brian eno is having this video installation at yerba buena center this weekend called 77 Million Paintings and i’m trying to figure out if i should risk it for $25. all the photos i’ve seen of it on the internet seem intriguing but i’m also scared it might be so packed i won’t enjoy it.
also boredoms are on tour and there is no SF date which i am bummed about. i’m really jealous of new yorkers right now because on 7/7/07 they are going to perform for free with 77 drummers. they are amazing live and live up to the hype. seriously, one of the best live performances i’ve ever seen. read about this madness. i hate you new york.
i feel somewhat hypocritical for all my trashtalking about those with douchey attributes, so i’d like you to meet my drum teacher.
i rented this tommy igoe “groove essentials” dvd from netflix and oh my god is this guy corny. he closes his eyes when he drums and does that chicken clucking movement with his head that i thought bassists only do… you know the back n’ forth head movement cause they’re lost in ‘Groove Heaven’ and whatnot. but he’s a really good dvd teacher. in one day i finally learned 3 other 8th note rock patterns which is 3 more than the one i’d been playing for the past 2 years whenever a drum set was in close proximity. so yeah i need some douchelords in my life i guess.
i was over at my friend mark and dean’s house the other night for some baseball and dinner and there was a vanity fair on the table with bruce willis on the cover. in defense of mark and dean, i think one of them must have a subscription and did not set out to purchase the issue because of some objectionable love of bruce willis.
so on the cover, he is allegedly riding a chopper (like the one he talks about in pulp fiction) because his shirt appeared to be flapped up by the wind and speed. it’s a really masculine shot, cause everyone knows bruce willis kicks ass for the US of A. “yippee-kay-yay” terrorist motherfuckers and so on? so i open the vanity fair, turn the pages to the willis feature and lo and behold – there is a 2 page spread of him smirking on the beach wearing a straw hat, no shirt and a freaking SARONG. in case you don’t know what a sarong is:
it’s so weird because when i think of the word “ethnic”, bruce willis is the first thing that comes to mind! no, not really. i was like Moe on the Simpsons, “Whaaaaa?” i looked all over online for this photo of him (shot of course by overrated celeb photographer Annie Leibowitz) but came up with nothing. sorry. but i had to tell you about it. i am so pumped to see Live Free & Die Hard now. not only because i hope to see him kick some major euro-terrorist ass in a sarong, but also Kevin Smith plays a hacker in it and he seriously rewrote all the scenes of himself. YES! Kevin Smith is such a brilliant and clever wordsmith (well that’s what a meathead told me once)
Across the U.S. today, thousands of internet radio stations are observing a national Day of Silence to protest new webcasting rates set by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board. These new rates, which will go into effect on July 15 (and are retroactive to January 1, 2006), will drastically increase the royalties webcasters must pay to SoundExchange, an offshoot of the RIAA responsible for distributing this money to artists.
WFMU believes in compensating artists. We currently pay webcasting royalties to SoundExchange and will continue to do so, but we are protesting the new rate scheme for a number of reasons:
1. Under the new rates, non-commercial webcasters only get a break on the commercial royalty rate if they maintain small listenership numbers. In order to afford the astronomical new rates, WFMU may have to cap online listenership on our streams, limiting the exposure we give to independent artists by blocking our accessibility to music fans.
2. SoundExchange has not been dutifully distributing webcasting royalties to musicians, claiming on their website that they are unable to locate thousands of artists including Kraftwerk, The Replacements, Pizzicato Five, The Muffs, and even Warren G!
Instead of webcasting silence today, WFMU has decided to boycott all music that is registered with the RIAA and/or SoundExchange. Today, you will hear songs from live performances on WFMU, material from the public domain, orphaned works, music from bands and record labels that have signed a waiver releasing WFMU from SoundExchange’s unreasonable royalty scheme, and music from artists that SoundExchange has neglected to pay.
We hope that this sends the message that WFMU is fully capable of airing great music that falls outside of the RIAA and SoundExchange’s control.
If you would like to protest the new webcasting royalty rates, please call or write to your Representatives and Senators before July 15, and tell them to support the Internet Radio Equality Act (S. 1353 and HR. 2060). Visit SaveNetRadio.org for more information, including a quick way to look up contact info for your elected officials.
Hi I started a podcast. Basically going to be like the pirate radio program I had last year with all the random rockpsychgarageindiepostpunk stuff except without me talking between music telling you what I just played.
#1: Potluck Picnic
file under: music i would want to listen to for an entire summer
summer officially started last week and I wanted to compile an all-purpose summer mix that could be played for barbequeing with friends, road tripping, sitting at the park, etc. over an hour and a half of music from the ramones, the slits, can, kinks, serge gainsbourg, royal trux, and many more…
if i’m home after work on tuesdays, i listen to The Best Show which is tom scharpling’s radio talk show from 5-8PM on WFMU. the topic this last show was “5 people you’d least want to have dinner with.” this was one i couldn’t resist calling in for since i love to rant. even though i was nervous as hell cause tom is intimidating and yells at callers at lot:
my voice is very nasally. i didn’t hear him say jimmy page in that multiple choice character test. and no i didn’t go jogging right before i called. thats how bad my nerves are with any kind of public speaking
i hope to meet you in my dreams one day, preferably over pizza at zachary’s. there you can bestow your infinite wisdom upon me and share your educated predictions for the future such as possible hair styles for phil spector, who will be our next president, and what new musical instrument my objectifying eye will behold in the year 2030
i had a little bit of anxiety when i saw how many parts there were to a drum set. i told young and he said he could set them up for me so i got him back with dinner. i forgot that back in high school he was in band. he played the timpani but used to set up ‘normal’ drums all the time.
wish i took photos of him behind the timpani then. not for sentimental reasons or anything… for blackmail purposes.
it was held as max’s awesome place this year. i assed out at 3 cans which is pathetic when i drank twice as much last year. i blame the presence of hamburgers and mj. i tried to hide in max’s loft for a nap and then the next thing i know i hear serg creeping up behind me and he got me with the ‘bitchmade’ stamp. a lousy performance i know, considering i thought i was pretty good at being a functioning alcoholic. max was the champion with 13 cans.
the can i went out on
lydia’s tall can holster
the general atmosphere 5 hours into the competition
when nat’s yelling sons of bitches and the karaoke
screen is showing “love love me do”, i kinda died.
I went to Dolores Park Movie Night last night. They screened Dial M for Murder which was a terrible idea because that movie is not conducive to capturing the attention of hundreds of drunk chatterboxes. We were distracted and packed in uncomfortably tight so we left 45 minutes in and went to the bar. They should have shown something stupid like that Nicholas Cage movie where he runs around punching women in a bearsuit.
i mostly rely on BART these days for getting downtown, but on Friday i needed to take the Muni N-Judah line to get to 330 Ritch for Spindig happy hour. Not only did the car get held up in the tunnel forever but when it finally got to my stop a total nightmare unraveled.
i got locked on this empty N car for close to 25 minutes. the station near caltrain was full, so the car couldn’t advance. the driver did an emergency stop and opened the doors for the first car and let everyone out. the doors for the 2nd car did not open and i was the only one on it. i rang the emergency button to tell him to open the door but heard over the loud speaker that the intercom was busted and he had no idea what i wanted. so i had to sit there for a goddamn half an hour
after an hour total was wasted on that prison on wheels, i finally made it to 330 ritch.
after happy hour, serg and stef invited me over to hang out cause they had all this keystone ice leftover from MOP in the Park on Memorial Day Weekend. i love the view from their balcony.
Serg showed me this 79 BMX Mongoose he found in someone’s crawlspace. Incredible find.
later we headed to Milk for Night of the Remix. Our friend Day was in town spinning there. the crowd was happy and enjoying it. good times
mark invited me and kristy over for grillables and to watch nba finals & the giants/dbacks game last night. after too many drinks, it became a total sports geekfest triggering personal baseball memories such as seeing pedro feliz hit a grand slam at comiskey park for an interleague giants/white sox matchup, being shocked by bloated barry stealing his 500th base, being at game 3 of the a’s/twins alds feeling the ballpark when on the verge of rioting after a devastating loss, blah blah blah. After both games were done on TV, we turned to espn which was showing a “30 best baseball plays in history” countdown. after watching a mess of spidey bare-handed home run robberies i remembered why i love baseball. as it got closer to number one, we were all like “please please no kirk gibson fist pumping clip.” of course, it happened.
in other news, i sold my turntable for the price i wanted for it yesterday. i can’t believe how fast and easy that was. i am getting shit done these days and it’s kinda weirding me out. AND i fixed my grounding hum problem with my other turntable by doing a ground lift with my receiver (3-prong to 2-prong adapter from radio shack). i can enjoy my records again!
my friend mike made me laugh hard this morning in the office and my co-workers were all “what’s so funny?” i wish i could tell them. he said this is what his nightmares look like:
it almost makes me want to watch Caddyshack again, which is nice wrong.
do not gloat about your team’s pitcher getting a no-hitter when he is just 2 outs away from achieving that. there’s a reason why baseball players are psychotic about their superstitions.
Sure his vocals are a little on the affected side and might take some getting used to, but i’m into it. Usually Americans singing in English accents bug me but there are exceptions like Bob Pollard and in the case Jay Reatard. i don’t know if I would even call it an English accent, sounds like a cross between Joey Ramone and Tom Verlaine of Television. maybe i can look the other way cause these songs are so infectious. the In The Dark 45 ep just came out May 31 has already sold out from the label but you can nab it from Bomp Mailorder here. you can listen to the title track in the post below.
anyway, even though Reatard is filthy i would love to play in a garagey punk band like this. i am a sucker for blown out guitar sounds and 3 chord songs. speaking of which, i wish thee headcoats were still around. fun stuff
i read mike myers is going to play keith moon in a film about the crazy dude. i just can’t picture mike myers showing up at a gig fucked up on horse tranquilizers and falling asleep hunched over his floor tom. what a weird casting choice! but not nearly as weird as elijah wood playing iggy pop but still really bizarre. (hahaha @ ‘your pretty face is going to Mordor’)
i took monday off for extended r&r time and ended up rearranging my room to make it more spacious in case i want to put the drum set in there. gonna continue this streak of getting shit done since i already followed up on this ‘i wanna drum’ talk. so by the end of the week, i hope to sell my other turntable that’s collecting dust and fix my grounding hum problem with the one that’s already set up. i have to fix it since i bought a jay reatard 12″ ep today that has songs that aren’t on cd. i’m going through a jay reatard phase today. total ramones influence but so well executed and so much more than that. his tracks are too good, especially “all over again”…i’m in love with the outro on that
he plays the drums, guitar, bass and sings on them and he’s only 26. he’s put out tons of stuff with the reatards since age 16! he’s like a memphis greg ashley. are they separated at birth? they seem like kindred spirits only one brother is a disciple of roky erickson and the other brother of joey ramone.
this might be something you’d appreciate more if you’re familiar with ramones’ history and their personalities (marky kinda inept and clueless, johnny right-wing uptight asshole) but i thought it was pretty amusing:
marky ramone locks himself out of his apartment:
makes me want to watch End of the Century again. it’s one of the better rock documentaries i can think of and the bonus is hearing the bizarre Phil Spector stories when he produced that album. odd thing is i actually kinda liked johnny when i watched this. he is such an unbelievable dick that it’s laughable and kinda really amusing. what a character he is
anyway, if you like that song “Summertime” by George Gershwin, here are 30 versions of it for download in a zip file. You know, “…you’re daddy’s rich and you’re mama’s good looking…” Maybe you’re familiar with The Zombies version.
1. Al Green – Summertime (3:01)
2. Billy Stewart – Summertime (4:57)
3. Bobby Montez – Summertime (5:49)
4. Booker T. & the MG’s – Summertime (4:41)
5. Brenda & The Tabulations – summertime (3:44)
6. Carl H. CALL – Summertime (2:22)
7. Dave Baby Cortez – Summertime (1:59)
8. George Benson – Summertime (2:25)
9. Herb Alpert – Summertime (2:02)
10. JACK MCDUFF – SUMMERTIME (4:08)
11. Janis Joplin – Summertime (5:30)
12. John Coltrane – Summertime (11:35)
13. John Schroeder – Summertime (2:26)
14. Little Beaver – Summertime (3:00)
15. LLOYD CHARMERS – SUMMERTIME (2:20)
16. Martha High – Summertime (5:25)
17. Nick Drake – Summertime (1:35)
18. Ohio Players – Summertime (7:22)
19. Salena Jones – Summertime (2:35)
20. Sam Cooke – Summertime (Pt. 1) (2:23)
21. Sidney Bechet – Summertime (4:12)
22. THE ATOMIC CAFE – Summertime (2:34)
23. The Buckinghams – Summertime (3:57)
24. The Zombies – Summertime – Demo (2:29)
25. The Zombies – Summertime (2:17)
26. Tony Ronald – Summertime (2:30)
27. Trojan Box Set – Summertime (3:05)
28. Unnamed Artist – Summertime (2:36)
29. Walter Bishop Jr’s 4th Cycle – Summertime (5:48)
30. Yuya Uchida & the Flowers – Summertime (3:55)
saturday 6/2 bike to st francis for brunch, garage sale, timmy von trimble laughs w/ young, drinks at casanova, inhale pizza @ arinelle’s and then the bottom of the hill for rock show. fun & funny day & night. dance dance dance yell yell yell. brian caught a marshmellow pizza that matt and kim threw from the stage and ate it. alexis gave me a card that had a painting of a 700 lb boy on the front. katie gave me a clutch with cute stitching in a’s green. adam made me a dvd. brian made me mega drunk. it was hilarious and memorable this year
