Attention bookworms and record geeks! Look at this set called Cover Versions. so creative!

Classic records lost in time and format, re-emerged as Pelican books.

I saw Shellac play at the Great American Music Hall last Wednesday night. Steve Albini is still an amusing asshole, Todd Trainer is still a freak and Bob Weston still solicits questions from the crowd between songs while Albini tunes the Travis Bean guitar strapped to his waist like it was a tool on a utility belt.

One highlight question to Weston, probably joking, was “How often do you use your Pro Tools rig?” It prompted the response “I don’t own a Pro Tools rig, my friend,” which made the audience giggle. Albini and Weston are two renown recording engineers who are still very much Nazis when it comes to being hardcore analog loyalists. Albini who has only recently caved in to the pressure of having a digital set-up in his Electrical Audio studios refuses to use it himself or even talk about it. Other questions from the crowd were gear related as one guy asked “Where’s the Harmonic Percolator?”, referring to a rare distortion pedal that is now holy grail material for hardcore audio nerds thanks to Albini championing it. This was truly the nerdiest/fanboy rock show ever but highly satisfying and cathartic for someone who had a very stressful day at work (AKA me). Going to this show alone and being one of the very few women there kinda made me feel like a perv.

Anyway, I don’t know why I feel this is worth mentioning, but Albini repeatedly did these pump fake b-ball moves towards the audience during “A Minute” but in a really intense and straight-faced serious manner. I was dying of laughter and really wish I got video. Here’s some other video instead

If it seems at all weird that I like this kind of dark and depraved rock music, here’s an old disclaimer post I made about Shellac in 2007

in 1970. makes perfect sense if you are familiar with Kraftwerk off-spring groups such La Dusseldorf and Neu! (See early Stereolab discography) but still…it’s kraftwerk. These german youth didn’t know what hit em

All the Conan’s greatest hits & retrospectives I’ve seen the past month in anticipation of him taking over Leno’s chair on the Tonight Show failed to include one of my most sentimental & poignant Late Night w/ Conan moments ever. Back in 2003 for TV Thanksgiving hiatus, they reran one of his old episodes but in claymation. WTF? Never would this have made sense anywhere else. I remember being completely engrossed in this half-familiar but half-netherworld episode from beginning to end and then a few minutes before the credits, my personal piece de resistance came on: claymation David Bowie started performing one of my all time favorite romantic rock ballads (and easily one of my favorite Neil Young songs) “I’ve Been Waiting For You.” I was shocked into bliss on so many levels and I don’t think I need to explain why it has remained one of my most favorite and indelible TV moments in history.

Here is Neil’s original off his s/t album

And here’s a b-side Pixies version with Kim Deal singing that also made me lose it in college

Ripped this footage of The Jam doing All Around the World on Marc Bolan’s show from my dvd.

Classic

The Sleeveface photo pool on Flickr is an endless stream of record nerd fun. Covers with giant faces on them are so much fun to use this way.

And here’s the book for your coffee table.

OK last one for tonight, I promise. I’m so grateful that quality old music television programs like Rockpalast, Musik Laden, Beat Club, It’s Lulu, Revolver, Top of the Pops & Old Grey Whistle Test existed for me to visit my favorite parts of history in moving picture form.

Van Morrison’s first band THEM. He was only 19 here.

//photo by jeff luger

Remember that footage I took of Deerhunter back during Noise Pop? There was a song they did that I’ve never heard before that I really liked. My friend Jesse, who incidentally is the third person in the last month and half to compare me to an old man, ripped the audio from my video, played it for others and miraculously located the original version. Nice one, Sherlock! And it hasn’t even been released yet. It’s a cover of a Tears for Fears song called Famous Last Words and it rules, although I agree with him that his vocals were actually sweeter live. Anyway, I’m not going to pilfer audio from Jesse like he does from my site (kidding), so here is the direct link to his Secret Deerhunter song entry on his site where you can listen and download:

Jesse’s 50th Deerhunter post on his blog

Enjoy.

Dave Vanian is a freak.

I can see Talking Heads as a band people either love or hate, but I came across a hypnotic vibraphone drenched version of “The Book I Read” that’s melting my face. DB’s vocals are so reserved and understated on this one, It’s magic:

Uh-oh! Guess who just figured out how to rip video clips from her DVDs?

Clare E. Rojas and Andrew Jeffrey Wright have some white out fun with stuffy fashion magazines:

Devo “Through Being Cool” video:

The pack of teens terrorizing the family of joggers is pretty great, but the odd non-dance oriented choreography amuses me too.

That’s what she said. Got this in the mail today and the packaging rules. Sub Pop released a bunch of 7″ colored vinyl exclusives for Record Store Day recently and I nabbed this because there were 2 songs not on the LP.

I haven’t mentioned this here, but Sub Pop linked to my “Fake Kinkade” post on the Obits artist homepage, which made me smile I have to admit.

5/14/09 update: The date was changed to 4th Fridays starting in June. Stay tuned!

Here’s the teaser vid I made for me and marco’s anything goes DJ monthly. Since people aren’t going out as much these days do to recession & regression, I thought reversing this old timey footage of Market St in the 1900s around the infamous earthquake would be appropriate. Let’s start mining for gold again!

Well, it’s The Day After Earth Day and I think I speak for everyone when I say THANK GOD we can all go back to throwing trash out of our windows again. YES!!! Oh wait… you don’t do that?

Um, oh I just found out about this cool site called Free Music Archive and it’s great because they have very reliable music nerds who curate collections of quality music that you might not know about. Anyway, WFMU, the best listener-supported public radio station in the entire universe has a site and I highly recommend checking it out. WFMU put on a showcase in SXSW that I briefly attended only to meet the program director and sadly missed the Obits set. But it’s up on there too! I know documenting everything can sometimes bite you you in the ass, but most of the time I’m grateful this modern phenomenon exists so that I never miss a moment of value.

Speaking of Obits, “Fake Kinkade”, an angry and loud song about being duped into buying a forged Thomas Kinkade painting is my new Happy Place when I am under stress. I really don’t know how to explain why without sounding pretentious. Just a warning, I am about to get hardcore nerdy about why this song is so beautiful and powerful to me primarily because I can’t remember the last time modern music moved me this way. Have a listen:

I’m not sure if you are familiar with the artist Thomas Kinkade but you’ve probably seen his stuff everywhere and not realized it.

Check the wikipedia entry

Thomas Kinkade (born January 19, 1958 in Sacramento, California) is an American painter of realistic, bucolic, and idyllic subjects. He is notable for the mass marketing of his work as printed reproductions and other licensed products via The Thomas Kinkade Company. He is self described as “Thomas Kinkade, Painter of Light” (a trademarked phrase), and as “America’s most-collected living artist”.[1] It is estimated that 1 in 20 homes in the U.S. feature some form of Thomas Kinkade’s art, according to Media Arts, the publicly-traded company that licenses and sells his products. He has received criticism for the extent to which he has commercialized his art — for example, selling his prints on the QVC home shopping network. Others have written that his paintings are merely kitsch, without substance,[2] and described it as chocolate box art.[3]

Not only do I not relate to his subjects but he is a highly successful commercial artist who manufactures prints on canvas with technology made to look like original real oil paintings. I’m not as much of a cynic or misanthrope these days but when I see his paintings of glowing country gardens and serene dewy pastures in pastel hues I think to myself, What a beautiful lie. He is a business man who has a natural talent for painting. But there is no soul within those brushstrokes and his artwork seems vacant to me—from the moment the vision was born to the factory where it was made thousands of times over by machine and not man.

So why does this angry & loud song give me peace? Because I can appreciate the beauty in achieving clarity from jarring, ugly realizations. The best and deepest smarts you can attain don’t come from school, but I think from rough and painful life experiences. It’s a new kind of freedom and level of understanding that one can only really earn by sacrifice and upsetting means. And the narrator of “Fake Kinkade” invested in something believed to be authentic, only to later realize he was fooled “by a forger in a foreign country I don’t like.” It’s a great revelation, at least to me, because I have never considered that the artist could simultaneously by the forger. And it has my favorite combination in song-writing: visceral/blistering/controlled chaos sounding with angular guitars and angsty vocals, but the lyrics are cerebral, meaningful and downright poetic:

“I walk the cobblestones in starlight/
I feel the moisture on my skin/
I felt the power of imagination move ordinary men/
Yeah it was fake!”

As a person who has an unhealthy obsession with Americana, I love that this song can satisfy that fetish while showing a darker side of the white picket fence. One in 20 homes in America have a Thomas Kinkade print?! It’s a smart but not so obvious or obnoxious metaphor for dissing systematic herd mentality, inauthentic & mass produced “inspiration” and escapism in America all within a succinct 3 minutes. And although I am for the most part very content with my life, indulge in escapist entertainment every now and then and have material desires myself, I never forget that my deepest bonds with people is usually based on the common idea of being very suspicious of people who appear to be happy all the time. Why? For that to be possible in any lifetime, either they are so sheltered or sedentary that they have never, ever encountered a harrowing challenge or worse, it’s a bullshit facade. And Thomas Kinkade paintings are the perfect iconic symbol of being happy all the time. It’s such profound and brutal commentary but done in the best creative way ever. I hate it when ideas I agree with are too heavy-handed and beat me over the head in a self-righteous manner. So in conclusion, um, this song is FUCKNG GREAT!!!

My friend Serg describes below to me what a 220volt electrical shock feels like, in case you were curious. I suspect 220v was also the culprit in frying my memory card in England and erasing my pics.

On a similar note, he just uploaded a podcast of thrash metal records he’s picked up recently. You should download it and embrace your inner hesher. He claims it’s a 666mb file and I don’t think he’s joking.

Tracklisting
1) The Misfits – Bullet
2) Violator – Thrash Maniacs
3) Bonded By Blood – Feed The Beast
4) Warbringer – Hell on Earth
5) Death Angel – Thrashers
6) Annihilator – Schizos (Are Never Alone) (Part I)
7) Evile – Burned Alive
8) Municipal Waste – Beer Pressure
9) Municipal Waste – Guilty Of Being Tight
10) Municipal Waste – Mind Eraser
11) SSS – Hammerhead
12) Sodom – Obsessed By Cruelty
13) Overkill – Kill At Command
14) Violator – United For Thrash
15) SSS – Thrash With A Small Moustache
16) Vio-Lence – Serial Killer
17) Micro Chip League – New York (Dancefloor Cut)

Wow, so those data recovery guys in the small Mission spot called TechCollective managed to rescue about 80% of the stuff on my camera. And they were so kind and thoughtful (stay away from Best Buy). I’ll save the photo summary for another day. Here’s video I took of some random band from Liverpool called Bodies of Work. They were really good and I think really young. The bassist looked like he could be on that show Freaks and Geeks.

Despite the dismal weather, being really expensive and not having as many pretty buildings as Paris, I really loved my time in London on a human and personable level. it was an entertainment mecca for me much like the reasons why people love NYC. There were tons of great museums that were free. The British Museum with its collection of artifacts was mind blowing, like here’s 24 rooms of cool stuff we stole from other countries in the past centuries. Really incredible stuff I have not seen before like ancient mummy housecats from Egypt wrapped in bandages with the same care as pharoahs and what not. it was hard for me to remember that a country with people so well mannered and pleasant in nature have had a long history of pillaging and a forceful proclivity for imperialism. Also there were vintage clothing shops that were amazing, much better than I expected food thanks to recommendations (Borough Market is where I had the best pot pie that made my knees buckle & indian food is a no brainer), quality non-corny/not-so-hipsterfied night entertainment and the people were so helpful. My luggage weighed over 50lbs (I swear I didn’t leave SF with that much but records are heavy) and random strangers in the tube station would offer to help me up the stairs. Not only that, but I would ask parked cab drivers for guidance when I was lost and they took the time to give me detailed instructions. You know how when you ask people for directions in the US, they kinda halfass and want to go on their way most of the time? I was floored. Even in the age of GPS, the cab drivers complete 2 years minimum “knowledge”, what they call it when they study the streets by heart before being active. Respect due! Cab drivers here are hit or miss with ultra specific location requests. I’m plotting a longer visit coupled with a Berlin trip.

I should be packing, but I hate doing that. Here’s footage of Devo performing in Chicago in 88. In their late 30s here. I love this song

I keep wanting to relive that showcase I saw at SXSW. Is that weird? It’s the best concert I’ve seen in my life, maybe tied with seeing Prince in 2004. I’ve been looking up show reviews and realizing the feeling was mutual and the show was legendary on the lips of everyone who was there. See here and here. I just found out my friend Ayres was at that show too and felt the same way. I’m glad that old guys can still deliver something new in the age of recycled ideas and deriving. Not only that, but Mark Mothersbaugh’s vocals are sweeter now, more so than the dehumanized robotic tenor he used as a young chap. He sounds like Roy Orbison after downing pep pills. The Stones should retire because you can’t see past the old due to them sounding awful and Mick’s voice is horrible now (remember Superbowl halftime?), but Devo should never. I’m usually a cynic and snob when it comes to this kind of stuff but it was magic. Hooray for discovering new realms of happiness in the age where nothing seems original.

//photo by grebo guru

This deserves a separate post because the Devo panel and show at the Austin Music Hall will go down as one of my most fond and epicly entertaining memories, not just of South By Southwest, but as someone who has had a lifelong obsession with music and the stories behind it. I’ve admired Mark Mothersbaugh for a long time and think of him as a visionary, not to mention one of the most endearing and interesting oddballs in pop culture history.

When I was in high school, there was one issue of Mean Magazine that had a feature on him and it came with an insert of about 100 miniature stickers of his comical visual art. I had no idea at the time that he was actually a pretty gifted visual artist. Check out his amusing website of his works. My appreciation for him continued to grow through the years. For instance recently, I read that he is legally blind without his glasses. The story is that when he went to the optometrist as a 7 year old and received his first pair of glasses, he saw for the very first time “smoke from chimneys and birds.” After truly seeing and “experiencing” the world for the first time, he was inspired to illustrate. That same night he had dreamed of being a famous artist. That anecdote is so profoundly touching to me and adds another fascinating dimension to his already inherently interesting personality (How the f*** did this music come out of Akron, Ohio?). Aside from the arty stuff, he’s a really damn good composer and did the theme for Pee Wee’s Playhouse and a gang of scores for movies, including the Wes Anderson movies. Anyway, blah blah blah so there’s a little background information on why I adore this spazzy renaissance man so much.

So I wanted to hear him talk as part of the Devo panel for SXSW. Surprisingly, he was soft spoken — almost shy– while Jerry did most of the promo talking (and trash talking). I’ve seen photos of Mothersbaugh present day during Devo shows as a 58 year old man in full hazmat get up and energy dome hat and couldn’t help but shake my head. Before going to this show at the Austin Music Hall I didn’t know what to expect. I was excited but I also was a little worried that I might feel embarrassed for these old dudes not being able to pull off this foolishness that they were known for as young ones. Not to mention they were playing at midnight (way too late for old guys to be rocking out) and after Tricky too, how weird is that? I knew this show would be surreal, but I was hoping it would be the kind of surreal that was intended.

crowd at Austin Music Hall anticipating old dudes in hazmat suits

After Tricky nearly puts me to sleep, gyrating and trying to rock-out to unfortunately mid-tempo repetitious tracks with a pseudo-Martina on vocals, It’s finally time for Devo to come out at midnight. The set begins with a huge screen in the backdrop scrolling absurd and amusing visuals of Devo’s long history and the audience is getting hyped. They come out in the worksuits to a new song called Don’t Shoot with a hilarious animated video highlighting the song’s theme (the outro of the song is “Don’t tase me, bro!” over and over). It’s at that point I realize the entire concert is going to have these amazing visuals synced with the live music and I knew it was going to be highly entertaining and nothing like I’ve ever seen before. So brilliant! Mothersbaugh’s vocals were perfect all night, and they all performed and did routines with the energy and theatrics of men in their 20s… for one and a half hours. For the encore Mothersbaugh came out as Booji Boy, sang Beautiful World in falsetto like a child, and played this synth instrument that looked like a tennis racket and had a toy duck head sticking out at the end of the neck. At the very end, he pulls down his pants and all these super balls come spilling out. He grabs hand fulls and bounces them into the audience. Remember those rubber balls you got for a quarter in the grocery store machine? In no time, these super balls are bouncing all over within the audience and the music hall. The audience was going CRAZY.

Mothersbaugh as Booji Boy //photo by grebo guru

When the show was over I was filled with a kind of satisfaction i can only describe as childlike joy. Devo’s amusing antics were contagious and convincing and still makes me smile when I think about it. What makes me even more happy is that now that they have a full time drummer (Josh Freese formerly of NIN and A Perfect Circle) they will tour instead of playing these intermittent shows in places I will never be. The new songs they debuted were great, and I’ll show a video of one they played down below. There are a lot of current bands obviously inspired by that sound, but they lack the absurdity/ fun in subversive commentary and satire. Now more than ever with the state of the world and infrastructures crumbling left and right, Devo’s idea of “De-Evolution” is more relevant than ever and I am grateful they are still doing their thing. Mothersbaugh and Co’s live show is the equivalent of attending an eternal pizza party when the rest of the world is on the brink of apocalypse and you have no choice but to feel joy and laugh in the face of tragedy. The day he stops being awesome is a day I hope I never see. He gives me hope and optimism in growing old.

two videos from the show. sorry, these clips aren’t high fidelity – loud drums and bass are impossible to capture with a point and shoot camera.