June 30th, 2009
Over the next two days, we’ll be unleashing exactly what the word doesn’t need: more Michael Jackson tributes. First up, Douglas Martin will be starting something.
Sometime during either 1987 or 1988, I was standing on a playground. Clad in a black shirt, one of those plastic fedoras that came with an old Halloween costume, and high-water pants that showed a pair of white socks, I turned the boombox on. The drum fill at the beginning immediately turned every head within earshot as I did a little front-kick and started strutting around the blacktop. Halfway through the first verse, everyone on the playground stood three feet away from my stage. Parents off in the distance kept an eye and a safe distance away, but the idea of a four-or-five-year-old Douglas Martin lip-syncing, “I’ll pick you up in my car,” made them chuckle aloud.
I was at full-swing by the time the chorus came up, and was unexpectedly joined by a couple of new friends eager to sing backup during the call-and-response chorus. Upon the breakdown, I stomped my feet on every downbeat, screaming, “GO ON GIRL!” as six girls around my age strutted past me, waving their makeshift fans made of wide-ruled notebook paper, all shimmying to the drums. The thing I undoubtedly miss most about my prepubescent life is that I could nail those “hee-hee’s” every single fucking time. By the last note, the enraptured playground audience gave me a round of applause. I probably would have gotten a standing ovation if they, um, weren’t already standing.
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June 29th, 2009
If we’re really going to go with purple as the new catch-all appellation for the ultra-violet beats bouncing out of Bristol, let’s at least acknowledge the real reason why the tag emerged: these guys must be smoking so much purple haze as to make Cam’ron seem Mennonite (no Freaky Ezekiel).
Should he keep up this sort of prolificacy, PotW may turn into an all-Joker, all-the-time blog. If only he and Jim Jones can collaborate on a remix that includes a vocal chop of the phrase “THAT PURPLE!” my existence will be complete.
Download:
ZIP: Joker-Live @ Sonar 09
Via Pinglewood
MP3: The Heavy-”How You Like Me Now (Joker Radio Edit)”
More Videos Below the Jump
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June 29th, 2009
Britt Daniel is a musical McGyver smoker. Give him a greasy guitar line, a baby grand, a snare, and a snorkel, and watch the smoke soar. The titular single from Spoon’s new EP is wrapped with a tension tight as Asclepius’ snakes. Alfred Soto described the solo at the 1:05 minute mark, as “moving like a feather up the soles of my bare feet.” The piano line about fifteen seconds later finds that same feather floating up your spine.
Britt Daniel spits out that he’s “got nothing to lose but darkness and shadows.” His chaotic pop flickers as though it were engineered at the level of the central nervous system. The entire song seems like a gathering storm that fails to burst, but still shifts the tenor of an afternoon. Few bands know what they’re doing more than these guys. Of course, this is something.
Buy: Spoon-Got Nuffin EP
Download:
MP3: Spoon-”Got Nuffin”
Posted in Are You From the Lester Bangs School of Thought? | 3 Comments »
June 29th, 2009
Sach O rain fire pon chichi hipster soundbwoy bullshit. Seen.
Irony: go fuck yourself. Irony protects the ridiculous and shelters stupidity from scorn and criticism. Major Lazer is a self-consciously ironic project highlighting that for every successful intermingling of global musical trends, there’s a project so offensively presumptuous and musically incompetent that it’s a testament to our cultural failings that no one involved will get punched in the face for it.
The jist: Major Lazer is a dancehall compilation featuring A-list Jamaican deejays and production by Switch and Diplo, the beatmakers behind M.I.A and Santigold. Sounds good right? It’s also a sorta-concept album about a zombie fighting Jamaican commando who rides a rocket-powered skateboard. One assumes he wears a neon hoodie by whatever street wear company got involved in this mess. Do not buy their clothing.
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June 26th, 2009
Nick Rallo runs Whale Fight, one of Los Angeles’ finest new music blogs. He has no wooden teeth, nor has he chased Moby Dick. Though he does curate the John Asparagus Zine, which you can cop at Family and Sky Light Books, among other places.
A year ago, I was up at the Echo to see the Fleet Foxes. It was their first time in Los Angeles, so there was a lengthy line queuing up. While waiting, a friend of mine pointed out a young guy riding up on cheap bike, wearing a tweed jacket and slacks - and a banjo on his back. I assumed the guy was crazy. He had an iron burn on the back of his shirt. His banjo strap was made of rope.
This was the opening act the Fleet Foxes took on the road. His name is Frank Fairfield, and you can catch him around Los Angeles if you look. He plays in old bars, Churches, and at the Farmers Market with a coffee can at his feet. He has a radio show where he plays old 78s. I would compare his music to other bands, except the kind of music he plays pre-dates the music you listen to (and inspired it.)
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June 26th, 2009
When he’s not contributing to Metal Lungies, Hip-Hop is Read, or lecturing oblivious Ottowans on the meaning of Parklife, Aaron Matthews can be found at Canned Thinking.
Yeah yeah, the Auteurs never completely fit into the Britpop-as-cultural movement narrative, but by mining 60s and 70s English rock, their debut New Wave divined the future of the genre. But first things first.
Luke Haines toiled in C86 act, The Servants, for several years prior to forming the Auteurs in 1990. After gigging in and around London for a couple years, they got a deal with Hut Records. Their aforementioned debut saw the light of day in 1993, the same year of the dissolution of Madchester pioneers the Happy Mondays, the same year Oasis signed to Creation, the same year Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson died, the same year Sleepless in Seattle taught us how to love.
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June 25th, 2009
If M.J. wasn’t better than Prince, he’s the closest one. Expect a tribute to the late G.O.A.T. sometime next week. In the meantime, the second greatest music video he ever made (”Thriller” up top, obviously). The only consolation is that now Tito will finally get his chance to shine.
Download
MP3: Michael Jackson-”Remember the Time”
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June 25th, 2009
One of these days, I’ll do a lengthy sit-down interview with Spencer Krug and discover exactly why my favorite songwriter of the last decade is the exact antithesis of what I typically gravitate towards. Maybe it’s because we’re both Alex P. Keaton aficionados? I like the sometime Wolf Parader’s singing voice, but I’d be lying if he didn’t occasionally sound like a bleating billy goat. His songs are full of knotty art-rock pretensions and regularly boast patently absurd titles. If loving an album called Dragonslayer is wrong, then I want to be right.
Unfortunately, I will again reiterate that Spencer Krug is worthy of any and all attention he receives. If anything, the 8.3 BNM the Fork gave Sunset Rubdown’s new jaunt is probably a bit low for my tastes. Predictably, I rave about their recent Echoplex performance at Pop and Hiss. If you need me, I’ll be listening to Ironman to wash the indie out my ears–yes, this shit is raw.
LA Times: Live–Sunset Rubdown @ The Echoplex
MP3’s below the Jump
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June 25th, 2009
Between Randall Roberts’ West Coast Sound post and Reed Johnson’s Pop and Hiss post, you’ll find plenty of specifics, plus pictures. Besides, if you missed Femi Kuti, Santogold, and Saadiq last Sunday, you either live outside Southern California or you’re a huge fan of Million Dollar Password. In other news, Regis Philbin is alive? Who knew.
I’d rather pontificate on the notion of shadows, and how Femi Kuti escaped them on a honey-baked and halcyon summer night at the Bowl. I’d never listened to much Femi before Sunday, thanks to the same logic that’s led me to avoid Ziggy Marley like I avoid cess (unless it’s inside a blunt passed to me by 40-year old women at a DJ Quik concert–which by the way, thanks ladies.)
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Posted in Beards, Blazers, & Glasses | 1 Comment »
June 24th, 2009
Interview starts with a perfunctory, “how are you doing,” and segues into:
Quik: Man, I’m feeling great. We just finishing up lunch—drinking these Italian beers, you ever had a Menabrea. It’s like a cross between an Amber and a coffee-colored ale. We Patron heads so usually don’t drink much beer, but we feeling great.
How did you guys come together to make BlaQKout?
Kurupt: We was working on this record for Snoop’s album, and it was so banging we figured we should just make a whole album together. Quik was like, we can really do this, so we just locked up in the studio whenever we had the time and were off the road. It’s definitely got that classic Quik production, but I like that he took a different turn with his sound, and there’s just that chemistry between us that’s so good.
Quik: The first thing that I remember hearing from Kurupt was this song called “Sooo Much Style.” I was like this dude is hard. I knew Dogg Pound was going to blow and we toured and did all those shows together with 2Pac. But then it really hit me when I heard his collaboration with Battlecat on “We Can Freak It.” I had a $25,000 sound system in the trunk of my Ford Explorer. I think that record busted all the sub-woofers. I was a little mad at Battlecat for that.
I never lost that respect for him. He makes the kind of records that get better with time like a Pinot Noir, a real dope red wine. You can’t catch lightning in a bottle twice, so we tried to make our own Tesla Coil and bottle our own lightning.
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