Friday, December 21, 2007

Ladies Of The 80s @ Go Bar 2nite with DJ Mahogany

I'm sweetly out of control...after a sweaty night @ work. I'll be heading to the GO Bar to play some sexxxy ladies from the 80s. I know the tall one is throwing a bash at his new digs, but I hope all of you can come by. For what to expect, see example below...

Not that you need another one of these...

Some of my favorite records and downloads from 2007:

1. The Mixtape Messiah 3-Chamillionaire
Basically a record of Chamillionaire rapping over all the shitty songs they constantly play on your local contemporary adult rap station and making them sound awesome. “Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em,” in which he threatens to walk away from it all, bored even with himself, is my song of the year.
2. Sachiko Kanenobu
If some American record company had the foresight to package and market this in the same way that Fat Cat approached Vashti Bunyan they would have a record of similar success and maybe a revival tour with Jim O’Rourke and Lee Ranaldo as the backup band. Kanenobu was kind of the Japanese Joni Mitchell. If I had a proper back porch, or front porch, I would probably just put this one on repeat, grab a gin and tonic, and space out for a few hours.
3. Strange Strings (reissue)-Sun Ra
Great Alabamians: Henry Aaron, MB, Truman Capote, Courtney Cox, Sun Ra.
3.5 Batman and Robin-Sun Ra and the Blues Project
French reissue of a Batman-themed jazz record by a band helmed by THEE man. Available for download here.
4. Piasa…Devourer of Men-Original Film Score by Sun City Girls
Sun City Girls being Sun City Girls which, in this case, means weird, primal soundscapes that show they’ve been to South Asia a good bit.
4. Live at the Secret Squirrel-Ham1
By the end of the set the band is so drunk they can’t finish. The promoter apologizes. Makes me miss Athens.
5. Faust IV (expanded reissue)
My favorite krautrockers next to Can.
6. 8 Diagrams Mixtape-Wu Tang Clan with Mathematics
Not as necessary as 8 Diagrams but more fun in some ways.
7. Ask Forgiveness-Bonnie Prince Billie
Bonnie does Robert Kelly. Not as good as when he did “Ignition” at Orange Twin but still worth it.
8. New MIA-MIA
9. Kabuki & Other Traditional Music-Nonesuch’s Explorer series doesn’t carry the same cultural capital as the Sun City Girls' Sublime Frequencies label but I’m guessing it’s just as essential. The covers are gorgeous, the liner notes more than adequate. And the sounds…
9. III-The Meat Puppets, The Chronic-Dr. Dre, Born Innocent-Redd Kross
Trilogy of California records I felt compelled to buy when I moved to LA. Saccharine Trust’s Pagonicons is next on the list. Along with Appetite.
10. Lohengrin (prelude)-Wagner
First part of a romantic opera by every frat boys’ favorite Apocalypse Now soundtracker. Heard this for the first time when I went to get cultured at the Disney Concert Hall. Was blown away immediately. Like most his stuff that I’ve heard it sounds like fairies and banshees and lorelai’s and will-o-wisp’s. If you know what I mean.
14. Super Roots 1-9 (reissues)-Boredoms
Both the Beatles and the Boredoms are now seen, wrongly I think, to have started out with seemingly amateur and rowdy approaches to music and moved on to more accomplished and exotic explorations. If you follow that logic, though, I guess Super Roots is kind of the Boredoms’ Revolver, though I like it a bit more.
15. Kings of the Memphis Underground Vol. 3-Triple Six Mafia
16. In Rainbows-Radiohead
If you live in our country you probably have an opinion on this one by now, whether or not you’ve heard it. I actually really like it. I don’t really expect to change your mind either way. People seem to really worship Radiohead or really resent the fact that other people worship them. Both arguments have their limits. And merits. Either way, I would put IR at #2 in the band’s catalog, right under that little thing they put out somewhere around 1997.
17. Wizard of Ahhs-Black Kids
Robert Smith plus Buddy Holly.
18. BOR Temple-The Boredoms
Down the street from my house there’s a building that, at night, when the lights are on, features a sign that reads BOR TEMPLE in glowing green. I always thought this was kind of cool, and kind of weird. It took a close sidewalk walk to discover that it actually says LABOR TEMPLE. Anyway, I thought it was a good title for this Boredoms comp I made out of various Boredom and Boredom-related stuff I found on the internet.
19. Trees Outside the Academy-Thurston
One of those records that feels like it was made in a weekend in someone’s living room.
20.Wild Gals A Go Go-Acid Mothers Temple & The Melting Paraiso U.F.O.
"Soundtrack" I purchased from the title band a few minutes after watching them put on what might be my show of the year at the Earl.

Monday, December 17, 2007

The Lovelite Is Sweetly Out Of Control

Hi all,

Reno's back and I thought the board could be sauced up a little bit more. I used to watch this video back in the day on BET all the time on Video Soul. I recently tracked down the video & came to find out that this wasn't the version I remember seeing. Be careful where you watch this & enjoy...

Saturday, December 15, 2007

White Boys Love Snoop

Here's the new Snoop video as requested by the tall one...

Reno is baaack...

Friday, December 07, 2007

YO LA TENGO...

...is playing at the melting point on 1/14/08. this tour is mostly accoustic, "storyteller" type sets; reviews have been stellar. get your tickets here. not a huge venue, i imagine it will sell out. so get on it.

Thursday, December 06, 2007

supremes v. gitmo (part 3):

of all the shit the bushies have done that last 6+ years since 9/11, guantanamo bay might be the most clearly and fundamentally wrong. not as morally and viscerally appauling as abu ghraib, not as historically catastrophic like iraq in general, but probably the most clearly misguided, illegal, and frankly... unamerican. obviously this is no original thought (this point has been made by many, many times over, including by myself on this very blog). but can you really believe that our government's official stance is that they can take prisoners and hold them in military prisons, forever, without letting them see the evidence against them or consult with an attorney? this is an executive power reach that george orwell might find implausible; it is genuinely medieval. it's the kind of thing that makes you wonder if we're on the "right" side of things in any sense.

the supreme court is hearing a guantanamo case...again. let's hope the get it right...again. and that this time it sticks.

Monday, December 03, 2007

irrelevance:

recently mc2, 22, and i conspired to create entries for both astra and the sauce on wikipedia. i constructed them as even-handedly as possible, with checkable citations to flagpole, myspace, this blog, etc. however, both pages were "tagged for immediate deletion" [due to irrelevance] within like a day of posting them.

i'm contemplating a "PUSH!" entry, though i can't imagine it would fair any better.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

Fuck.

In the latest of a long line of terrible trades my favorite team just traded a talented 23 year old outfielder with speed and power and hip hop album cred for a catcher (Brian Schneider) who batted .235 last year and a part time right fielder (Ryan Church) who told a newspaper last year that his ex-girlfriend was going to hell. This is the same team that traded Nolan Ryan, Kevin Mitchell (2 years before his monster '89 season), Lenny Dykstra (2 years before his monster '91 season) and Scott Kazmir (who Bill James calls a shorter Steve Carlton). Lastings could be a little loud and might have pissed off some teams with his celebrations but come on...he's FUCKING 23. Sorry. Just having a hard time digesting this given the recent and long term history of the Mets. The only way this works out is if the Mets trade Church for Johan Santana or if Schneider has the winning hit in the World Series. Both seem a little unlikely. I'll miss you LMillz.