BOOM BOOM BOOM
»General
You know your surround sound system is good when the semi-psychotic, spouse-abusing British actor/writer who lives upstairs confronts you in the hallway and screams that you are "A PATHETIC LITTLE MAN!" with "ABOMINABLE TASTE IN MUSIC!"
And I didn't even have it turned up loud. Man, that subwoofer rocks.
posted by Maximus |
12:42 am EST |
2005.02.28 |
link
________________
DOWNLOAD OF THE WEEK
»Downloads
- Osymyso - "05why50?" - Bootleg experimentalist Osymyso is releasing an album of 50 short songs over the course of 2005 -- one song per week. This is the first; download the following six (so far) here. More background provided in this interview.
posted by Maximus |
4:27 pm EST |
2005.02.25 |
link
________________
COMING IN THE AIR TONIGHT
»General
Growing up in Miami during the '80s, I was obsessed with Miami Vice: not because it was a realistic reflection of my hometown, but because it wasn't. The glitzy, violent, color-drenched, musically-enhanced world on the screen was far more exciting than the drab city where I actually lived.
I've seen hints of a Miami Vice revival for a few years now -- from FPU's cover of "Crockett's Theme" (and the FPU/Tiga collaboration "Ocean Drive"), to GTA III: Vice City.
Now the wave is breaking: the first season of Vice is out on DVD. Unlike previous VHS and cable versions, these episodes are completely uncut and digitally remastered. But the real kicker is that, thanks to aggressive licensing by Universal, they can finally be seen with all the original music.
Here's a list of all the songs that accompany the 17 episodes from the '84-'85 season... including cuts from the Stones, Donna Summer and Giorgio Moroder, Devo, Phil Collins, Tina Turner, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Elvis, Foreigner, Afrika Bambaataa, Glenn Frey, and Peter Gabriel (plus, of course, Jan Hammer's gorgeous synth-rock score). Get the DVDs  here.
posted by Maximus |
12:02 pm EST |
2005.02.25 |
link
________________
WHO'S NEXT
»General
I've got ten million things going on right now, thus the light posting. But I had to note this news from the Doctor Who front:
SFX has confirmed that [Murray] Gold, famous for his work on such dramas as The Second Coming and Shameless, has produced a new arrangement [of the Doctor Who theme music] that updates Delia Derbyshire and Ron Grainer's original.
"It's brilliant, absolutely brilliant," [new Doctor Who producer] Russell Davies told SFX. "I would say that, but I loved it! It was hard, because to be honest, I'd not liked any version of the theme tune since the Ron Grainer original and so we'd been waiting for Murray to do it.
"He'd been so busy scoring a million things and he'd been researching Delia Derbyshire and Ron Grainer and he went off into a little world of his own, sampling stuff and things like that. The thinking was, if we don't like what he does, we'll just put the original on."
"I thought the original theme would be perfect though, but the version Murray's done is so faithful."
The new Doctor materializes on March 26 in the UK. No word on when we Yanks get to see him.
posted by Maximus |
11:14 am EST |
2005.02.25 |
link
________________
R.I.P., DR. GONZO
»General
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."
--Hunter S. Thompson (1937-2005)
posted by Maximus |
2:22 am EST |
2005.02.21 |
link
________________
PIXEL VISION
»General
PacManhattan was the macro remix of Pac-Man. Now -- at the risk of severe eye strain -- experience the micro version.
posted by Maximus |
2:19 pm EST |
2005.02.20 |
link
________________
WABBIT SEASON
»General
Unsatisifed with their previous attempts to trash the classic Looney Tunes franchise ("Space Jam", anyone?), Warner Brothers has now turned Bugs, Daffy and company into scary-looking anime characters. WTF??
This story on the plans for "Loonatics" just shows that Warners execs don't even understand what they're flushing down the toilet:
Each new character retains personality quirks of the original. The new Bugs, for example, will be the natural leader of the Loonatics' spaceship; the new Daffy will remain confident that he is the one who should be in charge.
 Attention Warners hacks: Bugs was never the leader of anything. He was an individualist, happy to munch his carrots in peace. Only when you launched a rocket over his hole, started shooting at him, or otherwise interfered with his domestic tranquility, did he declare war.
Bugs was a fair-minded, old-school American, who minded his own business but wouldn't tolerate a bully. (New-school Americans mind other people's business, and we are the bully.) If the real Bugs met this creepy, fascistic "Buzz Bunny," he'd polish him off in six minutes, and do it with panache.
"The new series will have the same classic wit and wisdom, but we have to do it more in line with what kids are talking about today," says Sander Schwartz, president of Warner Bros. Animation. The plots are action-oriented, filled with chases and fights. Each character possesses a special crime-fighting power.
The old characters were never a "crime-fighting" team. They were all doing their own things -- that's what made them interesting, and that's what generated the conflicts between them. And they each evolved over ten or fifteen years before they had the looks, voices, and personalities that we remember from the classic '40s and '50s shorts.
The Loonatics, on the other hand, were obviously drawn up in about ten or fifteen minutes, by some Batman Beyond fanboy at Warners. "Let's make it 'dark'... like The Matrix! The kids love that crap!" I would bet good money that the second-choice concept was to redo them in 3-D with CGI.
The reason the kids aren't talking about the classic Warners shorts today is simple: they've never seen them. And yet, I know an 11-year-old who -- based solely on the Looney Tunes marathons that we have three or four times a year when she visits -- is a huge fan. (She can sing large portions of "The Rabbit of Seville" by heart.) The WB should program 90 minutes of straight-up, uncut, original Looney Tunes every Saturday morning, like I grew up with, and stop trying to fix what ain't broke. </grumpy oldster rant>
posted by Maximus |
12:35 am EST |
2005.02.19 |
link
________________
NEVER GONNA DANCE AGAIN
»General
From Salon:
Yesterday, after premiering a documentary chronicling his checkered career, George Michael unexpectedly announced that he was retiring from pop music, saying that he finds celebrity life "unbearable" and is planning to "disappear." The only thing sillier than the idea of launching a retirement from the public eye with a film premiere and a press conference (would there really have been an international outcry if he had simply … disappeared?) was Michael's announcement, either hubristic or simply clueless, of pop music's demise: "That genre is just dead as far as I'm concerned."
Michael's occasional silliness aside, he will, of course, be missed, particularly in the U.K., where just a few days ago readers of the Sun voted "Careless Whisper" the best British single of the last 25 years....
Right on, Sun readers. George is one of the great pop singers, and pop songwriters, of his generation. He will be missed -- assuming this "retirement" is not just more diva stuff.
posted by Maximus |
10:42 pm EST |
2005.02.17 |
link
________________
SO YOU BETTER GET READY / READY TO GO
»Events
Huzzah: a new show from Laurie Anderson!
The End of the Moon
Conceived and performed by Laurie Anderson
No wonder NASA chose Laurie Anderson as its first artist-in-residence. An intrepid multimedia pioneer long obsessed with our ever-changing romance with technology and how we think about ourselves in relation to the rest of the planet, Anderson weaves stories, music, songs, and words into epic portraits of American culture.
The End of the Moon, the second in a series of intentionally low-tech solo works featuring her remarkable music for violin and electronics, marks Anderson’s fifth BAM production. A decidedly more contemplative sister to her first solo effort, the extraordinary, sharply observed Happiness, The End of the Moon turns to the incisive power of words to convey how we feel about ourselves at this complex juncture. Drawing from her NASA-inspired travels and research, impression-packed journals, dreams, and theories, Anderson takes us on a music-theater journey that examines, among many other compelling themes, 21st-century perceptions of beauty and time, and the stories we exchange to help us along the way.
BAM Harvey Theater
Feb 22—26, Mar 1—5 at 7:30pm
Feb 27 & Mar 6 at 3pm
Tickets: $20, 30, 45, 50
BAMdialogue with Laurie Anderson
Mar 1, post-show (free to ticket holders)
Buy tix here.
posted by Maximus |
2:45 pm EST |
2005.02.17 |
link
________________
PULL UP THE PEOPLE
»General
The NY Times is usually about a year or two (at least) behind the cultural cutting edge. So I was surprised to see this review of a show I actually wish I'd gone to:
M.I.A. was raised in Sri Lanka and lives in London, and she has established herself as one of hip-hop's most exciting new voices, rapping and chanting and sometimes singing over hard-thwacking electronic beats. ...
And for 45 minutes on Saturday night, she made wildly entertaining sense, playfully calling out her playground-ready couplets (''Somewhere in the Amazon/They're holding me ransom''; ''Pull up the people/Pull up the poor'') while bouncing her slim limbs in time to the beat. Backed by Diplo, her D.J., she rode tracks new and old, bringing together old-fashioned electro and futuristic dancehall reggae, London grime and Atlanta crunk. Maybe that's why her music sounds somehow inevitable: because sooner or later, these like-minded genres were bound to find one another.
Related: here's Sasha Frere-Jones' piece on M.I.A. from last November.
posted by Maximus |
11:56 am EST |
2005.02.17 |
link
________________
WE ARE THE ROBOTS
»Events
MFR is my fave MP3 blog. This should be fun.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
MP3 Bloggers Series, Part Deux: Music For Robots Invades APT!
Continuing our series of events with the world's best MP3 bloggers, we're excited to welcome two members of the infamous Music For Robots crew to our downstairs lounge!
Music For Robots has earned ample amounts of acclaim for bringing an eclectic mix of genres to their popular daily music blog. Hip-hop, electro, old funk and soul, industrial and more... it's all there, and there's good odds you'll discover a new genre or two while browsing their on-point selections.
NYC-based Robots DJ Mr. Blair and J.P. plan on wowing the crowd not only with their dazzling turntable skills, but with a selection of tracks guaranteed to make you dance, weep, and shake your head in wonder... all at the same time!
This will be a killer night of new music and soon-to-be favorite tunes... for more info on MFR, head over to their excellent website: music.for-robots.com!
* UPSTAIRS: iParty w/ DJs AndrewAndrew
APT
419 West 13th Street
Tuesday, Feb. 15th DOWNSTAIRS LOUNGE
doors 10pm NO COVER
$4 Rhinegold & Boris Beers / $5 rum punch
posted by Maximus |
3:18 pm EST |
2005.02.15 |
link
________________
HE DEAFENED ME WITH SCIENCE
»General
Do custom ringtones annoy you? Blame Thomas Dolby.
(Via Music Thing.)
posted by Maximus |
3:31 am EST |
2005.02.14 |
link
________________
RIGHT ROUND / LIKE A RECORD, BABY
»Tech
I barely get my old busted Technics up and running, when along comes the new hotness:
MR1200 is an MP3 player designed specifically for DJing with. Rather than use a PC to replace an entire two-decks-and-a-mixer rig, it replaces only the decks, so you can continue to use your own separate mixer. This allows full use of mixer and headphones for prefading, meaning tracks can be mixed together as they always could be with decks.
With two soundcards in your PC (although it is possible with only one) and two instances of MR1200 running, or even two PCs, you can treat your MP3s just like vinyl. ...
* Platter behaves exactly like a real record deck -
grab it and it stops, pull it backwards and it plays
backwards.
* Platter can also emulate the jog wheel on a CD
deck.
* Vinyl groove simulation for a "picture" of the track -
spot those quiet bits!
* Choice of +8 or +20 pitch control, with separate fine
tuning. ...
And it's a free download! If this works as claimed, I need to spend some quality time with it soon.
posted by Maximus |
3:12 am EST |
2005.02.14 |
link
________________
SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE
»General
The Guardian profiles Bob Moog, and the Moog documentary. This quote sheds interesting light on something I've talked about before -- the deep American suspicion of electronic sounds:
"Oh, gosh, it freaked people out. One of the many things you could do was imitate vocal sounds - make it go 'Weeoooooww'. That really upset. The reaction was a bit like that of primitive cultures believing cameras could catch your soul." In the film, Moog even recalls one interviewer leaning towards him sternly and saying: "Tell me, Mr Moog, don't you feel guilty about what you have done?"
(Thanks, Joseph.)
posted by Maximus |
5:32 pm EST |
2005.02.12 |
link
________________
THE LAST REEL
»Tech
I posted last month about the closing of the last reel-to-reel tape plant in the world. Now, according to a Wall Street Journal article quoted on Modern Musician, the reality is sinking in for tape users:
Jeff Tweedy, leader of the rock group Wilco, prefers to record music on reel-to-reel tape rather than on the digital equipment that has overtaken the music industry. Purists like him think it confers a warmth and richness to recordings that a computer cannot.
But last Friday, Mr. Tweedy hit a snag as he prepared for a session in Wilco’s Chicago studio space: Nobody could find any of the professional-grade audio tape the band is accustomed to using. “I was under the impression that there was a shortage of tape in Chicago,” Mr. Tweedy says.
What he didn’t yet realize was that the shortage is global. Quantegy Inc., which may be the last company in the world still manufacturing the high-quality tape, abruptly shut down its Opelika, Ala., plant on Dec. 31, leaving audiophiles in the lurch. ...
The news has set off a frantic scramble in the music industry as producers and studios seek to secure as much Quantegy tape as possible. By the middle of last week, most suppliers around the country had sold out their entire stocks of reel-to-reel audio tape.
The supply that remained came at prices rapidly escalating above the usual $140-per-reel wholesale price of Quantegy 2-inch tape. Walter Sear, a prominent New York studio owner, quickly snapped up 60 or 70 reels, some at prices that had ballooned by as much as 40%. “We’ll have to change our approach to life without tape,” Mr. Sear says. ...
The crunch reaches far beyond the recording industry. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration uses Quantegy tape on its space shuttles to record information ranging from pressure to temperature. This week NASA has been trying to buy 20 reels from Quantegy.
Even Hollywood is affected. Some die-hard moviemakers believe voices sound better recorded on analog tape. In making “Spider-Man 2″ and the Harry Potter movies, digital recording technology has taken the front seat, but backups of dialogue were recorded on reels of Quantegy tape. Engineers are also worried about how long digital recordings will last.
posted by Maximus |
4:03 pm EST |
2005.02.09 |
link
________________
FORBIDDEN ELECTRONICS
»General
From yesterday's Morning Edition on NPR:
The 1956 sci-fi thriller Forbidden Planet was the first major motion picture to feature an all-electronic film score -- a soundtrack that predated synthesizers and samplers. It was like nothing the audience had seen -- or heard. The composers were two little-known and little-appreciated pioneers in the field of electronic music, Louis and Bebe Barron. ...
The Barrons' music caught the ear of the avant-garde scene: In the early 1950s, they worked on a year-long project with composer John Cage. They also scored several short experimental films.
But avant-garde didn't pay, and the Barrons decided to cash in by turning to Hollywood. Their score for Forbidden Planet drew critical praise, but a dispute with the American Federation of Musicians prevented them from receiving proper credit for the soundtrack. Their names were also left off the film's Oscar nomination.
(Thanks to Maud.)
posted by Maximus |
4:05 pm EST |
2005.02.08 |
link
________________
AND YOU TRY SO HARD TO BE LIKE THE BIG BOYS
»General
Welcome to Brooklyn, where the wanna-be rockstars are also wanna-be football fans:
"The serious football fan is obviously a really admirable species of man," said Lucas Jansen, the 22-year old keyboardist and vocalist for the Clinton Hill–based band Man vs. Beast, as he took a sip of his Brooklyn Lager. "And whatever I can do to approximate him, however paltry or pitiful, is what I would attempt to do."
Truth be told, Mr. Jansen is doing a pretty pitiful job of approximating the Serious Football Fan. Sitting at a table in the back room of the Alibi, a Fort Greene dive bar, Mr. Jansen was wearing tight jeans, eight days’ worth of stubble and dirty white Converses—all straight out of the emo-boy handbook. ...
"The boys that I’m friends with, they will wear my clothes, wear tiny T-shirts, will shop in the women’s section of the thrift store, and then they’re screaming about the World Series or whatever," said Rose Lichter-Marck, 22, an editorial assistant at Farrar, Straus and Giroux who is good friends with the members of Man vs. Beast. "It’s all these androgynous-looking boys that are like wisps—they’re hardly even men. So it’s like something they take pleasure in, but it’s in opposition to the life they lead."
Me, I'm a straight guy who loves the Pet Shop Boys and doesn't pretend to give a crap about either the Arcade Fire or the Super Bowl*. And I'm at peace with myself.
(Thanks to the recently resurrected TMFTML.)
*The World Series is another story.
posted by Maximus |
12:40 pm EST |
2005.02.06 |
link
________________
DROPKICK THE FAINT
»General
For lovers and haters of The Faint, here's a creative way to express your feelings toward the band.
(Via Screenhead.)
posted by Maximus |
4:17 pm EST |
2005.02.04 |
link
________________
VIENNA CALLING
»Events
After many moons of radio silence, comes this transmission from Maison du Chic:
Thursday, February 10, 2005
MDC is hosting a fun and *FREE* electro event at boogaloo: the nyc debut of BUNNY LAKE from VIENNA. please spread the word...
latest production effort from legendary GD LUXXE (chicks on speed, ersatz, suction, cheap etc.), BUNNY LAKE -- after the preminger flick, we assume -- is the collaboration between post-industrial cassanova CHRISTIAN FUCHS and experimental beat-meister, DR. NACHTSTROM. together, they make icy, r'n'b electro with rock'n'roll attitude.
think front line assembly's cover of "justify my love" or an easy-on-the-ears suicide, especially when glamour girl SUZY ON THE ROCKS takes the mic. heavily inspired by italian horror films and top-shelf cocktails, BUNNY LAKE's debut effort includes collaborations with JIM THIRLWELL and nyc multimedia artists SUK and KOCH, with whom they'll be doing a live video interaction (of course!). sample lyric: "your body keeps me walking/your scent keeps me stalking."
also from vienna, dj GLOW (trust, red tide, playing to seas of austrian ravers duing the 90s at legendary "gasometer" parties)
and superstar dj, ULYSSES (scatalogics, neurotic drum band, lasergun)
new video work from ENGLISH KILLS
plus, if yer lucky, ULYSSES and NICKLCAT will premiere their track "it'll make you feel good"
you can dance if you want to
BOOGALOO
THURSDAY, 10 FEBRUARY
9PM (bunny lake at 10:30)
168 marcy ave (bway-south 5th)
718.599.8900
J to marcy, L, G to metropolitan
*FREE*
posted by Maximus |
6:16 pm EST |
2005.02.03 |
link
________________
CATCH ME, I'M FALLING
»General
Speaking of freestyle: Jam 2 Dis offers a thorough history of the genre. It covers acts like Stevie B, Will to Power, Exposé, Sa-Fire, Company B, Shannon, and Trinere, and discusses the differences between New York and Miami freestyle.
It doesn't mention some of the other acts I remember hearing on Power 96 during the '80s, like Pretty Poison, Nice & Wild, Erotic Exotic, Secret Society, and Nocera. But I found some of those artists on this 4-CD set. It's going on my wish list.
posted by Maximus |
3:48 pm EST |
2005.02.01 |
link
________________
|
