Snowman

Just discovered this awesome band from Perth, Australia.

Miami Horror

Current musical obsession:



I'm a sucker for well-made, good honest pop (ie pop that knows it is pop). Miami Horror seem to do this. I was nervous about the video being trite, but it is quite funny.

RIP Trish Keenan of Broadcast

Goodbye to Trish Keenan of Broadcast

Over the last two years I'd gotten into some Broadcast. Last year's album with the Focus Group, Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age, was a shimmering, slightly unnerving yet at the same time pastoral piece of music that droned, wept and crept beneath the veils of avante and electro music to reveal some slightly folky undertones. Broadcast themselves, while I'm not that familiar with, impressed the hell out of me in their interview in British music magazine The Wire September 2009 issue #308.

Here's a link. Great people, great thinkers. Rest in Peace and my sympathies to all whose lives you've touched Ms. Keenan.

http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/3069/

A New Mix

Merry Christmas

Liars - Scissors

In reviewing my favorite albums of the year, this came back up. Such a FANTASTIC music video (I say that a lot on this blog, but not a lot in general).

Kylie Minogue Love At First Sight official video HQ

Yppah

I cannot stop listening to this album. I'll be posting a full review on my Chud blog soon, but Yppah's They Know What Ghost Know is on fire in my head and driving my fingers across the keys like break dancers across lily pads.

The music is mostly instrumental and possessed with a great vibe; exuberant, cheerful, triumphant and melodic even in it's oft break-beat breakdowns and traipsing sampledelia. They Know What Ghost Know is a perfect ying to another electro-ish album I've been courting for the better part of a year now's yang, Crystal Castles II. However where Yppah is happy Crystal Castles 2nd album is dark and brooding, almost terrifying at times (and I do not use that word loosely to describe music). There is an element of repressed fear and explosive release – as if an exorcist was called forth to bring the Poltergeist-like depths of singer Alice Glass' soul so that she could release critical inner tension, finally vomiting it out in garbled, often muffled screams and incoherent proclamation. I know that doesn't necessarily sound like what one would call 'Pop' music, but trust me, it is.

Then again I have a pretty different definition of what constitutes pop than many people. Although we all seem to agree on Kylie Minogue.

Grinderman & Faith No More Live!!!

This was a tough but glorious week. Working 6 days a week, long hours to boot, and two concert experiences with perhaps two of my most beloved musical influences/heroes on two consecutive days.

My love of Nick Cave is a more recent thing; I didn't 'get it' until a friend of my wife, then girlfriend, burned me a double whammy of 'And No More Shall We Part' & 'Let Love In' about seven years ago. But Faith No More... they are primordial for Shawn. And although I've seen Mike Patton in almost every other project he's had since I'd missed every opportunity to see Faith back in the day. Well this week I saw both (well, not The Bad Seeds, but Cave's new offshoot band Grinderman) and reviews for both amazing shows on my Chud blog. Links follow.



http://chud.com/articles/blogs/3085/Grinderman--Henry-Fonda-Theatre-113010.html

and

http://chud.com/articles/blogs/3089/Faith-No-More--The-Palladium-120110.html

Latest Show - Mario Cotto on KCRW

Latest Show - Mario Cotto on KCRW

Best DJ around. He is the definition of eclectic in a country where, to quote Cassidy, "All you have to do is own a chili peppers album to be eclectic". I've heard him go Black Moth Super Rainbow to Throbbing Gristle to Cage & Avairy to The Stooges. Check him out.

Cee-Lo

A little something lighter in tone. Funny, often appropriate, but soulful as all hell.



Although I've loved that first Gnarls Barkley album the 2nd one, 'The Odd Couple' has taken some getting used to. It's good, great even, but it hasn't quite grabbed me as totally as St. Elsewhere. That began to change when I became obsessed with Breaking Bad last year and they used the second track on the album in the season finale for season one. Admittedly I've not given 'The Odd Couple' the amount of time I gave the first – that's all time and place for me. Depends on what atmosphere I'm into at the moment. Before spiraling into my current Smiths/Joy Division jag to accompany a re-reading of the entire Sandman series by Neil Gaiman I was kinda hot on a soul kick and Gnarls fit perfectly. However that was interrupted by the dour British factory rock...

I know next to nothing about Cee-lo. This is a pretty good place to start. However further investigation will have to wait, as I'm back off to the Dreaming.

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* Read an older interview with Thomas Golubic, the music supervisor on Breaking Bad, where he talks about the selection of Gnarls Barkley's 'Who's Gonna Save My Soul' here:

http://blogs.amctv.com/breaking-bad/2008/03/interview-with-thomas-golubic.php

T. Rex

Fuck yeah!!!

Pygmy Shrews - Your Party Fucking Sucks

Wow. I laughed so fucking hard at this I had tears in my eyes. Definitely kindred spirits with my old bands Wink Lombardi and the Constellations and Schlitz Family Robinson.



I found Pygmy Shrews after reading about another band, Drunks With Guns. I looked those guys up on Last.FM and found an entire slew of similar acts, Shrews included. I'll post some Drunks With Guns next, and I'm sure I will be posting more grimy basement punk soon enough.

Thank You to Aaron Dilloway who chose Drunks With Guns eponymous album as his 'Inner Sleeve' pick for the August issue of Wire Magazine*.

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* The only music magazine that truly matters. Although Ghetto Blaster has a couple killer writers working for them now...

The Melvins, Hand Puppets and Kareoke

No, this isn't some bizarre new fetish, it's a clip from something called Pancake Mountain. Awesome.



The Melvins have a new album out called The Bride Screamed Murder. I know without having heard it yet that it's good, for it is The Melvins.

Thee Oh Sees

I know nothing about this band. Just found them today.

That will change.

A Classic...

God Is LSD. Go all the way back to 1993. Waaay before the internet, before music file proliferation/sharing brought a globe of music, major and independent to every home with a computer and a modem, I used to get info on new music wherever I could. A hell of a lot of it came from the enigmatic Mr. Brown*, but we were always looking for new avenues to discover bands by.

We were thirsty. Still are, but it was harder to be back then so I guess mixed with nostalgia that makes the thirst seem more important now or something.

There was a independent record store in Orland Park, IL named Red Tower. A very local B&W music mag called 'Subculture' stacked copies in their lobby for free. Great magazine. One of the record reviews that caught my eye the hardest was Spirit of Suicide by God Is LSD. I don't remember if I had to special order it or not (most likely yes. Red Tower had a pretty damn good selection, but I don't know if it was that good) but that is definitely the store where I acquired the album that I immediately fell in love with. The above is a video for my favorite song on the album**. I had never seen it before today (only just now starting to utilize this youtube thing for its full potential)

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* A regular star in the stories I tell on my Chud blog.

** Their only one, however main guy Thomas Luedke still plays in his other group, Invincible Spirit.

The Heir To The Throbbing Throne

I have not experienced something so brimming with Magickal energy since Throbbing Gristle. The video I've linked below is not for the squeamish – it contains such a strong undercurrent of energy that it is disturbing, even if when broken down most of the images are fairly simple. This isn't youtubesnuff or anything like that – there is no place in my life or this world for that brand of sick exhibitionism. However, when music and image come together in an alchemical marriage of Magickal Will, well, things can become very strong.



This actually brings to mind a video I had worked on back in 2003. I was renting a house with two other guys and spent a lot of time in various altered states, playing around with different ideas for ritual and exercising of the Will. One of those ideas centered around constructing a video to eventually distribute to various outlets (before Youtube) and influence the world, or at least the segment of the world amping up on media consumption as a way of determining direction in life. The collection of tracks and videos, never finished, were loosely referred to as 'tulpas' and have been since misplaced in the aeythers of the lost dimension of computer storage.

Who Built The Road by Isobel Campbell

I was just listening to Mark Lanegan's Bubblegum a couple of days ago and it occurred to me that the man may have a new project coming up. Gutter Twins (new album soon, please) was something like two years ago now and I've found myself having a hankering for the gravel-throated journey man we all love so much. Well, without further delay:

Who Built The Road by Isobel Campbell

follow the link down the whiskey hole and listen with stretchy, intoxicated glee. So far Back Burner is my favorite and a prime example why I love this man. Isobel Campbell also appears to deserve special attention. I'm unfamiliar, but this is awesome and she's a Scot, so you know, I'm down.

Buy it and support independent music.

Huzzah!!!

The Fixx...

I bought the vinyl of their 1983 2nd album REACH THE BEACH over the weekend for 50 cents at a thrift store and I cannot stop listening to it. I have always loved the tracks ONE THING LEADS TO ANOTHER and SAVED BY ZERO but know I love the entire album. And the weird, 80's art album cover is cool as hell. Thrift stores are so wicked for always finding these types of 80's niche records in.

Pink Floyd - The Wall

When was the last time you sat down and listened to this start to finish? It'd been YEARS for me, as I listened to it so much in high school that I kind of absorbed it and became jaded as I moved out into the world and saw how commonplace it was. Threw it on last night on a whim and you know what? It's FUCKING AMAZING!!!

There's this episode of six feet under, the first of the fourth season I believe, and in it there's a scene where David finds Claire in her room staring at a book of photographs by some famous photographer. She explains she is trying to see with different eyes, to leave all the tired associations the world grafts onto us behind and really see something in a different way. That's what I did to The Wall last night and I saw it for the monument it is. Haven't felt juiced by anything Pink floyd since high school.