Pinback/Autechre

Saw Pinback last night at Irving Plaza. I like Pinback, "Summer in Abaddon" is a great album, but they were a bit disappointing live. I didn't think either of the guys that sings were that great, kind of off-key, and their music sounds better with studio polish. But the bassist has a pretty unique style, totally strumming this four-string bass, and at times they had two bassists going. They also had a great video screen behind them, and a pretty adoring crowd, so it was fun.

If any of you are into Autechre and want to round out your collection, this is the spot.

Pat Martino______Live Nation

Listening to "Exit" by Pat Martino right now, 1976, one of my favorite guitar-centered jazz albums of all time.

I just read that Pinback is playing at Irving Plaza tomorrow night and I went to buy four tickets, Live Nation wants $9 for a ticket fee. Can you believe that shit??

Anvil "Metal On Metal"

http://www.mediafire.com/?z2d2zn54tze

Because everyone needs a jam about Mothra

Anvil! The Story of Anvil

I don't listen to much (read: ANY) metal. But for some reason, almost every movie about heavy metal (or vaguely heavy metal) music I see I tend to find pretty great ("Some Kind of Monster," "End of Civilization pt. II: The Metal Years"). This one, "Anvil: the Story of Anvil" I just watched a couple of nights ago. While it is very much the "true" version of spinal tap, there is something very inspiring about the two galoots who are the leaders of this band. Anywho... I thought I'd hip people to it--or more likely, remind them about it. Put it in your netflix queue for a good time.

Hip Hop

I want to preface this by saying that I'm listening to Charles Ives this morning and I don't listen to that much hip hop altogether these days. But I'm a fan, The Roots "Things Fall Apart" is one of the big albums in my past for me, and at times I've listened to a lot of hip hop. But I've been meaning to post to see if others think that hip hop is just generally lame these days, and more broadly whether anyone agrees that black culture has lost its mojo. I haven't heard much in the way of decent mainstream hip hop for a while now, with likes of Lil Waye, Ludacris and others just leaving me uninterested, and irritated if I actually listen. Kayne West is okay, even if he seems like an idiot, and Jay Z I guess is pretty cool, but I never got that fired up about his music. The hip hop I do listen to these days is Madlib, MF Doom, generally the stuff off the Stones Throw label, and that is frequently remix stuff, with live instruments, elements of jazz, and it often veers out of the straight rap category; with a nod to a recent post on here, that first Lupe Fiasco record is also cool and I'ma throw that on the iphone today. But even the Roots are kind of boring these days. Most hip hop is dumb, empty bragging, pompous and unoriginal, with that silly pitch-shifting effect everywhere. This article in the New Yorker on MF Doom (unfortunately only an abstract available online) actually summed up a lot of what I've been feeling. The writer calls the current moment in hip hop "glam hop" and I think he's got that right, it reminds me of what rock music was going through in the late 80s/early 90s before grunge kicked its ass, changed everything, and made rock music vital again. But will hip hop have a similar revolution? I am a bit skeptical, partly because I think live hip hop is generally bad and that hip hop is a studio phenomenon. But I do think it's a cool and vital art form that might be able to come back and be relevant again. But I think it's part of a general malaise in black culture. For decades mainstream culture took a nod from black culture on so many things, like fashion and music. But with hip hop stuck in a funk, black fashion is pretty ridiculous too--does anyone want to wear their pants below their ass? Am I missing something? Like I said, I'm sitting here listening to classical music right now, and I'm a white dude, so I'd be hesitant to put this out there if I was writing for a magazine or a newspaper, it's just kind of a general feeling, and I was wondering what others thought.

BBC + Stylophone

You might want to look at this stuff from a not necessarily music related blog that I frequent.  This stuff is music related, but most of their stuff is not. >>>

http://www.retrothing.com/2009/10/the-great-bleep-forward.html

and this.  this is around 9 minutes long, but you should watch the whole thing >>>

http://www.retrothing.com/2009/10/stylophone-beatbox-demo-video.html

Bob Mould Show at Troubadour in L.A.

I gotta say that dude has a serious catalog of guitar driven pop songs. You may know about the volume of tracks with Sugar, Husker Du, solo records, but I forgot how many good songs there are. Start with the good: the drummer really held things together and powered through classics I Apologize, New Day Rising and Chartered Trips like a rock drummer should. The set list was interesting. A couple new ones, one from a solo disc, and the rest were Sugar and Husker songs. There was only one opening band, Spiral Stairs. Some friendly banter with the audience, but mostly churning out the rock songs one after another.

The bad: the bass player was a replacement at the last minute. Touring guy had to bail out 2 nights before. The dude had most of the songs down, but when he missed, he missed badly. You music guys know that look of,"oh crap I'm not sure if he goes Em7, G, F#, oh well maybe nobody will notice". The guitar tone had too much treble, needed more mid and bass beef. The show was only a little over one hour. For all the crap fees I had to pay for a ticket, another 20 minutes would have been rad. I'd say 3 out 5 stars.

FROM THE DETAIL-OBSESSED MIND OF EDAN COMES AN ASTOUNDING 30 MINUTE PASTICHE OF DANCE, RAP, AND PUNK THAT UTILIZES EVERYTHING FROM TURNTABLES TO TAPE ECHO, GLOCKENSPIEL TO GUITAR, MOOG TO KAZOO...Ever since the success of Edan's 2005 sophomore release Beauty and the Beat (Lewis Recordings) the phones have been ringing off the hook here at Traffic Entertainment with questions from all around the world asking "What's up with Edan" and "When is the new album coming out?" After it became clear to us that a new Edan album was nowhere near completion we had a eureka moment. We approached Edan with a unique opportunity; full access to Traffic Entertainment Group's extensive back catalog to mix and rework in any way he could imagine. We figured this would be a fairly quick and painless project that would be fun for Edan and also offer him some help in getting his name back out into the market while shedding some light on lesser known but full on dope titles buried deep in our back catalog. Two years and a new label later, Five Day Weekend and Edan have finally finished the project. What began as a simple mix, has grown into a colorful full on production album that features Edan as the musician displaying his skills on live instruments including synthesizers, guitar, percussion, echoplex… even glockenspiel and kazoo. Echo Party has Edan's personality intermixed with a wealth of amazing material. Elements are pulled from original multi tracks and these isolated accapellas and drum breaks have not been heard by any ears except the engineers and original artists that were in on the original sessions. Other portions are more identifiable though obscured by the filter of Edan's ever improving studio techniques. Only an artist like Edan with his borderline obsessive commitment to detail could have brought such a project to life. Echo Party promises to be one of 2009's most celebrated releases. http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?zjdwfz30ihg

Edan was given access to the Traffic Ent. Group's back catalog of old school rap - labels like Magic Records, Chocolate Star, P&P among others - and asked to create something new out of it, whatever he wanted. What began as a simple mixtape, two years later turned into a 30-min record of dance, rap and punk, utilizing everything from turntables, tape echo, guitar, moog and maybe even kazoos. He's even going to hand-draw each LP cover. Seen below - the image with the red type with the guy in the bow tie - is the CD cover. The vinyl LP covers are going to be all white-tip on sleeves, like those old 60s records, with Edan stenciling, or stamping, or doing some kind of cover art to each one personally. There will be only 1000 made. Expect to see Echo Party at stonesthrow.com by December, with CDs some time earlier. We'll have an exact date, more photos, and some audio coming soon. http://stonesthrow.com/news/2009/10/edan-echo-party

Hope Sandoval

http://www.zshare.net/download/640767422336e4c0/

Just a quick pass along, I would think most people here would or should dig it.

Anybody got their hands on those Kraftwerk remasters yet?

Another Rainy Day Record

This isn't new, and it may not be a revelation to many of you, but damn! That first Lupe Fiasco record is the shit! I'm sharing this because it's raining here, and I remember a discussion of rainy day music in these very (cyber)pages.

It started raining here in Derby City a little before midnight, and as of now (8 pm), it hasn't stopped for a minute. The ground is already totally saturated, and all the water is running off my yard and across the concrete pad by my garage. I drive 50 miles each way to work, including a ten mile stretch called the Joe Prather that cuts through the south edge of Fort Knox between 65 and the Dixie Highway. This is a beautiful stretch of road, and it gets very moody in the mists and cold rains of autumn.

Anyway, this evening I pulled out my copy of Food and Liquor ("I think the world, and everything in it, is made up of a mix of two things: you got your good, and your bad, you got your food, and your liquor."), and slammed it all the way home. It's heavy on strings, which is usually not a good thing with beats, but it completely works here . . . maybe the bittersweet of the strings is what makes it a rainy day album. The rhymes are killer as well.

I wasn't as crazy about Lupe's second album, but Food and Liquor remains one of my favorites. If you find it anywhere, give it a couple listens, maybe on a rainy day. You won't be sorry.

Well, it's been that kind of day. Maybe I'll have some cough syrup, go to bed early, and drift off while reading Swann's Way. Somnambulance rules. Next time I'll try to come up with something new.

Ty Segall - Lemons

Hi.  This post is another retro-ey garagey thing that I like.  Namely, I'm posting the Ty Segall record Lemons.  I posted his self-titled recording last year, and this one is similar, except that it is not as densely overdriven, and his pop-sensibilities are a bit more refined.  It is also recorded way better, so it is okay to listen to through headphones (unlike the last one).

The Dodos

Checking them out Wednesday night at the Bowery Ballroom, psyched for this show. Here's a good write-up about them on brooklyn vegan, here's a link to their last album, Time to Die. These guys are a duo--guitar and drums--and I'm pretty sure the guitarist plays mostly in open-tunings. They remind me of Animal Collective sometimes, Fleet Foxes a bit with the vocal harmonies.

Jane

You ever check out Panda Bear from Animal Collective's side project, Jane? It's a'ight.

dc

Enter Shikari: Common Dreads

English post hardcore/trancecore/screamo. There are more pop hooks here than I thought there would be. Some of the songs are rockin punk anthems,"Antwerpen". One of the slower songs "Gap in the Fence" sounds a little like Radio Head. One of the tracks has a straight house keyboard style break. Sometimes the mash of styles doesn't work, but when they hit it right it's good. There are more than enough screams and yells for your,"angry youth music fix".

Zen Arcade

So, I just finished reading Our Band Could Be Your Life, a pretty cool history of the "indie underground" from '81-'91. Black Flag, Minutemen, Buttholes, Sonic Youth......good stuff. Anyway, I started a little project, getting a bunch of albums of the era from the good ol' Minneapolis Public Library. And recently I got: Zen Arcade.

I'll have to admit I've never really checked out the early Husker Du thing, but after reading about them I thought it'd be worth a listen (at the very least because a couple of their albums are "classics" and should be considered required listening - at least once, right?) So Zen Arcade is a 1984 double album released on SST. This shit still sounds really fresh, to me. There's an energy that you don't come across as often today, an urgency to fucking tear it up. And, of course, being Husker Du, the songs have a lot more sneaky pop sensibility than your average punk/hardcore of the day.

I think most of you are the right age to appreciate this, but when this album was released I was in 2nd grade, and the two biggest joints of the year were VH's 1984 and Thriller (to us 2nd graders, at least). And labels like SST were out lurking out there, ready to corrode my brain. If I'd only known then...

Velvet Davenport

Yeah, it's not exactly original, and it's totally stylized in a retro sort of way, and it sounds a lot like a bunch of other stuff, but perhaps that is why I find it so enjoyable to listen to.  I hear (fill in your favorite psych pop band from the later mid-sixties) +more. The production is lovely, and the use of synthesizers spices up the otherwise standard guitar, bass, minimal use of percussion (bass drum, tambourine, bells, occasional snare, and sometimes just sticks hitting something).  It is delightful.

There are only six very short easily digestible tracks on the recording, the shortest being 14 seconds and the longest being three minutes.  You should try it.  Good bye.      

I love this...

Toumani Diabate - The Mandé Variations

http://rapidshare.com/files/167801879/Toumani_Diabate_-_The_Mande_Variations.rar

I think this guy is fucking magnificent. This is a solo thing from last year, just look at that instrument and then listen to what he gets out of it. Absolutely gorgeous music, it well serve you well at some time or place in your lives.

Garage Sale Score

Garage Sale score this weekend! Like 50-something records for $35.00.



Bunch of SST shit (Black Flag, Minute Men, Husker Du, a compilation)... some had college radio stickers on them but for $.50 an LP, I ain't complaining...



Really clean copy of Double Nickels on a Dime.



Not a big Smiths fan but I appreciate that this is a score for $.50.



A bunch of Ska shit, like 6 Madness lps, "More Specials" which I was looking for, and these classicos.



Surprisingly I've never had this on vinyl.



Eraserhead soundtrack?



A bunch of Stiff Little Fingers, word up.



Lou Reed Berlin is a good'n, right?

Also like, you know, some Dead albums, Dead Kennedys 12", Utopia, ELO, uh... like 7 David Bowie albums, Stones... some other stuff too.

Also a ton of hardcover design, typography and modern art books for $1.00 a pop including Edward Tufte "Graphical Representations of Statistical Data" or whatever that is called... maybe the Varnish/TJ River graphic design nerduses can appreciate that.

OUT!

Do Make Say Think-The Other Truths

Just had a real nice bike ride listening to this one...

Where The Wild Things Are Soundtrack

stream the whole album here : http://bit.ly/SbUsf
good stuff from Karen O and "The Kids"

http://phrockblog.blogspot.com/

Been on a bit of a retro kick lately, partly because of this great blog. It is DEEP with cool Sixties, Seventies, music from around the world. Plus it is almost all new remastered editions with bonus tracks blabbity blah, if this guy is buying this shit he's broke. Check out the hype for this Mystic Siva thing that recently went up:

One of the most sought after and difficult to find USA HEAVY PSYCHEDELIC albums from the early 70’s…

Mystic Siva is a quartet from Detroit that created one of the most popular psychedelic-underground artefacts from all-time…

Their legendary "Orange Album" ,recorded in 1971 on one day…with an average age of 17, those "teenage Sivas" showed best quality in songwriting and wrote with track "Supernatural Mind" a hit for the hippie-underground collectors…

Their talent in playing the instruments is outstanding and an own sound which is driven by aggressive and heavy screaming fuzz/wah-wah lead guitars, spooky Hammond B 3 organ and Doors influenced vocals(spaced-out lyrics), was the result…

Hope it's as cool as it looks