Lord Jay recently asked me for my favorite music selections of 2008 so far, and I had a hard time. I’m traditionally not a “new music” guy. I did manage to come up with five songs though. Compiling that list got me thinking about what other non-new jams I’ve been into as of late. I will now talk about them.
Not to be “Stereotypical Dance Music Description Man” but the GROOVE on this song is out of hand. It doesn’t kick in until about 1:20. Also: talk box. I’m totally going to buy a talk box.
Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons attempted to make a “hip” record in the late 60’s (Genuine Imitation Life Gazette) and there are definitely some cringe-worthy moments on the album, but I love this song for its ambitiousness, particularly the section starting shortly after the 4 minute mark. More GROOVE.
Oh, more jams that happen to be smooth? Shocking. Azymuth are Brazilian jazz funk legends who are still going strong. Wikipedia tells me that Ivan Conti is working on a record with Madlib currently. Weird. Anyway, I’ve been loving playing bass along to this song this week. Samba! The vocal line on the outtro is genius.
I heard this song last week or the week before on Little Steven’s radio show on Sunday nights. Let’s talk about how great it is that Little Steven is still obsessed with Gary U.S. Bonds. Let’s talk about that.
If you’ve bro-ed down about music with me lately, you’ll know that I am so into Hercules and Love Affair. Anyway, H&LA totally “borrow” from projects like Inner City shamelessly and it is great. My goal in life is to convert ONE of my friends to house music. Not happening yet.
~ It’s Rock City weekend here in Detroit. The blog reading has been awesome with all of the insane people commenting. This Javs video post on webvomit drew plenty of bitching. Funny and entertaining to read. My one comment on the “There are no ROCK bands performing at Rock City!” argument is that garage bands made life hell here for a good 4 years, so quit whining.
~ Slightly angry that Hercules & Love Affair beat me to the late 80’s house music revival. There’s still time to jump in on that I guess. Anyway, Hercules & Love Affair, despite being a current act, sound great to me. Watch these. Great songs.
~ Not to ape the “angry old guy” angle of my colleague, but this post is funny in two ways.
1) TV networks are backing away from the digital angle, and focusing more on the TV-ness of their TV-dom. Ok.
2) Advertisers are getting mad boners, pining for integrated advertising in traditional TV. Hm, ok.
These things are only funny because it’s looking like TV is turning into the 1950’s again.
~ This was lame. I uninstalled it a few minutes after installing it.
~ Neat article about Kodak’s first digital camera. I recently just bought a QuickTake (two actually, my quest to get it to work with XP has been a bacchanal of insanity), and am so excited to dive into the world of low-resolution, shitty, digital photography.
~ End note: I can’t get enough Ryan Adams lately. In particular, Easy Tiger. The Dead comparisons are accurate, but you know, it’s different. Cool. Music journalism. Check out this video, it’s very good.
I’ve let my starred google reader items get out of hand, so this post will be sort of a link dump. Oh well. I need to get them out of my reader, and you are obviously looking to waste your time, so it’s a fair trade.
~ So Shorpy is a site that consistently delivers interesting old photography, and things have been exceptionally great recently. This portrait is from 1839. 1839! That is so insane to me. What’s even more striking is how “real dude” that guy looks. Usually film dehumanizes people a little bit, like when you look at old photos, the subjects don’t seem like they could really be real. They just look like people in old photographs. That makes sense right? Here’s another, and another! REAL PEOPLE OF TIMES PAST. Weird.
~ Matrixsynth posted this video of the “world’s smallest Fender Rhodes. Reminded me of this little guy, which is another thing I needlessly covet. I understand that interest in various manufacturing anomalies of the Fender Rhodes is insanely specific. I’m into that.
~ Mary Jane Girls - “All Night Long” is a jaaaaaaaaaaam
~ Easily the highlight of my week was seeing Sword Legs pop up on Pitchfork. Thank you Ryan Allen. Jokes come true.
~ I signed up for Twitter this week, and you can read my “tweets” on the sidebar of this site now. Or, you can read ‘em here.
~ Metafilter just offered up this link to various illustrated scenes from Don Quixote. While the book didn’t click with me on any sort of meaningful level until a few years ago, it totally secretly crept up on me with, you know, psychological mind-fuckery or something. Same thing happened with me and The Crucible. The same thing! Anyway, cool pictures.
For reasons I’m not disclosing, I happened upon the line-up for this year’s BLED FEST:
SATURDAY, MAY 24, 2008
Meijer Skate Park | Doors 11:30AM | All Ages | $13.00 ADV / $15.00 DOS
BLED FEST 2008!
Featuring:
GWEN STACY, INHALE EXHALE, DAMIERA, ONCE NOTHING, FOR TODAY, KINGSTON FALLS
Here I Come Falling, For the Fallen Dreams, Saints Never Surrender, Bringing Down Broadway, Souldub, Empty Orchestra, La Dispute, Every Bridge Burned, A Well Thought Tragedy, There for Tomorrow, VersaEmerge, School Boy Humor, In Fear and Faith, Thick As Blood, Knives Exchanging Hands, Burning the Masses, The Sound And The Fury, The Vanity Farewell, Judea, Hero No Day, Siren the Escape, And Hell Followed With, Asphodel Fields, Phantele, Tiger! Tiger!, IKILLJACK, Mary Shaw, As Bound With Them, Standing on the Shoulders of Giants, A Love To Die For, I Am Abomination, Silence on the Horizon, Of Choir and Chaos, Good Day Miss Quickly, Inbredacia, Incarta, more TBA
Not only have I not heard of any of these bands, their names are so cartoonishly dramatic I can’t believe they are real.
I can only conclude that BLED FEST is something made up by The Onion.
You can’t believe anything you read on the internet today. That’s frustrating.
However, you can believe the links I am about to share.
~ A list of the top ten historical hoaxers. I had only heard of Frances Griffiths and Elsie Wright and their fake fairy photos. Oh, those Brits. Speaking of, would anyone like to buy me this? I would love to have these lining the walls of the study that I don’t have.
~ A less pricey gift for me would be a print of this photo of Evelyn Nesbit. That whole Nesbit/Stanford White/Harry Thaw story is, you know, the BEST STORY EVER. OK fine, someone can buy me Ragtime on DVD too. If you insist.
~ Lord Sith Kempy linked to this video of Maroon 5 working on “Makes Me Wonder” a few days ago. Unlike Lord Sith Kempy (the original indie-rock blogger), I do care about Maroon 5 and think they are great. To me, what’s interesting about the video is the deluge of negative comments on the youtube page. So many people pining for “real music.” The reality though, is that many musicians I know work the same way, myself included. The recording and writing process is romanticized by the public. Anyway, great video, and cool to Maroon 5 in that setting.
~ Some friends of mine are attempting to put together a book club. I don’t think I’ll be participating, not when there are books like this to read. Who needs fiction? Lots of people, I’m just kidding.
