally, also British.

Ninja Tune built its reputation trip-hop brick by acid jazz brick. The actual music of Ninja Tune is pretty irrelevant. I liked a bunch of the songs on their label but whatever, I also had a fucking eyebrow piercing at the time. But it is important to note that this music -- "UK Electronica," was like a 60s vision of Tomorrow Land: incredibly dated but seemingly futuristic. Also, coming from a comic book collecting background it felt especially important to be comprehensive in my miserly hoarding of this label's output. It didn't help things that this was like a cyclical, For Nerds By Nerds loop. Ninja Tune would put out a CD version, vinyl version, 10" single, 12" single, 7" single, all with different remixes, covers etc. How they funded this nonsense I will never know. Does England have like a national endowment for their country's arty geeks with pony tails, like Canada does?

MO WAX
Mo Wax was basically the same thing as Ninja Tune, exploiting the "trip hop" label for as much as it could, stone-facedly putting out comps with titles like "Blunted Ass Tripped Out Beatz From Da Blunted Kitchen." Unfortunately, Mo Wax was also founded by James Lavelle, who like Malcom McLaren before him, knew how to bend the prevailing youth tastes of the day to his ridiculous vision. Here was a guy with no taste whatsoever; who became best friends with DJ "Goatee" Shadow; who singlehandedly was responsible for fucking Bathing Ape/Nigo and all its hideous carbon copies. Why does trip-hop/acid jazz go so well with Japanese fetishizing?

(LOL, that link. Billionaire Boys Club? More like the Clown Club!)

Also, very funny: He DJ'd the first Fabric mix CD. LOL. I would wiki him to find out more bio info, but I fear I would only confirm what I already suspect: that this guy is basically Mark Ronson in that he is rich and privileged, and made a career out of continuing to be rich and priviliged. "But Woody, James Lavelle actually slaved in a chimney factory for 17 years, saving every tuppence until he got enough for his first record, which was a 7" of "Apache" by Michael Viner's--!" [stomach punch]

ANYWAYS
Now you understand why I bought all this shit. The Cinematic Orchestra was perhaps the apotheosis of the pretentious side of Ninja Tune, in that this CD is literally a rescoring they did to the 1929 Russian silent film "Man With A Movie Camera." Ridiculous, except for the fact that I bought that DVD at the Lab when it came out, and sold it a year later on eBay for like a hundred bucks!



So pretty much I ran out of space bc I was ranting at Ninja Tune the whole time. But now I've said my peace.

I'm going through my iTunes and killing some old mp3s that I never listen to. I combine my DJ computer's library with my home computer's library, which might explain why I have both the 10 minute and the 5 minute versions of "You Spin Me Round."

I came across this little anomaly which I thought was interesting:

ps- also I have Deadeye Dick "New Age Girl" in my iTunes

So long, my literally hundreds (if not thousands) of CDs! You had your time in my home in Scarsdale, then you had your time in college, then you had your time with me post-college. Now it's time for me to throw your shit out in exchange for maybe an iPad or something!

Yay Mylo! You are Daft Punk Lite, it is true. But MSTRKRFT is also Daft Punk Lite, and MSTRKRFT SCKS. Oh man does MSTRKRFT SCK. MSTRKRFT SCKS BG TM, M RGHT? Mylo's so simple and so perfectly made singles "Drop the Pressure" and "In My Arms" are sublime, but what about the faux Avalanches-ness of "Valley of the Dolls" or the Kraft/Kwan triple combo salad apparently music appropriateness of "Otto's Journey"? Also if you have never heard his remix of Freeform Five then that is also another good thing that exists.
BEST SONG: "In My Arms"

Yeah, Parliament. It's sort of impossible to write about Parliament, they're simply too big. Suffice it to say that, in terms of stage theatrics, they do the same things that Kiss or Daft Punk do, except they're black so it's even weirder that they're doing it. Like, if a bunch of nebishy Jews from Queens who love comic books want to dress up like fools then whatever. If a pair of art school French dudes want to be robots because they're aping Kraftwerk, and want to perform live from the middle of a laser show pyramid, sure.

But to be an insane, drug-addled black dude who firmly believes that he is from the Planet Funk to funkify your unfunky existence, and then to CONVINCE LIKE 15 OTHER PEOPLE that it would be a good idea for them to follow you around and build a career around your insanity, and then write songs about Dr Funkenstein (who is clearly Jewish) and SUCCEED?? Yep, I would say that is next level.
BEST SONG: "Flash Light"

I have literally never listened to this. But Brazil is so hot right now! I mean, "Brathil ith tho hot right now!"

I have spoken definitively on Otis Redding before, and so now I have nothing further to add, except for the fact that I bought this CD in Australia, when I wanted to get make-out music. Have you ever made out to Otis Redding? It's the best. It's funny how he gets characterized under "R&B," which is such a huge umbrella that it also encompasses R Kelly, because it is ridiculous to make out while listening to R Kelly.
BEST SONG: "Try A Little Tenderness"/"These Arms Of Mine"

Shoegazer? Because you're staring at your shoes? Because that's where the distortion pedals are? Get it, mom?

"OOhhhh..." -My mind when I learned the above information

After that somewhat anticlimactic revelation, I reclined in my chair and dutifully plugged in my headphones to allow the sonic bath of MBV to take me over.

This is way blasphemous but I (still) don't get it. It's not something like punk music, that I get, and still think is stupid. Nor is it like Pavement, which I didn't get and then discovered that I got.

This is sort of like why do people like swirling guitar feedback in some vague assemblage of song structure? Is this like a heroin/achieving nirvana thing? Is this a Fight Club embracing oblivion and releasing control over yourself thing? Because what I've figured out about my relationship to music over the last few years is that I value escapism above all else. And if you can give me a 2 and a half minute perfect pop song that is the most important thing while it's playing and then is suddenly abruptly meaningless when it's over, then I will be satisfied.

But this?

"EeerraawwwooooooggrraaaoouglaaghHHHHH" -This album, for 45 minutes

Imagine if albums were people. I would definitely hang out with Flood, and I would be in some unconscious way fascinated by Doolittle but be too young to fully understand what the hell he's talking about, but I would walk the fuck past Loveless without turning back.

"Come backkkkkdrreewOOAWWWWW!" -This album anthropomorphized, while busking for change

I'm listening to the album opener "Only Shallow" now. If I were a cool dude I suppose this is what I would've been listening to after getting into Nirvana, but instead I got into Letters To Cleo. My loss, I suppose? Again, it's hard to get into 90s music if you're not 18 and it's not currently the 90s. It seems the songwriting chops are here, but there's something about the overall production that is screaming 90s at me. Like, this chick singing? She is definitely wearing a giant cardigan and not facing me right now.

"I will give this another chance!" -Me, after reading the allmusic review of it.

"Ugh!" -Me, 10 minutes later

In case that picture above is not graphic enough for you, dear reader, perhaps you would like to feast your eyes on a closer look:

Yes, those are indeed tiny little skulls PINNED TO THE GUY'S HEAD. I'm not going to start getting into this album cover, there's an embarrassment of riches. But just take a second to gaze upon it (get it) with a pure heart and pure vision, and accept it for all that it is.

OK, so obviously this record cover is ridiculous. A quick summary of their Wiki page reveals thus:

AAAGGHHH GHAHHAH AAAHHRRGHH!!!

GHHAAHAHA!!



also, rrGHGHARHARHAHAHAAAAGGGHHH!!!!!!

Also, don't disturb me, I'm playing the MOTHERFUCKING MIND CRIME GAME (which is quite stressful)

I have so many CDs that I have literally never listened to. Before I throw them into a giant roaring fire, why don't we talk about them?

Pavement. How monumental and difficult are you for a high schooler not so well-versed in indie rock to get into? All I know is that, at the time it was most important (10th grade), arty people with impeccable taste loved Pavement (AKA R.E.M. generation 2), so of course I was determined to like it, or at the very least, understand it. You must appreciate that I was not in a band, did not have alternative friends, didn't skate, didn't drink or do drugs. An afternoon well-spent for me meant drawing at my desk after school, watching cartoons, and listening to Z-100 (Chio the Freakin' Puerto Rican in the house!).

So it was with great trepidation that I dipped my toe into the oblique, murky, un-self-explanatory water that is Pavement's noise-rock. It seemed like if I didn't like it, I didn't like Art. This sounds monumentally dumb to write now, but in 10th grade all you have is your taste in music and stupid T-Shirts.

Eventually I did come to like Pavement (the entry points were "Summer Babe," and "Here," and "Texas Never Whispers," which were all appetizers to build up to the extremely challenging/satisfying Wowee Zowee. In fact, this strategy of overcoming small hills before you take on Mt Everest was replicated unconsciously years later when I read Wild Sheep Chase and Norwegian Wood before attempting Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. We Chinese are timid and cautionary!).

As it relates to this particular album, I never actually listened to it.
BEST SONG: No idea

BEST SONG: Vincent Price's original voice-over session for "Thriller"

In my very limited jazz-consumption phase, I quickly learned that the way one consumes jazz is by following players. The main thing I took away from Kind Of Blue was that I really liked the piano solo from "Freddie Freeloader," which was played by Wynton Kelly. So after a little internet research I found out that he also played with Miles Davis on this album, prompting me to purchase it. Fascinating.

The times this does NOT work are when the artists make a hard left turn at some point. Like, don't listen to Miles Davis' hip-hop album produced by Easy Mo Bee, or to the 15 minute version of "My Favorite Things" by Coltrane unless you want to get a headache. ("more like LEAST favorite etc!")
BEST SONG: The first one, I guess?

I hope that I have already proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Phil Collins is amazing. So let's just accept it as fact and move on. Good? Good.
BEST SONG: How could I pick a favorite? That's like picking a favorite child? I love you all equally ("In The Air Tonight").

Before I realized that a record's gayness is directly proportional to how awesome it is, I stayed away from songs that were "too gay." Now I recant that nonsense because gay songs are often uplifting, powerful, emotionally resonant, etc.

Then again, sometimes they are absolutely none of those adjectives:


IRREGARDLESS it's hard to overstate the goodness of Pet Shop Boys. So many good singles, so many EPIC 12" mixes in their arsenal. So much sadness amongst so much synth lines.
BEST SONG: West End Girls duh

More completely useless CDs. Hey grandpa! You use compact disc technology? Why don't you eat more pills from a colorful wheel? Also, I'm getting rid of these CDs and have the compulsive need to excoriate my past purchases.

Yes I have made my point re: Jon Brion/Fiona Apple before. She is good but with him she is very good. He is OK as a singer/songwriter/composer ("Strange Bath" from This American Life in the house!) but is better buttressing Fiona Apple as a producer. It's the classic Buckingham/Nicks duality. They are the ying/yang, and I should know, because I'm Chinese. This album is the official one that Mike Elizondo (???) produced most of, which you should not listen to. Rather, download the original Jon Brion one.
BEST SONG: The ridiculous, Disney-esque "Extraordinary Machine"

I have no idea why I have this. It's because the Fall are "important" and because James Murphy name-checks them because he's basically always doing a Mark E Smith impression. And also I was on allmusic thinking "if I'm going to try to get into the Fall I should start with a universally-agreed upon good abum" (actual literal thoughts) and ended up with this one bc of all the gushing praise.

If anyone out there likes the Fall, I place you in the same category as if you like R.E.M. Both are bands that you like bc you are a certain age and personality type (college, obscure, intellectual) and need to find music that agrees with those tenets of yourself, and there is LITERALLY NO OTHER OPTION AROUND. The Fall are terrible. Their songs are noisy, go-nowhere sprawling messes. There is a reason I only have 1 Fall song in my iTunes, and it's definitely not from this album.
BEST SONG: One of the songs on the bonus disc, taken from the Peel session? Because John Peel is beyond reproach?

I bought this to feed the Serato beast. But beyond that, this comp is pretty great. The tracklisting is unimpeachable: H-Town, R Kelly, Clarence Carter? Imagine getting a strip dance to "Strokin"? Or, imagine NOT getting a strip dance to "Strokin".
BEST SONG: H-Town "Knockin Da Boots"

I must have gotten this one for free. File with Fela Kuti under Boy, I Sure Need To Expand My Horizons, And One Way For Me To Do That Is To Listen To Some [World/Classy/Incompatible With Me] Music.
BEST SONG: uh, Nina Simone? Billie Holiday? I dunno.

Hey, I bought this in Australia! I am worldly. I got this during my "Mo Wax = the end of musical evolution" phase. So much Japanese fetishizing, so many Nigo covers. And also that means basically anything Josh "Goatee" Davis put his Bay Area smooth (but vinyl-dirty!) fingers on was instantly a collector's item. Also this coincided nicely with my "I Love Funk" phase, in which I was basically a walking talking stereotype of a Wax Poetics reader.

"Listen to that drum break, kiiiiiiid!" -Myself

Plus DJ Shadow teams up with Keb Darge, who is I presume British, and thus waaaayyy more into funk 45s (see: Northern Soul), so this is like dick measuring contest, but with obscure funk 45s. In my mind it looks like this:

I saw these T-shirts for sale in a corny clothing store and wondered to myself if there would ever be a time, anywhere, that anyone would want to buy and wear either of them.

Like this first one? I'm pretty sure Bob Guccione Jr would not be caught dead in it.

Green Day wouldn't wear it, nor would Phish, Rory Nugent, Craig Marks, or anyone else featured on it. Who is the intended audience for this? Is it people for whom 1995 was the end all be all of pop culture, specifically filtered through the lens of Spin Magazine? Shut up, Spin. Was this a breakthrough issue for you because you finally got that Shannon Doherty interview? Like, WTF??

Also, the less said about this one the better:

RuPaul Supermodel!


Boy George Crying Game!

Also, while we're at it, this:

I thought I was done before, but now I'm done for realsies.

I have so many CDs! Let's throw them away.
Gina X rules x1000. Her track "No G.D.M." is the last word on unblinking, Germanic icy detachment. Miss Kittin basically stole her whole shtick from Gina X, who is one side to whatever insane coin has Nina Hagen on the other side. She had a bunch of albums, one of which I bought at Other Music. And... it is not so great. Gina X singing instead of making monotone pronouncements from her snow mountain demystifies her whole thing. Ah well, there's always "Nice Mover."
BEST SONG: "Hynosis/Hypnose"

BTW don't let this lousy CD sour you on Gina X. I haven't heard the first album, and she also covered Serge/Brigitte's "Harley Davidson" at one point:



I don't know to what extent Tim Sweeney picked the music for this version of GTA, but I do know that before they had celebrity guestlists on these soundtracks, the music on these comps were pretty much unimpeachable, and also were mastered VERY loudly, which is important if you're a DJ.

Actually what am I talking about, the Iggy Pop radio playlist for GTA IV is amazing. Also remember how Amon Tobin started doing music for video games based on Tom Clancy novels? WTF? My points are:

1. making music for video games can be extremely lucrative, and
2. licensing music for video games can be extremely expensive, and it's a testament to the money-making power of GTA that they were able to license basically whatever song they wanted.

BEST SONG: Eddie Money "Two Tickets To Paradise"

OK, before I write even a single word about this album, how about the fact that the CD looks like this:

"African colors. Subtle." -Clarence Royce

So aside from the fact that the CD image is essentially what a 14 year old high school kid would draw on his notebook, let's talk OutKast. I never actually listened to this album that much, because it seemed to me like they were not exactly super interesting yet. Like they were still deciding if they should drop more acid and TRULY BECOME OUTKAST and were sort of not fully realized yet. Am I wrong? Were they or were they not just a little too into P-Funk still?

"Player's Ball" and "Southernplalistic..." are ridiculous and good. "Hootie Hoo" gets love just because my thug roommates in college would call me that, and "Ain't No Thang" is great because it rhymes "No Thang" with "chicken wing." OK so now I'm just like "what are you talking about myself, obviously this album rules." And I concede! It DOES rule. I think?
BEST SONG: Git Up, Git Out

Dude, what about when you first get into funk music and you're like "whoa hip-hop stole very uncreatively from you!" The first time I heard Leon Haywood I was like "Dr Dre, more like Dr Lay... Zee! Natch! (violent self high-five)"

It's the same thing with hearing the "Jimi Hendrix of the sampler," DJ Shadow. When I first heard that David Axelrod song that he sampled I was like "OK wait a minute, JUST ONE MINUTE HERE, Josh ["Goatee'd" Davis]!"

If you've never heard these funk songs until after the hip-hop songs that sampled them, it's a revelation. It makes you think being a hip-hop producer is easy as shit and that P Diddy has the right idea. Anyways, this comp is mostly Dr Dre samples, and some of it is really obvious but all of it is good.
BEST SONG: William Devaughn "Be Thankful For What You've Got"

I admit I was no prize-winning genius in college. Mistakes were made and my daily life was basically a riot of foolish decisions, both personal and creative. On the musical front though I will stand by any of the dumb shit I listened to. Did I listen to OK Computer while stoned and think it was "my generation's Dark Side"? Probably. Did I dance like a goddamn hippie to Jamiroquai? Almost certainly. Did I listen to G Love & Special Sauce (1997's Yeah, It's Like That in the house! With "I-76" featuring a cameo by Rhazel on vocal scratches? Can anyone out there confirm this?). Absolutely.

OK Computer is a good album, whatever. It is pretentious and dumb and over-reaches at points, but it has songwriting chops and moments of sublime beauty. So you can understand my disappointment when I bought this self-blowjobbing follow-up of what is essentially endless nonsense. Like, WTF is this? It is not an album. It is an hour of whining, first by Thomme Yourkeee and then by guitar feedback squelches and then just by robot clicking sounds. It has 2 good songs: "Everything In Its Right Place," because the whining is not annoying yet because it is the first song on the album, and "Idioteque," which must always be mentioned so as to highlight Gaydiohead's "range." More like take this CD to the SHOOTING range, am I right?

I have distinct memories of my first year in NY, listening to this on my Discman, thinking "this is bad music but everyone likes it, so I must as well." Gah! Spin Magazine, go brainwash me why don't you! It's like that "ever get the feeling you've been cheated" thing, because every subsequent Radiohead album only built on this foundation of For Music Critics By Idiots formula, and the hype only got bigger the less melodic Radiohead's music was!

Argh! Radiohead! So much no that I yell in your direction! Nope!

"I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!" -Jacobim Mugatu

"You tried to be decent, in an indecent time!" -Two Face

File Under:
I Hate This. Why Does Everyone Else Like This? Is There Something Wrong With Me, Or Am I The Only Sane Man Left In An Insane World?, along with Girltalk, Arace Fire, Lost.

Whoa! Apparently not only is Donald Glover on Community and an ex-writer for 30 Rock, he also has a hipster-rapper indie career? Which is not annoying? Am I reaching here? Whatever, I like this.

Donald Glover is Childish Gambino

*via rcrdlbl

I'm going to sell all the CDs I never listened to! What are they, you ask?


Ghostly is a pretty good label, and Michna's signed to them, but I never listened to this CD comp at all.

"Just be that way sometimes, I guess." -The guy from the first scene in the Wire

However, things turn around weirdly, because when I went to Amoeba in LA, the Freddy Krueger-sweater-wearing West Coast hipster nerds were playing a bunch of CDs, and they were so good I bought them. One was ELO's Out of the Blue (amazing), and the other was this CD, because of the track "Bernard's Song" by Outputmessage.


What is up with Rod Stewart. File under: I Tried, Lord Knows How I Did Try To Get Into This. Rod Stewart is a tart. This is true. But also you get to that place where you're like "weren't the Small Faces an important band? Isn't Maggie May a must-liker?" Sure... I guess. I mean, "Ooh La La" is awesome, but I like it because it is nostalgia in music form, and also because of Wes Andersen ("Sad but true!" -Metallica). So to sidestep that whole important-to-know-about thing, let me just say that sometimes it's easy, tempting, and time-saving to figure out whether or not you will like artists just by looking how they turned out. In the case of Rod Stewart, it is this:

YUP! Not going to spend the time. Get over into that area over there, next to Elton John. Ironically, my favorite 3 Rod Stewart songs are latter day ones: "Forever Young," "Some Guys Have All The Luck," and "Young Turks." None of which are on this comp, BTW!

Kevin from the Lab once asserted that I would like two brit-pop bands on sheer principle. One was the Stone Roses (nope), and the other was Primal Scream. Stone Roses I should give another chance, because "I Wanna Be Adored" is no question an amazing song. Primal Scream on the other hand always ventured one step too many into the big-beat territory. It was like Stereo MC's or something? Whatever, I never gave it a chance is the point. And bands like this that are WAY dated are hard to get into after the fact. It's not like missing out on the first Violent Femmes album because that is timeless and can be appreciated by any adolescent teenager who wants to get laid.

Nope, anything that is all bright and shiny and WAY 90s'd out sort of cannot be embraced after its time. For example the first, biggest, most Primal Screamiest track, "Movin' On Up." What is this, exactly. It's like a fake "Sympathy For The Devil," plus gospel choir, plus fake Happy Mondays drugged-out non-singing, plus "Praise You" rip-ff ("NO Woody, this isn't like Praise you! Praise You is LIKE THIS!" -a fool). Mmmm unless I'm getting a ride home from track practice in a cooler older guy's car who has a British GF and I'm 15 or something this isn't blowing my skirt up.
BEST SONG: None

This is a comp of early house, mostly on a mellow/vocal side. Joey Negro typically is pretty immaculate in his taste. And there's tons of good stuff on here, but it's just too... soulful? Too black? I don't know. I'm a racist, I guess. I like my house either super over-the-top fist-pumping, or mega 80s warehouse in Chicago Trax-y. Late night tracks like "Luv Dancin" are pretty untouchable, but usually I like my house assy, not classy.

Nope! Sorry Soul Jazz, at this point you've squandered the considerable goodwill I've accorded you for being the label that told me about ESG. It matters to me NOT A WHIT that you found an early NY no wave skronk-jam featuring Jim Jarmusch on vocals. Try as you might to tempt me with yet another Glenn Branca song, I ain't chompin! Nope, still not buying it (although in another, more literal sense, I clearly bought it).
BEST SONG: Clandestine "Radio Rhythm (Dub)"

In conclusion, this:

*Via Helene

I just put up a new comic on my comics site.

I figured I may as well link all the songs here, because this is a blog about music, and doing that would make sense.


Is this.

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Is this.

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Is this.

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Is this.

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Now I know I've written about kiddie touchers in the past on this blog, but Gary Glitter really does deserve special treatment. Not only because he was a kiddie toucher while also being a glam artist, which is basically screaming out "definitely do NOT trust me with your children," but also because the lyrics to "Hello" seem like a challenge to adults to arrest him.

To wit:

Hello, Hello! It's good to be back [from prison, where I was sent, for child-molesting].

Did you miss me [under-age child], "Yeah!" while I was away [in prison, for touching you],
did you hang my picture on your wall [because in my mind, you enjoy me touching you in your privates]?

Did you kiss me [in the picture, to convey your sense of loss at not being molested], "Yeah!" every single day,
although you couldn't kiss me at all [because, again, I'm in jail for being a pedophile]?

And did you love me, "Yeah!" like a good little girl [who is literally 11],
Did you tell that naughty boy [who is in your peer group] not to call?

Did you love me, "Yeah!" in your own little world [because of your lack of experience, because you are a child],
Although you couldn't see me at all [because I was incarcerated for being a sexual deviant]?

It goes on like this but you get the idea.