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:

[audio:bookiread.mp3]

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:

[audio:kinkade.mp3]

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!!!

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.

//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?). Strangely enough, Jerry Casale and Mothersbaugh met at Kent State around the time the government was shooting students and snuck around making music and films together when the campus shut down and curfews were in order.

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 like Rushmore, Royal Tennenbaums, etc etc. 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, and played this custom circuit bent synth instrument that was molded onto 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) 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 with the poor state of things 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.

Long story short, my friend Lauren the Saint hooked me up with a music badge for SXSW and I was in Austin, TX from Wed to Sunday for music bliss. I saw Freeway, Bun B, Janelle Monae, Diplo, Echo & the Bunnymen, the Black Lips, Jadakiss, Devo, and a whole bunch of bands I don’t know the name of and my friends Djing. I left the Fader Fort before Kanye because the portapotty situation was dire when all these people came for him. Overall though, It was a great experience.

Here’s a slide show because as usual, I hate scrolling and have too many pictures. Click right arrow on your keyboard to advance to the next picture.

Here’s some video
Serg mocking the ravers at Fader Fort

Echo and the Bunnymen doing one of my favorite songs

I had more videos but they were disabled because Youtube is a hater ass hater.

We had a gathering of food and drink at my friend Elias’s house to welcome Corey to San Francisco. Serg got a pork shoulder from that La Gallinita butcher shop in the Mission (the one with the pigs cooking pigs artwork painted outside) He smoked it for 7+ hours for pulled pork sliders and it was delicious. I was put in charge of decorations so I printed cutouts of those joyous cannibal pigs and stuck up where ever there was blank space on walls. Sorry to my vegetarian readers for the offensive imagery, but cannibal pigs artwork on butcher shops is just too absurd and amusing to me. I also hit up the mission dollar stores and got random flags of mexico, puerto rico and argentina as well as party balloons/streamers. Good times, you can read Serg’s recap on Grocery Eats

(right arrow to advance pic)

After an afternoon full of drinking, food and rock band dorkery the evening reached new levels of retardation as it usually does when Elias hosts a food & drink party at his house. I don’t know whose idea it was, I think maybe Lydia, but it was decided that The Many Facets of Roger album cover needed to be recreated and I was put in charge of photo and art direction. Too bad we forgot to take the sheet down for the back cover.

and they sounded so good.

photo by lelania cortez

here’s some footage i got

I know it’s been a minute, but I haven’t forgotten about this. Hope you enjoy!

Episode #6: Life During Wartime

file under: rock history nerds, spazz out time, loud & proud

download <--right click--save as

The Blacks “Gravitas”
Vivian Girls “Where Do you Run To”
Generation X “Your Generation”
The Misfits “London Dungeon”
The Intelligence “San Francisco”
Devo “Mongoloid”
Spoon “Don’t You Evah (Doc Delay remix)”
Essential Logic “Music is a Better Noise”
The Damned “Neat Neat Neat (Peel Session)”
Jay Reatard “In the Dark”
Pixies “Alec Eiffel”
Joy Division “Means to an End”
Glaxo Babies “Stay Awake”
Unwound “Caterpiller”
Gang of Four “At Home He’s a Tourist”
Talking Heads “With Our Love”
DMZ “Can’t Stand the Pain”
Girls At Our Best! “Warm Girls”
Television Personalities “World of Pauline Lewis”
Roxy Music “2HB”
Sonic Youth “Dirty Boots”
The Rock*a*teens “Small Town Soap Opera”
The Gun Club “Run Through the Jungle”
TFUL282 “Hundreds of Years”

here’s buttons to click to subscribe

I shouldn’t have to tell you this is the greatest Velvet Underground song of all time

Speaking as someone who listens to David Lee Roth-era Van Halen on purpose, I feel compelled to share with you this Diamond Dave version of the classic arcade game Asteroids.

It’s amazing

Guitarist and founding member of The Stooges Ron Asheton was found dead in his home today. I’ve always thought his anecdotes in the Legs McNeil book Please Kill Me were priceless. Some Ron gems:

Rest in peace to a true legend and one of the most likable guys in rock history.

much like the ms paint ones i posted a while back

see all 20 here.

time for my annual bryan ferry/roxy music post. i was not hip to this song off the “In Your Mind” album, but it rules my world. the second half is so awesome with the melancholy mournful disco tones. the rhythm section is killing it…especially the bass. i’ve been playing this one on repeat nonstop.

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i don’t care what anyone says about dangermouse, i am really feeling the new Beck album,
especially this song “Walls”
[audio:Walls.mp3]

i don’t know how or why i have this, but this cuban cover of a franz ferdinand song came on my itunes by a side project of BV Social Club Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo and i kinda really like it:

coco freeman – “the dark of the matinee”here is the original version:

the ramones, cheap champagne and digital pictures of my friends and fam is what is standing between me and super sulker mode this neglected bingo night. folks who criticize the ramones for being idiots (who only talked about hamburgers and male prostitution) end up underestimating their power to make anyone, even Debbie Downer, super pumped for retarded behavior. I love The Clash but they couldn’t make me escape quite like the Ramones. Ay Romeo! I don’t wanna go down to the basement

today your love, tomorrow the world
[audio:today.mp3]
havana affair
[audio:havana.mp3]

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