8/6/09

I should probably find out more about chairlift - I've not been keeping up so much these days, but that's a pretty cool song.



kicking myself for missing that.

---- MORE FUCKING LEGENDS COME TO DUBLIN;
George Clinton - Dublin date.
GEORGE CLINTON & PARLIAMENT/FUNKADELIC

Friday July 31st

Tripod – Harcourt St – Dublin 2.
Doors – 7:30pm

Tickets €30/37.50

---- really interesting article for uber geeks; http://thequietus.com/articles/01793-the-science-of-sound-thomas-dolby-versus-the-quietus

---- BIG BIG BIG NEWS;
http://thosegeese.wordpress.com/2009/06/08/we-jam-econo/

Lets face it, Irish people are not very supportive. Our best talents have to either emigrate or work in 6/7 different bands while holding down a day job if they want to keep playing/writing/studying/whatever .... So the recent trends with places like the hideaway house and the box social and the joinery have been great. But this on a whole new level. An all ages not for profit venue is something that we have never had before and hopefully a genuine culture of support and ambition can develop out of this.

----

The Reacharound 5/5/

Still in love with Bat For Lashes.

--- Dan Deacon plays Ireland in june - I wanted to post some photos of a recent gig to get across to some people what they should expect from a Deacon show.

http://www.culturebully.com/dan-deacon-triple-rock-social-club-05-02-2009

The review given of Bromst over at P4K was surprisingly good. It picked up on a strand thats been running throughout Deacon's discography - the idea of community. I think that its really strange that a more 'band' album, like Bromst, sounds far more insular than any of the predecessors. I was talking with Stephan from Halfset, in a failed interview, last year about this progression from introspective to more extrospective (??) music, and its a really strange subject. Halfset did it a more haphazard way by inviting in more collaborators and I spose in a much more overt wayby inviting a/v artists to interpret songs. But Deacon's sense of community extends from a showmanship, and a particular philosophy - yet with Bromst there was a tendency to put the music too firmly set in a reactive mood, by which i mean reactive to this central idea of what Deacon is, as laid out by blogs and critics and the like. Bromst is great but it's too similar in styles to Superman of the Rings for it not to make me wonder about the validity of this 'new' approach.

--- From the funnier side of indie - http://pitchfork.com/news/35244-wayne-coyne-apologizes-to-arcade-fire/

--- Todays work time playlist has involved alot of those fourtet/burial tunes. As I watch You From Afar, The Juan Maclean and some good ole The National. ohh and a lot of burial.



--- The Juan Maclean were a band that I've been seeing in a lot of 'what I'm Listening to now' posts/enbeds but not a lot has been written about them- apart from a pretty good lil review over at the Quietus. The music, and I hate having to boil down a band into cliche's but this one works - is what would come of LCD Soundsystem and The Human League having a love child. Comparisons being made to Hercules and Love Affair are purile. HLA got the DFA sound and went for a look at disco, and pulled it off in a really good way - mainly because you an't exactly claim that there was anything particularly time-specific or culturally neccesary about disco, it can be transposed into any time period - it might sound naff it might not depending on the level of cool that the band trying to pull it off have. The Juan MacLean's game plan is similar but its basing itself firmly in the same period as disco, just on a different continent - Europe. So expect Human League sounding trade offs between the male and female lead singers with familiar enough electronics going off underneath. Its good, its not ground-breaking and if you give them a chance the music does grow on you. But here's the deal, disco was fun. The Human League were far too po-faced for their own good. And the same can be said on the HLA vs Juan Maclean front.

--- And the end here's a pretty cool song from the XX, via Nialler 9;

The xx - Crystalised from Young Turks on Vimeo.

--- Jeremy Barnes from A Hawk and Hacksaw discussing modern city-planning. The Quietus do have a lot interesting wank. http://thequietus.com/articles/01602-a-hawk-and-a-hacksaw-on-the-potential-pitfalls-of-natural-building

---

The Reacharound 1/5/9

Cannot believe I only just saw that.


--- the big news, at least for me, this week has been the news of a fourtet/burial split 7"/collaboration. Consensus is out at the moment as to what exactly this is, well apart from damned good. Information about the project has not really been made available yet. The songs being posted definitley start off with trademark fourtet or Burial sounds - depending on the song, i.e. Moth, the second track starts off spunding very Fourtet - and then seem to develop into what would be the logical progression of both these artists. The tracks are bueatiful, they add gravitas and atmosphere to the minimal techno strands that seem to be running through both, creating blissed out instrumental peices that go well beyond the basic templates added by each artist's standard sound.

All the copies being made have been prebooked (http://www.juno.co.uk/ppps/products/352434-01.htm) but you can use that page to stream the tracks.

Or simply use this;


and the second track;




--- Sunset Rubdown in dublin; http://thrillpier.blogspot.com/2009/04/sunset-rubdown-dublin-date.html

--- http://stereogum.com/archives/premature-evaluation/premature-evaluation-sonic-youth-the-eternal_067151.html

---

I'm sorry to anyone whose memories I have just ruined, but yeah thats chris cornell sounds like now. I was sitting in a pub a week or so ago and that came on. And I have told people about just how bad it is but nobody believes me, so there's the proof.

--- http://www.latfh.com/ funny.

--- Ok so I have a bone to pick with 2009. Every year the industry gets more and more claustrophobic and cooler-than-thou and it seems like in 2009 people have gone from desperate beginning of year searches for the new really great thing and just went for a load of random and occasionall truely shit bands. Wavves, Vivian Girls but by far and away the worst culprit was gaslight anthem. Wavves and Vivian Girls y'know at least they have the honesty to sound like they put more effort into their hair than their music. Gaslight Anthem is over produced faff claiming to be something more than any old random shit band you'd see slotted in between other blaring indistinct bands at your local all ages show. But at leats kids grow up and get tired off writing the same old thing over and over again. Gaslight Anthem haven't and they are loved for it, somehow? Avoid!

--- however starfucker are another band about to get alot of hype and they can really get a good tune across. Rawnald Gregory Erickson The Second is a great track and so is this from their upcoming ep Jupiter

Beards Over Babies P.2

Reacharound 27/4

---White Denim's Workout Holiday was of my favourite albums from last year. It was sharp and messy and fun and was able to mix all that with genuinely great songs. So getting the news that they've released some new material was a great way to start my monday.
download it from http://www.nialler9.com/2009/04/26/new-white-denim-mirrored-and-reverse/.



--- Here's a nice article about new Vampire Weekend projects and things; http://stereogum.com/archives/mp3/vampire-weekenders-prepping-second-album-side-proj_066112.html

I normally hate anything that comes with all the hype that VW had attached. But their album was so completely different from the image I had in my head. They were just an average band that happened to have some really clever little hooks and could aim at just having some fun unlike say Telepathe ... or Wavves ... or insert random over-hyped under-developed project here would.




--- http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/pricewatch/2009/0427/1224245444200.html
Another article about the state of the industry which got on my tits a bit. So here's two quick points to read into any fear-mongering articles;

1) 'Music' is not equatable to the music industry. They are two distinct phenomena. THe death of the industry does not mean the death of music. This seems painfully obvious considering there has only been an industry since my most tepid of revolutions - the invention of rock - when a load of white guys got together stole black music and sang revolutionary songs about having a house party and maybe getting to dance with some girl. Think about which decades produced the most art, philosophy and music - you're looking at the 20's the 60's and now. Moments of creative impulses created by social trends and - at the moment - free music. Which lets people have access to a far rounded set of influences and very cheap means of recording. Anyone equating the industry with the music in this way is placing a bias and then spouting misery.

2) This is not the death of the industry. This is the industry actually seeing whats really happening cause oh my god their billions seem to have stopped getting bigger recently. We were ripped off through-out the nineties by the c.d. and the decision to introduce the c.d. in the first place has come back to bite them in the ass. This is the industry correcting itself.


--- Mick Weaver was a session player back in the 50s and 60s. Far as I can tell he mainly playeda hammond. Why do we care? Because I recently found this track and its deadly and I've been trying to hunt down more stuff by his group Wynder K. Frog.


And just for kicks, I found this video when looking for the above Vampire Weekend video. THese guys are deadly. Their version of Grizzly Bear's The Knife is amazing.
bye

the reacharound (23/4)

Final Fantasy play dublin at the ned of next month. The list of gigs that I've been this escited over are very few - I think its pretty much just Tom Waits last year and Radiohead in the olypmia before Hail to the Thief was released. I've never really been that blown away by his albums but some songs are brilliant and everything i've seen/heard from his live shows has been phenomonal.

also he said this to p/fork "Overall, Billy Corgan is pretty entertaining. He's Gob Bluth, but real life!" brilliant!

--- Speaking of gigs I is escited about;


--- King Khan has been getting a lot of play time in the office. Was going through a fairly serious garage rock buzz for a while (currently starting a northern soul buzz - the things we do to make the day seem less dull ....) Anyway this is his new video. Check him out;



--- Speaking of buzzes I've been on. I decided that even though I'm never going to read Harry Potter I fucking love the films. Perfect hungover morning films. Here's the first clips from the upcoming film.


--- http://www.state.ie/blog/ladyhawke-to-play-arnotts/

--- http://thequietus.com/articles/01524-sonic-youth-s-new-album-the-eternal-reviewed-track-by-track

--- http://www.nialler9.com/2009/04/22/mp3-super-extra-bonus-party-feat-cadence-weapon-radar/

Super Extra Bonus Party - Super Extra Bonus Party - 'Favourite Things' on MUZU.

yup.
Abe Vigoda's album Skeleton from last year was pretty great. There were moments where the band's energy and musicianship worked completely against each other and showed moments of what seemed like a song falling apart under the wieght or its own potential and then with a simple rim-shot or holler bam and we're straight back in again. Alots been said of their new sound and my lack of an ability to find the ep has been pissing me off for months now. But yeah on the strenght of this I will have to redouble my efforts - even if what I found essciting about the band now seems to be gone.



- Probably more important news - but I didn't like the look of the last post, what with their being no visuals or nothing just my random harping on about crap ..... anyway Pirate Bay news;
Regarding Friday

On friday we will get the verdict in the ongoing trial. It will not be the final decision, only the first before the losing party will appeal. It will have no real effect on anything besides setting the tone for the debate, so we hope we win of course.

Since a lot of people and press are really interested in the outcome of this part of the spectrial, we've decided to hold a small press conference on friday at 13.00 swedish time (GMT+1 / CET). It will be held on Bambuser, no-one is invited physically to participate, only digitally.

The URL for the Bambuser-stream will be posted on the front page of the site on friday some minutes before 13. If you're from the press or just interested in hearing our thoughts about the outcome, you are welcome to join the stream and chat.
It does sound ominous. I'll be trying to write up a large peice about this to set the tone/scene for friday.


- And so as all the irish festival going public sit around waiting for tonights electric picnic line-up ATP (i.e. a way better festival) are already making the first annoucements for their Nightmare Before Christmas show
http://www.atpfestival.com/NewsView/0904151031.php

and before you go scratching your heads about the Horrors inclusion read this; http://www.nialler9.com/2009/04/14/newsflash-the-horrors-are-good-shocker/



--
- Flynn

Micachu Revisited.

There are albums where the sheer overload of ideas is delivered in fun ways and you can spend ages dessiminating the different strands and inclinitations within the music. Well ok maybe if you listen to alot of classical - see here's the real difference between pop and classical.

In pop these strands are subsumed under this visage of hip-ness into a seamless whole. The strands cease to operate as seperate entities its just about the total package - image and all.

Micachu manages to saddle boredoms wierdness with hints of ska rythms, electro-pop, simple pop melodies, new wave, no wave ........ but its all so fucking organic that none of that matters in the slightest.

Here's a band that interesting noises, have a quirky sense of humor, sing in an intriging manner and just create their own little vibe.

Animal Collective comparisons will arrive - as have been made here but yeah .... anyway AC just sound more self-reflective, theirs is a music about exploring the paradigms of their own template. Even in the more commercial moments like Brother Sport the song goes far longer than a Micachu song and even 'swallows itself up' and regurgitates its momentum into that fantastic outro.

Micachu is way mroe straight up pop but from a person whose confidence, imagintation and love for new sounds goes way beyond what pop supposedly constitutes.

http://www.myspace.com/micayomusic

daily reacharound 13/4/09

So Micachu and the Shapes are supposed to be like the next big thing. This is the first thing I've heard from them. So yeah I don't really think that its cool to judge a band without either seeing them live or listening to a full album. But you really have to wonder when this we're too indie to bother playing instruments buzz is going to die.
Yes I'm still an animal collective fan - but thats different, fuck off.

- speaking of AC here's a new unofficial video for My Girls;


- New St. Vincent video. I had mixed feelings about whether or not I was goingto bother with the new album from Annie Clarke but after seeing this I think I'm now looking forward to it. 'Marry Me' was a big disapointment for me. 1) I hadn't quite realised just how obnoxiously incestuous pitchfork chooses to be until that release came out and 2) Now Now is a great song, and I've watched alot of clips of St. Vinnie live and Annie Clarke looks like an amazing performer - so much promise and then an album that starts brilliantly and then just fades away. Hopefully the follow-up will be great, it does have one great song;

Reacharound; 16/2/09

http://www.analoguemagazine.com/the_blog/the-ambience-affair-ep-launch-tonight/

http://www.stonesthrow.com/podcast/

http://www.culturebully.com/fujiya-miyagi-school-of-seven-bells-the-7th-st-entry-02-11-2009

http://andrewslanetheatre.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/one-for-the-road/

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2009/0213/breaking77.htm

http://www.state.ie/blog/review-various-dark-was-the-night/

12/2/09 Reacharound

http://unarocks.blogspot.com/2009/02/go-to-fade-street-on-friday-13th.html

http://www.irishtimes.com/blogs/ontherecord/2009/02/12/road-records-to-remain-in-business/

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/149115-white-stripes-to-play-conans-last-late-night

Official slow news random shout-out post no.1

I like the dodos. The first time I heard anything about them was on one of nialler9's podcasts from last year where they were compared to Animal Collective, and then apologised to in delightfully polite way but Aoife Mc. Yeah if sung tongs had been more song focused and less ambient I could see it coming in as something akin to The Dodo's sound. But thats just it they are an excellent band who make great little songs full of passion and pretty pop structures and as much as I AC sometimes you need to pull yourself out those early albums and back into the reality of modern music and The Dodo's are a great vehilce for doing so as well being a fantastic proposition on their own terms. Think of simple folk songs with intense drumming, warmth and interesting melodies playing out over very simple and occasionally genrified sounds.

http://www.myspace.com/thedodos

11/2/09 daily reacharound

- Yesterday was the 3rd anniversary of the death of J Dilla (aka Jay Dee, James Yancey). It doesn't feel appropriate for me to try reminding the world of the loss of a great talent, you could take the words of Madlib, Pete Rock, Common, Busta Rhymes, Mos Def, Pharrell, Waajeed, Karriem Riggins, Flying Lotus, 9th Wonder [3], A Tribe Called Quest, The Pharcyde, Kanye West, or ?uestlove or you could put in the effort yourself. Donuts, produced from Dilla's hospital bed is the ideal place to start; its a startling document of the talent and potential, its an album still being mined by the biggest names in hip hop today (most notably Q-Tip on last years record - Renassaince). To paraphrase another great artist;
Any DJ that's added on to the list
Pump your fist, but first give praise to the true scientists




- strange news from radiohead;
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/149055-thom-yorke-to-make-music-for-terminator-soundtrack

- Choice nominated, drum hero and all-round treasure of the irish music scene RSAG has announced a new tour of ireland;
17 Feb 2009 22:00
The academy Dublin
19 Feb 2009 20:00
Pavillion Cork
27 Feb 2009 20:00
Roisin Dubh w/ The Kilo Galway
4 Mar 2009 20:00
Vicar st. / choice awards Dublin
20 Apr 2009 20:00
NUI, Maynooth Dublin
22 Apr 2009 20:00
Dolan’s Limerick
23 Apr 2009 20:00
Spirit Store Dundalk
23 Apr 2009 20:00
Auntie Annie’s Belfast
25 Apr 2009 20:00
Roisin Dubh Galway
27 Apr 2009 20:00
UCD BALL Dublin
29 Apr 2009 20:00
Cyprus Avenue cork
30 Apr 2009 20:00
UL College Ball Limerick
1 May 2009 20:00
Electric Avenue Waterford
2 May 2009 20:00
Whelan’s Dublin
7 May 2009 20:00
Belfast Queens University Belfast
8 May 2009 20:00
Trinity Ball Dublin
9 May 2009 20:00
Sligo / Venue TBA Sligo
for details check out http://www.myspace.com/rarelyseenaboveground

- the newest darling of the blogosphere Wavves has a recorded show up here; http://www.nyctaper.com/?p=543
I haven't invested much time yet in Wavves ... but i'm already getting electroclash flashbacks, and not for the music.

The first ever I'm sorry Nic Reach-Around

yes its finally happened.

My litt spell of getting everything right with nic has finally ended by me doing something stupid and ok I think it was defendable and ok I was sleep deprived and high on pain killers but here goes, SHUTTHETHEFUCKUPANDLISTEN's first (and probably of many) I'm sorry nic posts.

This means me putting some effort into hunting news on some of the bands me and nic share love for while also sharing some old videos and stuff.

- TVOTR made a guest appearance on the Colbert Report last night. There's not a lot of point sticking up the video as I'm irish so we can't get the video from hulu, the website for the colbert report doesn't work for me and comedy central are youtube-o-phobes but still the video will be around on any of those resources if you care to look. But here's the best performance by TVOTR that I've seen recorded;


- http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/149052-decemberists-take-their-rock-opera-on-the-road - damn good news indeed. I can remember seeing another version of this song floating around ages and not being too keen on the over dramatization of the song, it seemed too "showy" and "fun" where the song I loved was a gritty tale of death and madness ... but i guess people like it ...;



Things are all very quiet on the menomena front, suspiciously quiet ..... but check this out;



The hard thing about I'm sorry nic posts is that there are bands that
a) I have gotten nic into (O'death animal collective ...),
b) She has gotten me into (jeffrey lewis, neutral milk hotel)
c) we share (TVOTR)
and
d) bands that we do not share (ponytail and any of the mad shit i listen to ... and then coheed and cambria, conor oberst affiliated stuff ...)

I can't pick from b or d as she either knows more than me or doesn't care. The site is based around a) primarily and b) again she knows more than me. So here are some bands nic should be in love with but might not know

9-2-09, Daily Reacharound

- http://stereogum.com/archives/video/the-2009-grammys-just-the-good-parts_051301.html - well really just the first video....

- http://stereogum.com/archives/new-grizzly-bear-album-gets-a-title-and-its-veckat_051191.html I swore that I was going to stay away from all the fan-boy pant wetting flying around the release of merriweather, as i was a little disapointed by Strawberry Jam. But Veckat has totally hooked me already.

- http://egoeccentric.blogspot.com/2009/02/backstage-piano-session-by-son-lux-why.html
I managed to catch Why? and Son Lux playing in dublin last november. It was a strange and brilliant gig. Walking into ALT I was a little worried of a repeat of a Super Extra Bonus Party Remix Release Party repeat - as much as I enjoyed being the drunk underager at gigs when I was younger I now feel embarrased by those days and a) don't need to see them repeated all over my new shoes and b) seriously those shoes were cool and expensive and I normally don't give a shit about clothes but washing vomit out of runners is fucking annoying. But anyway .... the gig was amazing. Got talking to Josiah Wolf before the gig, had a chat with Son Lux after. Son Lux's drummer blew me away. Seeing Yoni play with that same attention to delivery and style and humor while carrying the emotive claibre of his records all while drumming was but a small testament to the talent this guy has shown for so long now.

- http://www.culturebully.com/abe-vigoda-reviver-review
There so many brilliant little peices from Abe Vigoda's debut album Skeletons; especially the outro to dead city/waste wilderness. But overall you get the sense of a band who are really just finding themselves, they seem more about the energy the song rather than the bigger picture, which is refreshing in so many bands that are coming out of american right now, especially tose affiliated with b-more's Wham City scene, but Abe Vigoda seem to have the potential to do much more with their sound. So I've been quietly looking forward to the new release from the band and here it is. From what this review says it seems to have been worth the release - a more carefully planned out route has taken, more focus on song selection and the recording process ... many of the songs from skeletons really sounded like they needed room to breathe. So if they can balance that with the enthusiasm and fun of skeletons this will definitely be a band who are going to make some serious noise in the future.







--

waste a few minutes

play this game

http://www.eyezmaze.com/eyezblog_en/blog/2009/01/grow_tower.html#monster

oxegen will suck

- The big news today is that the coachella line-up has been released. No Smiths reunion but this is a pretty epic line-up.
http://coachella.com/event/lineup


There really is this weird divide between indie kids in Ireland and Britain and whats going on in the US. Like there is a seriously awesome list of bands who are all doing interesting things in music and meanwhile the biggest festival in Ireland has started "teasing" it's audience with bullshit competitions and a "rounds" based system of announcements, as if this year Oxegen will be any better or realistically in any way different from last year or the year before.

Oxegen announced yesterday that Snow Patrol, Bloc Party and Katy Perry will be joining Kings of Leon as headliners for the years festival.

Now this all seems pretty dreadful. But just remember that in a few months Pitchfork will be announcing the line-up for their festival and its going to be great and its going to cost something like 50 dollars... While people in Ireland are being subjected to ridiculous prices and utterly thoughtless line-ups. People can go and on about Electric Picnc but the line-up last year was fairly dreaful.

Ok EP is in an awkward situation where they have to maintain audience interest and manage to get bands to bother their arses coming to ireland, when most of the great indie music is coming from america and canadia, and maybe sweden.

But Oxegen can fuck off with their bollox promotional campaigns, invest more in better acts, improve the conditions of you're festival, make the camping not look like a concentration camp, stop security beating kids, put some kind of consideration into food preperation practices and pricing and maybe this would not all come off as insulting.

BEARDS OVER BABIES!!!

I WANT MY ELEPHANT

-- Last night Eircom signed a deal with the 4 big record labels in Ireland which agreed to the shutting down of music downloaders internet collection based on evidence of file sharing. The times had the story today on the front page and while most other internet providers went with the obligatory "yeah we're going to look into the viability of enforcing similar proposals" this is still quite a worrying thing, well at least in my opinion.

Regardless of just how blind and stupid record companies are this isn't going to work. There will always be another litte computer wizard who will just come up with ways of getting around whatever measure of protection we build around intellectual property. Now intellectual property is something I have a huge objection with but this isn't the time or place for me to show just how pretentious I am.

The real point here is that people will not go back to the traditional system. Take artists/bands like Cadence Weapon Nine Inch Nails Diplo, Spank Rock, Animal Collective ... who have all figured out how to play the new market in ways that, and here's the great part, finally put the art before the industry. These are all bands who, with the exception of NIN could never have really made it in the old system of record companies, and this is what music fans are more and more coming to expect from their music.

The increased focus on the progression of music has come about because of how society has become more culturally entrenched. Art is cheaper to make cheaper to promote and more readily availble than at any time in history.

And by proposing to shut people off from this the industry will alienate its clients where it isn't simply ignored by the more tech savy among us.

This is all very indicative of the horrifically short sighted reactionary law making policy in this country. Remember the debacle regarding the sex laws 4/5 years back? Record companies applying this level of preasure is a desperation move and in reality will have no effect, as argued above. But the right of the companies to apply this preassure is a disgrace and when they do topple over the next few years Ireland will be stuck with archaic intellectual property laws.

couple of other interesting articles on this
http://arstechnica.com/telecom/news/2009/01/irish-isp-agrees-to-disconnect-repeat-p2p-users.ars
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/28/isps_music_business/

the daily reach-around

http://thrillpier.blogspot.com/2009/01/frightened-rabbit-to-play-dublin.html
-Frightened Rabbit have fallen into the tiny little group of british bands who make good music category of modern indie. Last years featured on loads of best of lists, wasn't my cup of tea but this is sure to be a big night for fans.

http://www.culturebully.com/m83-on-late-night-with-conan-obrien
- I've been listening to M83's last album alot over the past few days. Its definitely grown into one of those albums that you end up being completley in love with. At first I wasn't that into the whole 80s wash of synths playing out over each other, but now its become that music i put on when I desperately need to relax. It has essentially replaced 18 seconds beforesunrise (y'know, that () album from Sigur Ros)

http://unarocks.blogspot.com/2009/01/another-meteor-award-oopsies.html - FUNSIES!!!

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/news/148785-metric-make-fantasies-a-reality We might as well go ahead and make up one rule regarding music, if there's somebody involved with BBS involved you know its going to be good.

life on mars

the daily reach-around

http://www.nialler9.com/2009/01/27/dj-mek-electro-alternative-reggae-mix/ - occasionally cheesy mix

http://getweird.wordpress.com/2009/01/28/new-shuttle-mixtape/
- So I still have no sound on my work computer speakers. But this is a mix from Deadulus - contributor/remixer. Dude has also put out a new remix of Cadence Weapon. It begins with Brian Wilson ends with Shostakovich and has Flying Lotus in the middle ... probably going to a least be nteresting

http://www.oxegen.ie/2009/ ... that is either a misprint or oxegen has moved to 4 days ... wierd. last year Oxegen really had to work hard to compete with Electric Picnic and they managedto pull it off, combining both their traditional market share while at the same time pulling out left-field bands to broaden their scope.

Now you could see moving to 4 days as a sign that there will be more variety. Or that you could get trapped for 4 days in puke soaked hell if oxegen decide to keep treating its customers like shit, which it will.

more AC stuff, sometimes i think this might never stop;
http://iguessimfloating.blogspot.com/2009/01/mp3-new-animal-collective-what-would-i.html

I'm not a big Springsteen fan but this is funny http://stereogum.com/archives/video/is-queen-of-the-supermarket-the-worst-springsteen_048641.html

with respects

The release of Telafon Tel Aviv's latest album should have been fantastic news but i finally got the album the day I found out that Charlie Cooper, one half the band, passed away on Jan. 22nd.

Telafon Tel Aviv's music speaks for itself. Charlie Cooper has left behind a rich catalogue and will be sorely missed, not least by his band mate who had this to say

Hello, Everyone.

It breaks my heart to inform you all that Charlie Cooper, my better half in Telefon Tel Aviv, passed away on January 22nd.

We have been friends since high school, and began making records together a decade ago. We have been so fortunate to tour the world together, while at the same time having a massive amount of laughs at one another's expense.

Aside from Charlie's singular genius and musical gifts, I can tell you that he was a total sweetheart of a guy, and a loving friend and confidant to people everywhere. His musicianship was surpassed only by his greater gift to the world - his warmth, his generosity, his unquenchable humor, and his undying loyalty to those whom he loved. In the spirit of honorable mention, however, I should mention that he had a shoe collection that was marvelous, knowledge of hip-hop that was profound, and knowledge of wine that was subtle.

He is survived by a sister, a neice, a nephew, his mother, his stepfather, me, and more adoring friends than the Universe has dark matter. As such, his family and I ask for your discretion and consideration of our privacy during these extremely turbulent waters.

Yours in Music,

Joshua Eustis

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=42233895

Dennis the Menace got older, and asian.

snarl... growl... snarl.













The new Clint Eastwood movie http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205489/ seems to be drawn completely from the tales of Dennis and Mr. Wilson. The grumpy old man who has an unhealthy obsession with his garden and which people enter it. Now I suppose there are some differences, like i said, the original Dennis was not Asian, nor a kid being pursued by angry gang members, but that might be where the differences end.

This is meant to be a touching movie about a boy who needs help and guidance from a male role-model, who then turns to his crotchety old neighbour, who we both see grow as a result of this, but honestly? It just falls flat.

There are one or two scenes in the movie that could be good, but only if you can get past Clint Eastwood's character's constant growling at the camera, or the racial abuse he spouts off every 30 seconds or so. For example, verbally tearing the wigga wannabe boy a new asshole at one point falls into this "entertaining" category. But overall this is a poor movie for Eastwood, both in directing and acting. Every single modern cultural stereotype is played out (badly), from disrespecting grandkids to trigger-happy gang members, and the storyline in itself which just cries out at every given opportunity "why can't we all just get along???"

I cant say its as bad as "flags of our fathers", but it comes close in some points. See it, don't see, just don't say i didn't warn you.

mess of random love notes written on a giant plastic rose found in the middle of Seoul
- both horribly romantic and slightly creepy all at the same time.

the daily reach-around

Pitchfork t.v. has announced a new show. A.D.D "That stands for Analog technology > mixed Digitally > and distributed Digitally" Ok the concept is a bit anal but the announced line-up includes "Times New Viking, Vivian Girls, Max Tundra, Ponytail, Crystal Stilts, and Matt & Kim." Also the Fucked Up episode is already up. I'm looking forward to a reminder of just how great ponytail are live.

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/feature/148705-interview-damon-albarn-and-jamie-hewlet ; a surprisingly interesting interview from pitchfork with the people behind Monkey and Gorrilaz

http://www.nyctaper.com/?p=513 - review + bootleg of animal collective live at the bowery ballroom last friday.

http://www.state.ie/blog/one-day-international-live/ One Day International's album from last year was really great but showed a band still growing into itself, reports from recent live shows have been even more glowing that usual.

http://stereogum.com/archives/mp3/new-ra-ra-riot-ghost-under-rocks-passion-pit-remix_048181.html I can't listen to this cause of computer problems but have decided that this should be fairly great