Prepare Yourselfes

my new blog

2010-06-22T14:09:00.001-07:00

http://nonnon.wordpress.com/

From Oliver

2009-03-20T14:29:00.000-07:00

"this is dumb - but give it a minute - it has a lil' surprise... WHAT!? OK."

review: Larry Polansky's The Theory of Impossible Melody

2009-03-15T19:17:00.000-07:00

For those not familiar with Larry Polansky, The Theory of Impossible Melody, a collection that includes highlights of his many focuses since the mid 1970's, serves as an excellent primer for the composer's music.

On "(B'rey'sheet) (in the beginning...) (Cantillation Study #1)" (1985), Polansky incorporates text from the Torah (sung by composer, performer and Polansky's wife, Jody Diamond) with "live interactive computer". As the voice recites, the software interprets and outputs a set of rules to determine intervals and tuning, creating an intriguing series of intricate textural shadows that eventually unwind into a series of suspensions and sustained notes during the final section of the piece. "Epitaph (Four Voice Canon #21) (tmfg)" (1975) is a conversation between the composer's improvisations on fretless electric guitar (each voice in a different tuning) versus his MEAP software, all wrapped in a mensuration canon (a technique where each subsequent voice uses an augmented or degraded rhythmic duration and all end simultaneously). As per the tradition of this form, each subsequent sound file inspires increased, bristling tension via serialized panning, pitch, length and "spectral stability" until the argument finishes in a hard-right squeak. The 23-minute highlight of the disc, "Simple Actions/Rules of Compatibility" (1989), is a bi-formal work that merges an HMSL performance (software Polansky designed as a live A.I. style tool, one that morphs simple musical gestures into sophisticated musical forms) with a digitally enhanced narration by Australian poet, Chris Mann. The result is an FM synth-driven cacophony of glassy beeps, bubbling glisses and LFO sirens elided by Mann's tongue-twisting phrases at the 11:33 mark. Polansky uses Mann's voice as source material, "one of the (simple) musical 'actions'", which he feeds into HMSL, the program quickly morphing the artist's prose into a nervous sidecar of glitches, staccato screeches and legato bass tones. The disc's coda, "Psaltery" (1978-9), is, on paper, an incredibly complicated fifty-one pitch-based work for the one-string instrument of the same name. However, despite the complexity of the extra-musical processes (the graph in the liner notes is a head spinner), the system is transparent and the piece emanates elegance, beauty and a meditative aesthetic in the vein of Ellen Fullman's long-stringed instrument performances.

During a master class, Polansky once said, "Every composer has one, maybe two great ideas during his lifetime", but as evidenced on this album, Polansky has made a career of taking numerous intriguing yet difficult ideas and making them extraordinary. For example, he may not have invented the mensuration canon, but his three decades of dedication (see "Four-Voice Canons") earns him near-ownership of the genre. Likewise, Polansky's fervor for and exploration of Gamelan, computer-assisted composition, microtonal scales and just intonation translates into a mastery few possess on one of these subjects let alone all of them.

Dave Madden

http://www.squidsear.com/cgi-bin/news/newsView.cgi?newsID=893

yes (Janes Addiction and Nine Inch Nails tour this summer -- together)

2009-02-27T15:08:00.000-08:00

NIN: Burn Live from on stage, Melbourne 2.25.09 [HD] from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

NIN: 1,000,000 Live from on stage, Sydney 2.22.09 [HD] from Nine Inch Nails on Vimeo.

Sometimes, I can't figure out what to say

2009-02-26T13:44:00.000-08:00

I start over at "Rambling background"

Chain and the Gang
Down With Liberty… Up With Chains!
K Records
Street: 04.07
Chain and the Gang = Mojo Nixon + Modern Lovers + D.N.A.
Rule of thumb: be very skeptical of anything that smacks of "No Wave", especially anything after 1984, as it is one of numerous genres that non-musicians hear and think "this is so easy, I can do this". But look back at any of the bands with substance during the heyday and you see musical geniuses such as Arto Lindsay and Glen Branca at the helm. After five seconds of the slinky "Chain Gang Theme (I See Progress), your mind screams "New York, 1980", but you notice Not some dumbshit with a borrowed Jasmine acoustic.
Describe what it is
Old school political messages which works, somehow "politics, you gotta throw a brick (July twenty-six)"
From rocking "interview with the chain gang"
Starts simple
Shows depth
Purposeful sloppiness
Reparations

Rambling background
Chain and The Gang is Nation of Ulysses, Weird War, The Make-Up etc. founder Ian Svenonius's latest punk outlet, and, knowing his penchant for anything goes, this project is exactly what you expect: anything goes! Rooted in a sloppy No-Wave aesthetic (the interesting, creative version of that crud), ___'s lackadaisical
He still hates indie rock and stupid interviewers (" America is still one big conspiracy ("Deathbed confession")

Pissed but cool vocal delivery
(You might mistake this for a re-release from 1980)

The line-up and style might change, but the song remains the same: Svenonius' 13-Point Program to Destroy America is still in effect.

Squid's Ear -- First Review!

2009-02-21T07:21:00.001-08:00

http://www.squidco.com/cgi-bin/news/newsView.cgi?newsID=866

I is famous

2009-02-20T09:48:00.001-08:00

http://www.unplggd.com/unplggd/flickr-finds/flickr-finds-organized-workflow-or-a-messy-production-076943

Bit Blob

2009-01-23T10:45:00.001-08:00

"The Bit Blob is a digital noise maker that's controlled by connecting its contacts together, allowing you to bend your way through unlimited sonic madness. You can also connect LEDs, audio outputs, or other Bit Blobs between control pins!"

I LOVE KORG!

2009-01-19T09:22:00.001-08:00

Electro-Harmonix Voice Box: $200, Fun Voice and Instrument Effects, Gender, Vocoder

2009-01-13T11:52:00.000-08:00

I love the voice box, but I'm really posting this for the video.

Mixtape for my Boo

2009-01-08T10:40:00.000-08:00

To be played on your last day, whenever that is.

Heliocentrics "Beyond Repair" Because it seems that way, and this is a good intro.

Public Enemy "Lost at Birth" "The future holds nothing else but confrontation."

Techno Animal "Cruise Mode 101" It's about driving fast and running from the cops. The music sounds like a bulldozer.

Fugazi "Song #1" "Song #1 is not a FUCK YOU SONG", but it really is

Bauhaus "Kick in the Eye 2" 'Nuff Said.

Radiohead "Bangers & Mash" “I'm standing in the hall/I'm puking on the wall/I'm takin' you down"

Quasimoto "Bullyshit" Assholes abound.

The Birthday Party "Release the Bats" You really, really want heroin days Nick Cave and his bats on your side.

Marilyn Manson "Irresponsible Hate Anthem (Cycle 1, The Heirophant)" “I wasn’t born with enough middle fingers.”

Beastie Boys "Looking Down The Barrel Of A Gun" This leads to…

Joy Division "Dead Souls" Well, more looking down the barrel of a moral gun leads to dead souls.

Spank Rock and The Chemical Brothers "Keep My Composure" Gotta do it, then...

Battles "Race: In" This sounds like a hurry and leave the building, jump the bushes, run run run song.

Juliana Hatfield "What A Life" This doesn't have much to do with anything, but she clears her throat and hocks a loogey, and I figure it's at something she doesn't like.

The Stooges "Search and Destroy" I don't need to explain this. If I do, please see Life Aquatic and Bill Murray" heroics during a hostage crisis for proof of why you want this song playing when you kick down a door.

Melt Banana "Shield Your Eyes, A Beast In The Well Of Your Hand" It's loud, so loud. Just total destruction and piercing arrows into hearts (in a bad way).

Racebannon "Satan's Kickin' Yr Dick In, Part V" The title says it.

Prefuse 73 "The End of Biters-International" No bitch-ass-ness.

Dalek "Bricks Crumble" Boom!!

Ministry "Thieves" “Thieves, thieves and liars/murderers/hipocrites and bastards/in laughter.”

Atari Teenage Riot "Your Uniform (Does Not Impress Me!)" Lots of screaming and "you don't impress me...FUCKER!"

MDFMK "Rabble Rouser" Lots more screaming, and rabble rousing.

KRS-One "Sound Of Da Police" Fuck the police.

Dizzee Rascal "Sirens" Fuck the Police!

J Dilla "Fuck the Police" What did I just say???!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GZA "Swordsman" Swagger-inspiring music and "I'm not caught up in politics".

GZA "I Gotcha Back" Because I do.

Missy E with Lil Kim "Hit Em Wit Da Hee" "Nightbox filled with benjamins."

DJ Gyngyvytus "The National Headbustaz Anthem" Because it says headbustaz, it’s a Radiohead cover and it's ridiculous.

Robot Ate Me "Every Nazi Plane Has a Cross" Because that place is full of Nazis.

ADULT. "In My Nerves" Because they got in your nerves.

David Bowie "Running Gun Blues" Well...it's about Viet Nam, and what happens after you kill them all. So don't do that.

MC Paul Barman "Anarchist Bookstore part 1" Because it rips on pseudo-intellectual assholes.

Method Man "What the Blood Clot" Because I say that every time I hear something new about your job.

Top Music of 2008

2008-12-24T10:29:00.000-08:00

Top stuff

Tobacco Fucked Up Friends: melotron strings, talk boxes, chugging shit-beats, short songs, a strange collaboration with Aesop Rock. Just perfect.

Flying Lotus Los Angeles: mangled percussion mixes with swooping sounds, tore-up samples, simmered in hyper compression.

Chris Corsano The Young Cricketer: junk percussion meets gamelan meets the freest of jazz drumming.

Autechre Quaristice: The duo goes back in time, again and again, visiting their past works and updating them. So many ideas – I will make time for them.

Nine Inch Nails The Slip: In a review, I said "A brief drone and we're off: '1,000,000' growls with Stooges riffs and hypnotic, distorted dive-bombs; the broken, unquantized swagger of 'Letting You' drips with overdrive, reaching near Atari Teenage Riot proportions before gradually peeling off with some skewed pop tracks, the bi-polar pedal-screwing solo on 'Head Down', a piano/vocal interlude, two atmospheric instrumentals and the hyperactive closer, 'Demon Seed'."

Honorable mention

Steinski put out his What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 Retrospective, the mix-tape dreams are made of; an equal blend of humor, cool and certifiable badass collage-work by the master.

Matmos worked their magic (Supreme Balloon), eschewing microphones in favor of all manner of synths (with a guest spot by Terry Riley!)

Power Pill Fist’s (bassist of Black Moth Super Rainbow) Kongmanivong is a terrific display of crappy programming and audio engineering. So many do this crunchy, loud 8-bit aesthetic, only a few get it right – he got it right.

Odd Nosdam released a collection of remixes and b-sides with Pretty Swell Explode, all really atmospheric/hip-hop/dusty.

Head Resonance Company’s 19 Tracks for Unknown People is "Scrappy drum machines crackle under walking basslines, synth bells and bit-reduced news reporters ('4'), delay pedals feedback wildly with horn fragments, thunderous brass and "warning!" sirens ('6') and robots make they own version of jazz via Moogs and energy stabs ('10')."

Pink Skull Zeppelin 3 (dance music for people who don’t want to dance, and the Ghostface/Spank Rock/Amanda Blank remix is still on repeat)

Christian Weber Walcheturm Solo (38 minutes of upright bass)

A Place to Bury Strangers S/T (Joy Division and early The Cure goes loud, so loud they broke a 10" vinyl press)

New things to me:

Can – what took me so long to find this band? I always knew I would worship at their musical feet (esp. the albums Monster Movie, Soundtracks, Tago Mago and Ege Bamyasi.)

Black Moth Super Rainbow – obviously (see all the numerous references above), I’ve taken this and run run run.

I'm trying to win stuff

2008-12-23T07:58:00.000-08:00

This is for a contest for music stuff.

"How to WinTo win the whole lot, tell us about the lamest holiday gift you ever received in less than 200 words. Winners will be chosen based on the best (or lamest) answers. "

My answer:

It’s a tie: 1) my drunken step-father laughing and yelling “there is no Santa!” at me as my mom is leaving him on Christmas day (I was nine) and this other thing.

My grandmother used to offer a lot of charity to people in her church. One lady in particular, a blind woman, always hit up the congregation for favors. At age twelve, my grandmother commissioned this woman to craft my Christmas present. As I ripped apart the wrapping, I could feel and see an ungodly fabric emerging – something akin to a bedspread in some creepy 1960’s psychedelic lair. Inside was a two foot stuffed orangutan doll. The limbs, loose and misshapen, probably belonged to a dilapidated Raggedy Ann; the aforementioned patchy fur was a rash waiting to happen; at the end of each arm, a pasty, plastic left hand (you read that correctly). But the worst part was the jarring smile and eyes which opened as I laid the ape down, closed when I picked it up. Just haunting! (Note: Poltergeist came out the summer before I received this gift and, despite my grandma’s feelings, I kept this thing buried in the bottom of my toy box at night.)

And lest we forget (this has nothing to do with anything, but today I was thinking about the first time I saw this and how it blew me away)...

This doesn't work with my library

2008-12-09T12:25:00.000-08:00

1. Put your Music on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT SOUNDS!

IF SOMEONE SAYS “IS THIS OKAY” YOU SAY?def. rmx - Thomas Korber

WHAT WOULD BEST DESCRIBE YOUR PERSONALITY?Days in Thirds - Parts & Labor

WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?Wild International - One Day as a Lion

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE?May this be love - The Jimi Hendrix Experience

WHAT IS YOUR MOTTO?Electric bear - The Notwist

WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?Satan's Kickin' Yr Dick In, Part V - Racebannon (I couldn't make that up)

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?Le Isole Dell'amore From Le Isole Dell'amore - Piero Umiliani

WHAT IS 2+2?Ponytail - Panda Bear

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?Querulanten - Einstürzende Neubauten

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PERSON YOU LIKE?Resonants 3 - nonnon

WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?Caravan - Wes Montgomery

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?Life Changes - Wu-Tang Clan

WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?Arvio [Long Edit] - Pan Sonic

WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?The Downward Spiral - Nine Inch Nails

WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?All In Love is Fair - Stevie Wonder (that is one sad wedding)

WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?Tough Guy - Beastie Boys

WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?Something I Can never Have - Nine Inch Nails

WHAT IS YOUR BIGGEST SECRET?You Can Do it Too - Pharrell Williams

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR FRIENDS?Boundless Boundaries - Onra

WHAT’S THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAPPEN?They Get it From an Elf's Head - nonnon

HOW WILL YOU DIE?Who Wants to Die? - Dub Trio

WHAT IS THE ONE THING YOU REGRET?The Hands of Small Children - Marilyn Manson

WHAT MAKES YOU LAUGH?What do we mean by coaching? - Chris Corsano

WHAT MAKES YOU CRY?Miles Runs The Voodoo Down - Miles Davis

WILL YOU EVER GET MARRIED?Track One - Günter Müller (from Reframed)

WHAT SCARES YOU THE MOST?Astrakhan - The Bowling Green

DOES ANYONE LIKE YOU?R.U.O.K? - KMFDM

IF YOU COULD GO BACK IN TIME, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE?1850 (Icy Demons - Pink Skull Remix) - Pink Skull

WHAT HURTS RIGHT NOW?Turning On - Echoboy

WHAT WILL YOU POST THIS AS?K'vakarat - Osvaldo Golijov

2008-11-17T12:15:00.000-08:00

"Meanwhile, all this business about the gay New Hampshire clergyman makes the Episcopalians sound like marketing representatives: their fear (at least from the antigay contingent) is that electing a homosexual bishop will stop people from going to church. Nothing depresses me more that hearing an organized religion worry about membership. Do they think Jesus is somehow impressed by voter turnout? Do they think God gives preference to religions that appear especially popular? It's not like God allocates federal funding to religious organizations that meet a quota. Several callers also used this issue to moronically rail against potential legalization of gay marriage. I find this profoundly depressing. In my opinion, we must legalize gay marriage. Gay males are the only men in America who still want to be married."

(Chuck Klosterman, p. 104 Killing Yourself to Live) 2005)

2008-11-13T08:13:00.000-08:00

Oz Fritz
All Around the World
2004

A recurring notion in Ray Bradbury's writing is an idea of televisions - giant ones that cover entire walls - that engulf the viewer (the more affluent your family, the more screens you have, generally all located in a single room). Not simply a statement on the harm of television, Bradbury's version of televised entertainment is a bit more involved, the viewer literally sinking into the program to participate (i.e. your children leave the living area to wander in tall African grass).

Oz Fritz might not pluck a note, press a key, strike a drum or sing a note, but he makes wonderful music. As he explains to a young passerby during the first few minutes of track one, Oz Fritz makes "recordings", but it's not as simple as that: Fritz catalogs the music and ambience of holy places, Asian countries and unnamed city streets and transparently arranges them into a fascinating, dynamic, intimate program, not unlike the aforementioned Bradbury scenario. One moment you're walking to your pew during an organ prelude ("Our Lady") then enjoying hymns from Easter Mass performed on skin drums and dulcimers ("Easter Mass Midnight Mass"). Suddenly, you're plunged into a temple full of explosive drum reverberations, the local fowl chiming in for good measure ("Temple Drumming"). From Egypt to Brooklyn, Fritz's work takes you there, plunging you head first, teleporting you like a news reporter, on the scene at every story, during the evening news. This is a real-time sonic documentary of the world you can almost touch and smell.

One guy on Amazon said the following (I think it's important you get the immediate reaction from someone who doesn't normally follow this sort of music.

"I bought these field recordings due to the Laswell connection.I found this cd hard to listen to.You get sounds with people talking in the background, some native music, some vocals,percussion and drones .Alot was unlistenable noise as if on a bus in a forign land and OZ recorded the sounds.Reminds me of the soundtrack to a National Geographic movie."

No on Prop 8

2008-11-04T08:12:00.000-08:00

So California has this Proposition 8 on the ballot this year. Voting YES means you, essentially, define a marriage as that between a man and a woman and nothing else. This year, the LDS aka Mormon Church decided to flaunt their power and do everything they can to support this issue because, well, their stance is "you can be gay, but you're not allowed to kiss, you certainly can't get married to someone of the same gender and you need to do whatever it takes (i.e. shock therapy, marriage to the opposite gender) to cure yourself of this disease (yes, it is treated like a desease).

So the LDS Church read manifestos from the pulpit (coming from The Prophet at the headquarters in SLC, Utah), donates money ($3k that they will admit to), asked others to donate money, and enlisted volunteers in Utah to call Californians to remind them of this pressing matter. Yet they will not admit to the real issue: they really, really dislike gays and use matters such as this as a way to hate in a civilized manner. I have a million stories that support this, but that's for another time.

And their excuse for their political push (despite being tax exempt) is that "oh, gays will request to be married in our sacred temple, we will deny them because of our strict rules about the temple and they will sue us." And they claim this is a "moral issue" not a political one, hence skating around the tax exempt status. The LDS Church is run by current/former lawyers and has endless money so I'm sure they will be fine on both of these matters.

Anyway, I wrote to Katie and told her what's going on here in Utah with regard to her State. I am sure she was already doing something about this, but yeah, here she is, out there fighting while I'm taking some Breakfast Club Trivia Quiz...

Cabbage Patch Palin

2008-11-01T09:18:00.000-07:00

First: You put a dick in the box.

Second: you put your dick in that booxxx

This is from a charity auction on eBay. Current high bid: $5100

2008-10-15T09:58:00.000-07:00

"Art is still quite difficult. Artists are still artists and the culture outside art is still outside it; it hasn't moved in with abstractions and difficulty. It has just given art a different job -- not to be so serious all the time. 'You're fired!' the ordinary world says to abstractions and difficulties in art. 'But you're on double overtime with big Christmas bonuses!' it says to all blandness in art."

(Matthew Collings, from This is Modern Art)

John Zorn on his piece "Cobra"

Turbo is only a sticker away

2008-10-10T09:53:00.000-07:00

You know, Bush just basically said "don't panic" (while the stock ticker on the side of the screen told us otherwise). Very Hitchhiker's Guide... of him. But really, that's what I was about to say.

When I lived in Puerto Rico (1989-1991), I saw a shit-ton of primered-out, ten-year old cars, mostly Toyotas. I'm not sure if this is still the Puerto Rican way, but boy did boys and girls love to pimp out their crappy cars with shiny rims, uncomfortable bolt-rattling stereos, by punching holes in their mufflers and topping it off with a supposedly pimped-out engine.

Commenting on these cars, a friend of mine once said "Turbo is only a sticker away." I laughed, hard, back then about this phrase amd have used it a million times in different situations.

Today, I could say "Recession is only a sticker (or graphic, thanks Sarazarr for that) away", or "No credit is only a sticker away". Were you in a home last week, but now sitting on a curb or living in a dumpster? No? Then Recession is only a sticker away. Someone told you that things are horrible, but who did that? The News makes its living telling you to live in fear so you'll keep watching. Don't panic.

Dude, this nation is acting like idiotic Generation Gimme Gimme Gimme aka Generation Grasshopper (as opposed to Generation Ant, people who lived through a bona fide Depression)because we can only afford the 2200 sq ft, not the 3200 sq ft, house.

And hello, we're getting close to an election. You don't think things are skewed a bit to guide votes?

But Bush just said we, as a nation, will continue to live above our means. What a renob. That reminds me of one of my favorite The Onion articles.

"A Shattered Nation Longs To Care About Stupid Bullshit Again"

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28129

I love the pic of Britney and the snake.

Tobacco (from Black Moth Super Rainbow) "Hawker Boat"

2008-10-05T14:52:00.001-07:00

I bet he loves his job.

Radiohead "Reckoner"

2008-10-04T14:25:00.000-07:00

Here is my remix.

Wordz

2008-09-23T12:14:00.000-07:00

Every six months or so, I pick up this book, 30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary. I read for about two days before I forget about it, but it's still a good resource (aka 1) it is more informative than TV 2) it makes me feel stupid and want to improve myself).

This morning, I finally read the preface. Then I read that it was first published in 1940 (then 1970).

Here is why the author, Dr. Wilfred Funk & Norman Lewis, feel I would benefit from this text.

"Your boss has a bigger vocabulary than you have.

That's one good reason why he's your boss.

This discovery has been made in the word laboratories of the world. Not by theoretical English professors, but by practical, hard-headed scientists who have been searching for the secrets of success.

After a host of experiments and years of testing they have found out:

That if your vocabulary is limited your chances of success are limited.

(some other junk)

It has long since been satisfactorily established that a high executive does not have a large vocabulary merely because of the opportunities of his position. That would be putting the cart before the horse. Quite the reverse is true. His skill in words was a tremendous help in getting him his job.

(some other stuff)

Armies fight for phrases: "Make the world safe for Democracy"; "V for Victory"; "Remember Pearl Harbor." Words have changed the direction of history. Words can also change the direction of your life. They can raise a man from mediocrity to success."

1940 was a different era. I challenge you to challenge your boss and her boss and her boss to a crossword.

F.A.R.T.

2008-08-21T08:48:00.000-07:00

Anyway, I'm washing my hands in the office bathroom yesterday and I hear this guy talking on his phone in the stall. I also hear poop noises, and he's the only one in there.

"It's imperative that we go forward on this..."

Business talk like that mixed with pooping.

He ends it with, "I'm not at home, now. I'm in the office". And then he farts, bigtime. And then he flushes, biggertime!!!

No one, no one, no one is that important; no phone call is that important.

Then I thought about something a co-worker said about swearing and how "fuck" is a powerword for dominant businessmen, like dudes who jock their way into power. They swear like this to show they can get things done.

So is shitting while talking business a power move as well?

I will never succeed in business.

"It's The Maestroooooo!!!!!!"

2008-08-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

What was I doing late April of 1992? Well, I was a repo-man for a rent-to-own place called Colortyme. What a drag! No really, this is the worst job I ever had. More than just delivering washers and dryers and fridges and entertainment centers and sofa beds* to people around the slums of Ogden, Utah, this was an active collections job. However, if you rent from these places, it is a civil matter, meaning we had to take the matter into our own hands (bank loans and car repossessions allow you to bring a constable or other law enforcement/guns with you).

So the three delivery/collections employees all had routes that we had to work, and the company had a policy about your route: at the end of every week, we each needed to have our customers down to 6% or lower. That is, 94% or more of your customers had to be paid up for the week (other rent-to-own places in the area were on a monthly basis, so they worried about this 74% less than we did).

Scraping, scraping, scraping the bottom of the barrel each week, I would hound everyone for money, or their goods, though picking up their goods meant less money for us and that all figured into another scheme of “we want xx units out to customers”. Hence, we wanted money.

We inadvertently trained most of the flakey customers to wait for us to pick up their payments (it’s much easier to let someone come to you rather than drive or mail your bills). So I’m stopping by on Sunday mornings (the job was supposed to be a 9-5, but I worked seven days per week, 10 hours a day, usually), or Saturday nights, or Friday at 1 am on the way home from trying to have my own life to catch these people and shake $40 out of their pockets. Many times, it was a screaming match on the lawn or just knocking on a door fifty times with “I know you’re in there!” before I got the money; my friend Tony (high school friend who got me the job after I had been out of the country for two years and was desperate for work) would generally knock, some guy would give $20, he would knock again, get $20 more, knock again and get more money from these deadbeats. Horrible.

Besides the scary times (walking down pitch black apartment corridors at 11 pm, putting my hands on the wall and feeling my way alone for someone’s door, waiting to put my hands on some hobo who will kill me for my shoes), the low point was X-mas of 1991. I had hounded this one customer for a month and could never find them home. On X-mas eve, I stopped by, just ‘cuz. A seven-year old answers the door. He and his younger brother were alone in the house, playing Nintendo. Guess what I was there to collect money on. Yes, the TV. I took their TV. I know it is not my fault, but I certainly had no charity in this situation (the kids didn’t seem very surprised about it, unhooking the video game and starring at the floor). Fudge!

The second low point was late April of 1992 when these two brothers – guys who treated bill collections as a funny game – decided they wanted to fight me as I came by on Easter morning. They had knives, but I didn’t give a shit. I was seriously about to murder these guys over it all – I was that worn out and miserable because I had let the job turn me into a monster of sorts. Well they were all talk and the situation sort of diffused, but I didn’t get any money from them (my friend, who was soon fired, fudged the numbers that week to make it look like were made our quota).**

There are those musical moments that come along right when you need them, and the Beastie Boys’s Check Your Head (released April 25, 1992) happens to be one of the top ten ones in my life. As one of the songs on this album (“Professor Booty”) mentions, "I’ve been through many times in which I thought I might lose it/The only thing that saved me has always been music".

I’m not going to go into why I love this album so much (i.e. the first album where one of my favorite bands actually buckled down and treated their work as more than a party; the classic bassline of “Gratitude” that probably inspired 100,000 dudes to buy a bass guitar; all the lines I quote from each song, such as “good morning/it’s time to get up and GO TO WORK!”; the brilliance of “So What’cha Want”, how 1) the scratching on there established my love of turntable-as-instrument 2) the drums on that track is something I’m always striving to achieve when I think “I need big drums”), but this is something I needed to ground me from all the horrible things I had going on at the time (this job was my life, pretty much).

In 1993, I lost my first copy. I bought a new one immediately.

In 2001, I lost my second copy and didn’t bother getting a new one until 2007.

In 2008, some dink broke into my car and stole my stereo. Last night, I figured out that Check Your Head was in there. For a week, I kept saying "I need to rip that to my iTunes...eh I want to listen to it in the car".

To be continued, Check Your Head...

* Sofabeds weigh a ton, if you didn’t know. We once delivered one to a trailer park. I rolled my eyes once I figured out the address because I knew it was someone who hadn’t done the math. After ½ hour of us dragging it down the hallway, 20 minutes to fit in the room, we opened the bed to find that the woman needed about 3 more feet of room for it to open all the way. We tried all kinds of shit, lifted and dragged some more (wearing ties and collared shirts, we were) to no avail. It took twice as long to drag it back to the van, all the while the woman bitching about how “it should fit”. It doesn’t lady, what the hell do you want??!

** The one brother came in that week to pay. He wore a smirk on his face as he stared at me. I started shaking, and had completely lost my mind for a moment. I screamed, “What the fucking fuck are you looking at you fuckhead!!!?!?” Nice words from a dude who had been out preaching scripture to the Puerto Rican peoples a few months before.
*** I didn’t know until a few years ago that frat boys co-opted the Beastie Boys as party anthems. I choose to ignore that.

Bunch of Reviews

2008-07-21T11:31:00.000-07:00

Christian Weber
Walcheturm Solo
Cut
Street: 5.13
Christian Weber = Joëlle Léandre + Ray Brown + George Crumb

Despite a list of collaborators longer than your genealogy, upright bassist Christian Weber demonstrates his ability to go it alone for 38 minutes with no edits, no electronics and no loop stations on this live recording. Exploring the entire spectrum of the instrument’s ability – and then some – Weber begins his monolog by pinching and pulling strings deeply and intently enough to resemble the team of lumberjacks who first bore his bass. Continuing in this fashion, he slowly introduces his gamut of techniques, furiously juggling slaps, sul pont, scraped rhythms, pizzicato, felt-not-heard drones, sprinkles of melody, microtonal pulses and wood creaks into a lovingly tangled texture; despite this History of Extended Techniques, Weber is a master who manages these into a cliché-free, hypnotic performance. After an intoxicating, growling climax, Weber descends into muted plucks and carefully paused punches of harmonic waves that echo the Zürich concert hall as the curtain falls.

Pink Skull
Zeppelin 3
Free News Projects
Street: 4.01
Pink Skull = New Order + Can + Basement Jaxx

On Zeppelin 3, Pink Skull main-man Julian Grefe set out to revisit an era of electronica when “a house record didn’t have to be between 126 and 130 (bpm)”. This is no continuous mix but rather a mixtape for a party where everyone convenes and somehow gets along. Like the Led Zep classic of the same name (Grefe even plays on their “Bonzo’s Montreux” with the timbale-laden “Gonzo’s Cointreau”), there are twists around every corner; one minute Grefe has you on your feet then demands you close your eyes, fold your arms and enjoy serene washes of feedback and samples (“Ssilt”). From the odd and laughable Chemical Brothers-like “Itchy Woman” to the utterly badass Plastic Little remix of “Crambodia” (featuring Spank Rock’s chanteuse Amanda Blank, Spank Rock and Ghostface Killa) to the utterly off-key porch thumping kaleidoscope “Take Me Out Riding” (with Mirah), Grefe would do well at a disparate event such as All Tomorrow’s Parties – playing it all by himself!

N*E*R*D
Seeing Sounds
Star Trak
Street: 6.10
N*E*R*D = Stevie Wonder + Quincy Jones + The Jungle Brothers

Chad Hugo and Pharrell Williams aka The Neptunes aka N*E*R*D. (it’s rumored that third member Shae really does all the work): geniuses or a couple of dorks who accidentally made a musical footprint as large as Timbaland? Whatever, as their hit-and-miss history over the past couple of years is mostly forgiven on this third album. After a brief skit, the album does exactly as the first title suggests: it’s “Time for Some Action”, the band ripping into slinky bass guitar, snare and panned whispers; apparently the duo recently discovered drum ‘n’ bass, or simply decided now is the hour to bring it back, as evidenced on the scratched-out “Everyone Nose”, the swaggering “Spaz” and Check Your Head meets E40 mix of “Anti Matter”. Except for the ersatz pop rock number, “Happy”, and the bored ballad “Love Bomb”, fans who embrace the group for their eclectic nature will celebrate and give thanks that Hugo and Williams still save the most interesting beats for their solo work.

No Wave: Post-Punk. Underground. New York. 1976-1980
Thurston Moore and Byron Coley
Abrams Image
Street: 6.01

1970’s New York, a time of polemic filth and fury with displaced art kids crashing head first into the detritus to form bands without which we would have no Rapture, LCD Soundsystem or (insert a hundred names here). Framed around this incredible gathering of black & whites are interviews (conducted by the Thurston Moore and writer/editor/et cetera Byron Coley) with artists deep in the thick of said scene (i.e. James Chance, Glen Branca, Ikue Mori, Robert Quine and the ever-verbose Lydia Lunch), club owners, iconic groupies and passers-by, including Brian Eno who gives his perspective on the immortal Eno “produced” No New York compilation. Having been active participants during this era, the authors do a spectacular job of detailing the tenuous camaraderie, insular tension and the seeds of No Wave’s demise. Not simply for those who know the difference between “No Wave” and “New Wave”, the eye candy and history lessons make for an illuminating, universally appealing document.

Bad to the Bone

2008-06-22T15:27:00.000-07:00

Remember Ginsu, the knives that can't really cut cans? Well CutCO knives actually can cut cans, as well as the fucking end off my finger while I cut sourdough bread.

Dave, can you cut the bread? Sure thing, let me slice it thin; people like it thin. Slice, slice, slice MOTHERFUCKER!!! Ow (A's mom takes over slicing, not missing a beat, while I stand there staring at blood pouring out of my finger*). I'll keep slicing, or...I think I need to sit down...

Ouch. I didn't want to see what's under there because 1) I was a little woozy just running water over it under the sink right after I did it 2) it throbbed like hell all night. It's down to the bone and sort of resembles the side of a shark around the gills; it starts at the tip and goes down to the bottom of my fingernail.

Who wants a bread knife to be that sharp?!? I'm so used to my piece-of-crap Great Harvest knife (free with two loaves of bread), and the cut happened so fast, that I thought I just grazed the top of my fingernail. I'm typing this all out of order because this band-aid (and butterfly thing, which is holding my finger together...mostly) is cutting off the circulation to my brain.

*A tells me it was her, not her mom, who took over the chopping job.

Chris Corsano

2008-05-29T08:04:00.000-07:00

Get this

http://www.amazon.com/The-Young-Cricketer/dp/B0015BXI9I/ref=pd_bbs_sr_4?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1212070505&sr=8-4

or any of his Sunburned Hand of Man (one of the coolest band names in the world) stuff.

I have an unnatural love of this hybrid drumming (and have accidentally bitten a bit of his steez, though I had to slow it down about 500%).

It's too late for me, young drummers. Don't give up.

Come on, Adsense

2008-04-27T09:53:00.000-07:00

Make me some money!

Can't alienate anyone, but have to be interesting and unique...to the masses you hate, but pretend to enjoy entertaining.

That is a tough couple of variables.

Is bears kicking dicks pornographic?

2008-04-04T15:07:00.001-07:00

Turn up your subwoofer

CD Reviews for SLUG Magazine

2008-04-01T07:38:00.000-07:00

A Place to Bury Strangers
Self-Titled
Killer Pimp
Street: 10.07
A Place to Bury Strangers = The Jesus & Mary Chain + Joy Division + The Cure’s first four albums + Bauhaus’s In the Flat Field

To all the babies who pine for the Jesus & Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine to reunite, I have one thing to say: move on. How can you whine when terrific artists such as Autolux, Liars and Voyager One exist? Now A Place to Bury Strangers, one of the purer, more nostalgic shoegaze outfits, competently picks up the discarded fuzzy, spaced-out, heavy pieces shattered by your heroes. The band cover its already gritty tinny-to-shrieking guitars, picked bass, post-punk-rhythm-spewing drum machines and reverb-soaked vocals with even more grit, volume (!) and otherwise raw production. The harmonies and solos are frugal yet meaningful, and the lyrics mysterious and hard to hear: in other words, it’s the ultimate homage to the aforementioned legends. Unoriginality is rarely a pleasant compliment, but only because it never sounded this perfect! – Dave Madden

Ellen Allien
Boogy Bytes, Vol. 04
Bpitch Control
Street: 4.15
Ellen Allien = AGF + Luomo + Cluster

Be it Microhouse, Tech House, Dubstep, Glitch, Minimal or any other myriad of Techno, Berliners know electronica. While not all of the artists on this compilation are natives, the disc was, however, mixed by Bpitch owner, Mistress/High Priestess/Early Grandmother of Berlintech, Ellen Allien. So what’s so special? Though these tracks contain a beat, familiar rhythmic couplings, synth stabs and the other basic elements of all dance music, there is a mysterious sheen, something just “off” that makes this gathering of sub-genres unique. For example, the bass drum isn’t so up front and refuses to pummel, allowing a pleasant Sunday morning headphone mix if you so desire; dusty, swirling textures flicker in and out and make for something just as interesting to those who make this fare as well as those who sweat to it. Not your average party jam, Boogy Bytes might even undo the years American ruined electronica. – Dave Madden

Meat Beat Manifesto
Autoimmune
Metropolis
Street: 4.08
Meat Beat Manifesto = Consolidated + DJ Shadow + Public Enemy

MBM’s Jack Dangers has, from the beginning, continued to hone his panoply of ideas with each release, sometimes dedicating whole albums to just one of them (i.e. dub on In Dub, the use of his EMS Synthi 100 on R.U.O.K?). His practice makes perfect, as demonstrated on Autoimmune, a culmination of the 21-year-old MBM mythology. The hip-hop of “Young Cassius” tears apart your speakers with vocoders, spine-bending breaks and an MC (Young Cassius) tough enough to handle it; “Hellfire”, “62 Dub” and “Guns ‘n’ Lovers” feature enough bass and lugubrious backdrop sounds to make Scorn blush; MBM’s trademark scratchy spoken-word samples abound, particularly on “Solid Waste” where Dangers takes his fierce, punctuating, circa 1992 raps (Satyricon) and explodes, both politically and musically, alongside baller-ass turntable scratches. Some artists can get away with recycling concepts, especially when said old tricks are creative light years away from anyone else on the planet. – Dave Madden

The Microphones
The Glow, Pt. 2 (Remastered)
K Records
Street: 4.08
The Microphones = Robot Ate Me + Swans

For those who missed out the first time around in 2001, The Glow, Pt. 2 is Phil Elvrum’s magnum opus as far as his The Microphones project is concerned (currently he’s Mount Eerie). His approach for this album is a complex simplicity that few singer-songwriters get right: diary-style lyrics that silence everything around you, supple acoustic guitar and ornate orchestration that pours shame into those who didn’t try harder during sound recording classes. Panned guitars, field recordings, room noise and all manner of “kitchen-sink” instruments are all manipulated and made subservient to Elvrum’s words and concepts (“Something” and “Something (cont.)” also stands as one of the greatest sad-and-gorgeous to noisy-and-ominous interludes ever recorded). For those who already own it: you get a splendid bonus disc of “other songs” and “destroyed versions” Elvrum wrote during that time. Rarely has being so lonely, cold and heartbroken felt and sounded so wonderful. – Dave Madden

Why?
Alopecia
Anticon
Street: 3.11
Why? = cLOUDDEAD + Beck + The Blow

Yoni Wolf aka Why? mastermind, once a force in the juggernaut “hip-hop” outfit cLOUDDEAD (someone once said “they are to hip-hop as Nirvana is to, say, the blues”), returns with more of the same obtuse songwriting he has displayed since he began. He can create interest out of nothing, offering commentary on the minutia of everything from kitchen towels to white-boy auto-erotic literature (“only look at black and Puerto-Rican porno/’cuz they want something that their dad don’t got”) to sleeping positions, all subjects he flits between in a stream-of-consciousness fashion. Together with Andrew Broder and Austin Brown, Wolf complements his words with a mélange of hip-hop, new wave and twang, the trio capably realizing all sorts of mix-and-match experiments. After dozens of solo and group releases, Why? still manages to work a niche that thrives on ambiguity, forged ingenuity and unassuming trinkets, their own genre that only they know how to work. – Dave Madden

Ghastly Hatchling
Writhe
Red Light Sound
Ghastly Hatchling = Black Dice + Sissy Spacek

It seems that everyone and his leather-clad dog in Salt Lake is a “noise band” these days. As you may have experienced, half of these follow the “turn on machines, wave hands around, tweak knobs in an angry fashion, call it a piece of music” aesthetic. Not so with Aaron Zillionaire’s (neé Smith) Ghastly Hatchling project, as his work reflects a masterful, patient human interaction with his instruments. He carefully guides his meager sonic source, the grinding skronk of a dumptruck shifting gears despite a blown clutch (or so it seems), while paying attention to tension, release, form, harmony, settling into and exploring the pitch of each screech before moving onto new ideas during the near-twenty-two minute “Ergot, Belladonna, and Cakecrumbs” and six-minute coda, “Laminated Testicles and Blown Fuses”. On Writhe, Smith shows that he understands development, augmentation, cadences, intriguing soundscapes and everything else that makes for interesting music. – Dave Madden

Evangelista
Hello, Voyager
Constellation
Street: 3.11
Evanvelista = (literally) Carla Bozulich + Godspeed You! Black Emperor

Hello, Voyager is not some cliché of healing, yet there is a sense of satisfaction in the growl of this disjointed flotilla of mangled orchestration, string quintets, stark intimate songs and eidolic production. There is a moment a few minutes into the last track, a determined pile of percussion, trumpet, hushed feedback, shouts-turned-to-screams, background yelps and staccato guitar discharges, when you hear Carla Bozulich, say “ow!” (a drumming injury, I’m told). This is the same word going through your head as you peep from behind your hands during the previous eight tracks. It is not, however, the “ow” as in “ow, what a broken-hearted song” you felt on Bozulich and brilliant company’s previous record, Evangelista (so much to communicate, still, they named the band after the album, perhaps). Now, the “ow” is the one you scream as you jump from the window of your drunk daddy’s burning house. Yes, he is inside. – Dave Madden

MGMT
Oracular Spectacular
Columbia
Street: 1.22
MGMT = Tubeway Army + MSTRKRFT

Immediate, seemingly-shallow lyrics with step-on-your-genitals vocals over sophisticated early era Gary Numan style synth-pop? Here is a list of who will (or already does) dig MGMT: girls, girls on coke at clubs, dudes in tight jeans who think it is acceptable to copulate in club bathrooms with girls on coke, girls who like Erasure, dudes who like Burial, dudes who can pick House and Progressive and Trance out of a lineup, people who think Moby is underrated, people who know one Aphex Twin song, people who claim to love electronica but have never heard of Autechre, people who love Justice, droves of people who like it for all the wrong reasons (see above), critics who want something new but just barely new (see Burial), critics who will, eventually, secretly concede that the disc “has some worthwhile traits” after hating it because so many stupid people like it for the wrong reasons. – Dave Madden

Take
Plus Ultra EP
Inner Current
Street: 12/07
Take = Flying Lotus + Nobody

Dublab darling Take works a slab chipped of the instrumental hip-hop (aka stonertronica) genre: at once, the music reflects the soft, frigid aspects of IDM, the rhythmic snap of hip-hop and the spiritual free-flow of Sun Ra. And yes, it could be the soundtrack to a mushroom-fueled camping trip, dreamy enough to calm your anxiety but intricate enough to give those dancing lights on the tent corporeal mass. This EP is a collection of remixes from Take’s Earthtones & Concrete, all worked by fellow L.A. beatologists such as Daedelus and Ras G. A problem with a lot in this brand of music, the mellow nature here is sometimes too self-effacing and subdued, rendering the music as background noise for a hip sushi bar. However, the tracks wrapped in arresting personality (the game show disco of “You High (Daedelus RMX)”, the wah-wah’d bass-driven “Slouched Over 12” Edit”) overshadow any weaknesses and warrant the price of the purchase. – Dave Madden

2008-03-06T08:58:00.000-08:00

Liars

2008-03-02T08:30:00.000-08:00

Reviews for this month

2008-01-28T14:40:00.000-08:00

My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless
Mike McGonigal
Continuum
Street: 10.07

Loveless is author Mike McGonigal’s tale as much as it is about this immortal record and even more legendary band. Beginning with a frozen moment where he was mentally baptized by the “noise stretch inside of ‘You Made Me Realize’” at a 1992 MBV concert, McGonogal investigates, via conversations with those involved in the making of the album, how MBV developed their sound (it’s a tremolo bar, not effects!), how they spent time during the two years it took to finish Loveless, the disintegration of Kevin Shields’ and guitarist/vocalist Bilinda Butcher’s relationship and the controversy surrounding the band’s ties with pre-Oasis-signing Creation Records. Between McGonigal’s quips and research and Shields’ retorts (Shields actually halted the book at the press to clarify facts), the essay is inviting enough to inspire even tenuous fans (like myself) to revisit this magenta-colored record – even if just to test Shields’ claim that the “vocals sound the same, at any volume”. – Dave Madden

Joe Gilmore
On Quasi-Convergence and Quiet Space
Cut
Street: 9.07
Joe Gilmore = Kaffe Matthews + Joe Henderson

Quite often, the results of computer “improvisations” end up as cacophonous sound clusters, a purge of the performer’s hard drive and an attempt to see how much of the “Abyss of Freedom” he can explore. Not so with Joe Gilmore’s latest work, an artist who opts for restraint and prudence instead of chaos and indulgent abandon. Just as the bebop masters of the 1940’s preferred to mine life from harmonic scales, hitting chromatic tones and non-sequential notes for dashes of color, Gilmore works within a tonality of sorts for each of these tracks, all pieces built from mulched hums, microphone manipulations, sine tone ripples, echoes and clicking misfires. Though the sounds are interesting enough alone, his use of economical, classic musique concréte techniques – simple panning, phasing, augmentation and reversal, not masturbatory DSP abuse – furthers the appeal. Gilmore’s work is a stunning path marked by subtle furrows and dimples, not wild exclamations. – Dave Madden

Norbert Moslang
<>
Cut
Street: 9.07
Norbert Moslang = Oval + David Tudor + James Tenney

Norbert Moslang’s extramusical processes, the concepts behind what and why he makes what he makes, generally contend with the actual results for the role of importance; this would be a crutch of sorts if his aural payoff wasn’t just as captivating as his ideas. Translating light into sound, Moslang “changed the headers of video stills from Swiss video artist Silvie Defraoui to create sound files”. The outcome is seven varying drones, all but two punctuated with an initializing pop (similar to an igniting light-bulb). From here, each of these pieces becomes immediately stifling, demanding attention in the same hypnotic way La Monte Young used to entice listeners into enduring an hour of a single perfect fifth; sparks turn to psychoacoustic, torrid swells, and time stands still in anticipation of hairline progressions. Ranging from stark and monophonic to lugubrious and contrapuntal, Moslang has once again created the sublime from irregular means. – Dave Madden

Rafter
Sex, Death Cassette
Asthmatic Kitty
Street: 1.22
Rafter = Beck + Elliott Smith + Isaac Brock

Artist Jonathan Dueck deserves a gold star for his artwork on this album, as he properly captures what will take 150 words to describe: tye-dyed skulls, swollen hearts, cassettes photoshopped with oversaturated colors, a horizon overtaken by blue trees and what appear to be Legos and two photos of Rafter Roberts, one from the headphones up, one at a four-track recorder sums up this collage-work album. Following a poppier, less liberally disjunct direction than his previous record, Roberts now first seduces with cooing vocals, lulling you with gorgeous timbre in front of a backdrop of, say, Mariachi rhythms and drums constructed from thumping a microphone (“Casualty of BOC”). Alright, maybe you could use the tag “unconventional” here, but Roberts’s confidence on the microphone, both lyrically and vocally, is a terrific addition to his lawless instrumentation, and he furthers his mythology as the guy taking Beck’s early experiments where they could have gone. – Dave Madden

Liars interview

2008-01-27T12:46:00.000-08:00

Me
Liars Interview
Pants on Fire
1-18-08

While interviewing Yeah Yeah Yeahs in 2002, I asked the old “what are you listening to these days?” question and, for the first time, I was rewarded with a promising answer: “Liars”. That night, my first encounter with Liars, proved so exciting and intense and unique, I had to lie on the grass outside the venue and skip John Spencer Blues Explosion.

Having seen Liars five times, I suppose it is, by default, my favorite band. Despite the constant location jumping and chameleon act (from headshaking and bass-driven to introverted, grimy, singing about Witches to essentially percussion-based to their latest album, Liars, an immediate, riff-heavy thumper that reminds you of what it was like to discover rock at age thirteen), the band just gets more and more interesting to me.

As icing, they’re just damned nice guys who let you chat them up at the merch booth (guilty) when they would probably rather knock off and get drunk. This conversation with multi-instrumentalist/co-founder Aaron Hemphill is no exception, as he graciously talked with me about his label, Mute Records, experimental music and my disdain for New York.

Q: So first off, do you guys really have assistants and people connecting calls, or are you really sitting in a minivan in front of your house right now?"

(There is a little confusion, as Aaron doesn’t realize that Mute Records called me then connected our call to him, like a civilian to The President.)

A: “Oh! Yeah, it’s not like that. The Mute people have a big coordinated thing, like, it has to go through them so they know about the interview. I guess it just helps them know what’s going on and so people can be directed to the magazine. So it’s good for the article and the band, I guess.”

Q: I’ve just never had anything this formal before.

A: [Laughs] “I think it’s a lot smaller scale than one would imagine. I think that the mention of a press agent might make the Mute people imagine this elaborate, Kafka-esque world of piled files and taped conversations.”

Q: Plus, you don’t want anyone to have your home phone.

A: “I don’t care about that: I never answer my phone anyway [Laughs.]”

Q: Mute seems pretty good about promotion and such. Is it nice to have someone else doing all the leg work or would you rather be more hands on?

A: “No, there are things we want to be involved in and things we realize we’re not good at. We’re not really interested in stretching the boundaries of The Interview.”

Q: So how was it when you were first signed to Mute? I can imagine being a little intimidated by it, suddenly being on the same roster as Depeche Mode.

A: “Well I didn’t think it was for real. We were on Gern Blandsten at the time. I remember we got an email and Angus is all, ‘Yeah, we have some email from Mute’ – I don’t think he had heard of Mute at the time.”

Q: [Laughs]

A: “Or if he did, he didn’t know what it meant. I was like, ‘What? Blast First Mute? Yeah, right, whatever. Just tell him yeah, sure, come to our show: if you’re going to joke around like that, come over and buy us dinner.’ I didn’t really take it seriously. I grew up listening to a lot of that stuff, and I was familiar with Blast First, a lot. I didn’t really think bands got signed that way, you know? But now, after being in a band so long, and after seeing friends’ bands get signed, I think bands definitely get signed by some guy going to their show and all these ways that you think are so archaic. I mean if you send a demo to Mute, and they like it, they’ll sign you. I didn’t think it worked that way: I thought you had to know somebody. But as big as Mute is, they’re based on these old school ideals.”

Q: I find it really cool that they have Nick Cave and all these big bands yet they’re still out scouting for bands.

A: “Well, yeah, Daniel (Miller), the founder and president of it, does it like everyone who loves music should do it, as if nothing ever happened and he didn’t have this huge roster of groundbreaking bands. He just does it as if he’s still a fan.”

Q: Really cool. I can imagine him being intimidating. He helped mix your last album – at least – right?

A: “He listens to them all very carefully [Laughs.] And he offers suggestions, and whether or not we want to take them is completely up to us, but, generally, with someone like that who we all have respect for creatively, even if it’s something we never thought of, if it comes from him it’s not like it’s coming from some suit who doesn’t know anything about music. So we’ll definitely take it. He’s very close to us in that sense where we’ll just think about it, like ‘Oh I didn’t think about putting a phaser on this or blah blah on that’. You just think about it because it’s him and he’s so sensitive and attentive.”

Q: And he wrote “Warm Leatherette”!

A: “That’s just the tip of the iceberg! He’s been part of things that you don’t even know, like he didn’t want to take credit for. I mean some people are very zealous about production credits and he is not; he’s very humble and just works really hard. I’m sure there are records on Mute that you thought were produced by someone else and he’s probably had a major hand in the way those things sound. It is intimidating at first, but the more we’ve gotten to know him, it’s just really valuable: if he likes something then it means so much on many different levels. If he doesn’t like something then we really have to believe in something like, ‘we believe in this so we’re going against that’ if we’re not going to take his suggestions. It just ups the ante of how much his pointers mean to us, which is an awful lot.”

Q: Well, like you said, he’s not some suit. He’s the boss, but he hasn’t forgotten that he was there, just making music, it seems.

A: “Right. He’s just a pretty amazing guy so whatever he says, we value pretty highly. And not just, ‘The boss man doesn’t want this’, but, “Daniel, this really humble and incredible musician suggests this, or appreciates that’.”

Q: Your new album is nominated for “Avant Album of Year” for the PLUG Independent Music Awards. Do you think of yourselves as experimental, or are you sick of people putting that label on you just because you use creative sounds?

A: [Laughs] “We’re always asked about being put into categories and what we think about it, and I think that’s changed; we recognize that, in order to talk about music or pass along music, you need that. It used to bother us, and then it didn’t. It’s funny you mention that award because I don’t have any idea how big this thing is, or if anyone knows what it is. But we do notice that we do get put in the avant garde category and it makes us [Pauses] not mad, but like what the hell are you talking about? To spare you a long run-on rant of what I think is experimental music, it’s like [Laughs] why can’t we just make a normal record? Maybe some of that is our fault because we wear dumb outfits onstage, or throw guitars at each other. I think we take it as a positive thing, or more ‘this is what it sounds like to other people and we think it’s normal’.”

Q: Well you’ve had experience with going to the edge of avant garde music and coming back; most people haven’t experienced (experimental guitarist) Keith Rowe. But because your song is on the radio and it’s “weirder” than everyone else’s – I actually think the latest Britney Spears song is weirder…

A: “Yeah! I think with our (latest) stuff we were really shooting to, not primarily to get out of that category, but just to have people forget about all this other stuff and listen to the song. I think that is a characteristic of rock or pop; you don’t, with that kind of music, hear ‘oh, well did you know that this is two tape machines going out of phase?’ And so I think that maybe we have to try harder. We just want to make songs like that, (that) are just enjoyable. At this point we want to do that – it wasn’t like that before.”

Q: Well don’t change too much. Rather, just keep on changing the way you naturally would.

A: “Oh no, we certainly wouldn’t change in reaction to that. It’s just like, god, what the hell is so experimental about this record?”

Q: From experiences I’ve had with New York, the cool thing to do is hate things before they even become remotely big, or anyone hears about them. Did you find a lot of that while living in New York?

A: [Laughs, hard] “You find that everywhere, not just New York, all the people who supposedly listen to music when it’s more about the social element of what music you listen to and how you can choose friends through that. Those same people probably think it’s okay to like The Strokes now, after they hated on them, you know what I mean? Now, it’s a more rapidly moving sort of hate/love/hate thing. Remember when Nirvana got big and then after a long time it was okay to like them and not get bagged on by your friends? That cycle moves so fast now, for some reason, and the music comes out so quickly. I think it’s all dumb, and I don’t think those kinds of people are intrinsic to New York: those people are in every single town.”

Q: We definitely do that here in Salt lake too, but we’re kind of isolated and have to wait six months for a band from New York to tour before we can hate on them.

A: [Laughs] “Right.”

Q: Everyone paints Berlin as this scene with open arms: did you find it as such?

A: (Pauses) “As far as music is concerned, like this type of music that we do, or scene, or whatever, it’s the same. I mean there are a lot of people who are open to new ideas and then there are a lot of people who do the same shit, you know? I don’t want to generalize that to any city, like “oh that’s the quality of that city: Berlin is open-minded, New York is closed-minded and jaded.” Because I think there are smart people everywhere and there are dumb people everywhere. I feel like it’s a comfort zone for people to look for things to kill being surprised by anything, especially with music. ‘This guy produced this so it should something like that’, and that’s stage one. Stage two is it’s on that label so it should roughly sound like this; oh they’re from New York so they’re jaded and assholes, okay. You know what I mean? It’s almost like they want it over with before they even hear it. That goes with what you’re saying that people hate bands before they’re even known. I think cities are now as big a deal in that as who produced your record. I think it’s just all these ways to not experience the music and be surprised, or not, by it, and not having that interaction with it when you listen to it. It’s all this other sort of calculating before-hand junk.”

Q: Well, funny enough, the people I know in New York who do this are all transplants. They’re making this mythology based on what they think it should be [Laughs.]

A: “Right! It’s all these factors with which people judge the band on. There are people at shows before they’ve even heard the music and they’re going to be happy to hang out with other people with whom those factors clear with their taste. Like, ‘Oh if you’re cool with that label and them being from that town and this guy producing it then why do we even need to hear it? Let’s just hang out get drunk at the bar.’ To me, that’s just all stuff I want to avoid.

Berlin is great if you make it great. There are just some cities where you can’t make it great, but I think it’s all how a person works it. That’s how I would rather look at it, and that’s how Angus (Andrews, singer) sees it, as well. Because any time you put comfort in (relying on a place to do the work), that’s just bad.”

Q: I have a request: will you play “We Fenced Other Gardens With the Bones of Our Own”?

A: “Yeah, we always play that song!”

Q: You didn’t on the Interpol tour, but I assumed it didn’t happen because it was a short set.

A: “Are you sure we didn’t play it?”

Q: Yeah.

A: “Really?”

Q: I kept waiting and talking to everyone about it.

A: “Something must have been something really wrong that night because we always play it. But we’ll play it this time. I promise.”

Q: Does everyone in the world go nuts for that song like they do here in Salt Lake? It’s kind of your tour hit.

A: [Laughs] “Yeah, they do. But to be modest, I think it’s one of those rare moments where you can decipher what’s being said and people become elated and they’re not frustrated with ‘well I’m at the show, and I still don’t know what he’s saying or what that thing is doing’.”

Q: Well they know there is a chorus of “fly, fly: the Devil’s in your eye” coming up.

A: [Laughs] “Yeah, yeah.”

Q: On the Drum’s Not Dead tour, Julian’s (Gross) drum kit kept falling over during that song. Your tech kept running out and setting it up. I bet it was a pain for Julian, but we just ate it up. But he had a new, shiny drum kit on the last tour.

A: “I think it was the same (kit).

Q: Alright, well take the latches off so it falls over this time.

A: “Maybe he’s just playing softer because he’s gotten wimpy [Laughs.] He’s a wuss. God, I gotta tell him that: ‘This guy from Salt Lake says you hit weak now’. Or maybe he was trying not to sweat so much to look cool.”

Q: For all the Interpol girls.

A: “Yeah, yeah. Jesus! You went to that show: what did you think of Interpol?”

Q: I didn’t stick around for their whole set because I’m not the biggest fan. Their set was really calculated and a weird juxtaposition against you guys.

A: “Huh.”

Q: I know I was a little puzzled when I read you were touring with them.

A: “I don’t think fans of Interpol knew who we were [Laughs.]”

Q: Well I was at the top of the stairs off to the side of the stage and I could see everyone watching you. There were tons of people in front of the stage, no one was really moving, their mouths were open, but they were there, nonetheless.

A: “That was a great tour, for that reason.”

2008-01-22T11:52:00.000-08:00

This is the latest group I'm obsessed with. Uh, by latest I mean to me: they formed in 1965

"The Art Ensemble of Chicago is an avant-garde jazz ensemble that grew out of Chicago's AACM in the late 1960s. The group continues to tour and record through 2006, despite the deaths of two of the founding members.

The Art Ensemble is notable for its members' use of costumes and face paint in performance. Also of note is the Ensemble's multi-instrumentalism, especially the use of what they termed "little instruments" in addition to the traditional jazz lineup; "little instruments" can include bicycle horns, bells, birthday party noisemakers, wind chimes, and a vast array of percussion instruments (including found objects). These two characteristics combine to make the ensemble's performances as much a visual spectacle as an aural one, with each musician playing from behind a large array of drums, bells, gongs, and other instruments. When playing in Europe in 1969, the group were using more than 500 instruments. "

I wish I had an ill Association of Creative Musicians where I could find people to form a group like this...

new Autechre album

2008-01-09T15:58:00.000-08:00

Autechre Offer Up Quaristice Tracklist, Tour

British electronic duo Autechre have announced the tracklist for their forthcoming LP, Quaristice, and, surprise surprise, it's as oblique as the album title itself (which, after all, is a word they made up). From "Altibzz" to "Outh9X", each of its 20 titles could very well be the name of a prescription drug, a failed search engine, or an early prototype of beloved talking robot Johnny 5. Sounds like Autechre to us!

Quaristice emerges March 3 from Warp on CD and double-LP. And, while they were making with the details, Autechre let us in on another juicy tidbit: a world tour! From the end of February through mid-April, Rob Brown and Sean Booth will bring the 'tech to the UK, Eastern and Western Europe, and North America.

Quaristice:

01 Altibzz
02 The Plc
03 IO
04 Plyphon
05 Perlence
06 SonDEremawe
07 Simmm
08 Paralel Suns
09 Steels
10 Tankakern
11 Rale
12 Fol3
13 fwzE
14 90101-51-1
15 bnc Castl
16 Theswere
17 WNSN
18 chenc9
19 Notwo
20 Outh9X

Autech-tour:

02-29 Manchester, England - Music Box
03-01 Glasgow, Scotland - Arts School
03-02 Newcastle, England - Digital
03-03 Birmingham, England - Med Bar
03-04 London, England - TBC
03-05 Cologne, Germany - Stattgarten
03-06 Amsterdam, Netherlands - Melkweg
03-07 Antwerp, Belgium - Petrol
03-08 Hamburg, Germany - Hafenklang
03-09 Berlin, Germany - Berghain
03-10 Katowice, Poland - Jazz Club
03-11 Budapest, Hungary - Merlin
03-12 Zagreb, Croatia - Kset
03-13 Graz, Austria - Post Garade
03-14 Turin, Italy - Hiroshima
03-15 Rome, Italy - TBC
03-16 Bologna, Italy - Kindergarten
03-17 Lyon, France - Epicerie Moderne
03-18 Strasbourg, France - La Laiterie
03-19 Paris, France - Rex Club
03-20 Geneva, Switzerland - L'Usine (Electron Festival)
04-04 Los Angeles, CA - Echoplex *
04-05 San Francisco, CA - Mezzanine *
04-06 Portland, OR - Doug Fir *
04-07 Seattle, WA - Neumos *
04-08 Vancouver, British Columbia - Richards on Richards *
04-11 Chicago, IL - The Abbey *
04-12 Toronto, Ontario - Lees Palace *
04-13 Montreal, Quebec - Club Soda *
04-14 Cambridge, MA - Middle East Downstairs *
04-15 Brooklyn, NY - Music Hall of Williamsburg *
04-16 Philadelphia, PA - Transit *
04-17 Washington, DC - Black Cat *

Karlheinz Stockhausen R.I.P.

2007-12-10T07:52:00.000-08:00

You set the bar for tape music; I got excited about Musique Concrete because of you; I hated you for your ridiculously verbose liner notes, your explanations of your processes/systems bored me, but your music was always enthralling.

Renowned German composer and electronic music pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen passed away December 5 at his home in Kuerten, Germany, according to statement released today by Stockhausen-Verlag. He was 79.

Born August 22, 1928 in a village near Cologne, Stockhausen rose to prominence in the 1950s with a number of pieces that broke decidedly with convention. Across a career that extended into this century, he invoked both awe and controversy with his unorthodox works, noted for their innovation and complexity.

A man content to exist outside the classical establishment, Stockhausen saw his influence extend beyond it as well. Among his advocates were the Beatles, who included the composer on the collage cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

The 362 works Stockhausen composed include the world's longest opera cycle (Licht, completed in 2003), the first annotated and published piece of electronic music (1954's Electronic Study II), and a piece for string quartet that also called for four helicopters (1993's Helicopter String Quartet). Like John Cage, he demonstrated a fascination with aleatory composition, that which accounts for an element of chance. Early in his career he was also a proponent of serialism, composition based on mathematical formulas.

Stockhausen studied under Olivier Messiaen and Les Six member Darius Milhaud, among others. He was a highly respected teacher as well, whose students included several of krautrock's prominent figures, including Can's Holger Czukay and Irmin Schmidt.

"In friendship and gratitude for everything that he has given to us personally and to humanity through his love and his music," wrote longtime collaborators Suzanne Stephens and Kathinka Pasveer in the Stockhausen-Verlag statement, "we bid farewell to Karlheinz Stockhausen, who lived to bring celestial music to humans, and human music to the celestial beings, so that Man may listen to God and God may hear His children."

Licht will be performed in its entirety for the first time at October 2008's Donaueschingen Festival in Germany.

2007-11-29T16:03:00.000-08:00

Hahahaha. I am not much of a Simpson's fan anymore, but this is pretty clever, the producers assuming that the audience has actually seen the original.

ps This song was my karaoke tune of choice for about two months in a row.

Here is the original, just in case.

Dizzee Rascal "Sirens"

2007-11-13T11:17:00.000-08:00

I can see the director pitching this: "it's like Time Bandits meets 8 Mile." Horses riding around in houses, dudes stripping off coats, fox hunters sexually wiping pelts on girls faces.