while crackerCAM is on location in the land of hobbits (we’re all jealous), i thought i would fill in for him. this past sunday, i took advantage of the nice weather to stroll around williamsburg and capture all the amazing street art, including a couple of recent bansky pieces. started out with brunch at bonita with some excellent huevos rancheros. then headed north snapping shots along the way, but not before stopping at academy records and my favorite skate shop in nyc, kcdc. they just moved into a new space and the mini-ramp is looking sweet as ever. kudos to amy and her crew! more pics after the jump…
Whoa – it’s been a little while since I wrote one of these things. Any regular readers have probably already noticed that these posts typically focus on bands from the early 90′s and this one is no different. Blonder Tongue Audio Baton is one of those albums that gives me the chills everytime I hear it. The album, named after a vintage tube equalizer (thanks All Music), has more of a kick to it than any of my other shoegaze faves sounding like something that Polvo, Sonic Youth, and Slowdive would come up with if they collaborated on an album together.
Swirlies originally formed as a Go-Go’s cover band called Raspberry Bang in Boston in 1990 consisting of Damon Tutunjian and Seana Carmody on guitars and vocals, bassist Andy Bernick, and drummer Ben Drucker. The band signed to Boston-based label Taang! and released the mini-album What To Do About Them in 1992 which documented the band’s growth from My Bloody Valentine idolizers into their own unique style. The band’s first full-length and most celebrated work, Blonder Tongue Audio Baton, followed in 1993. The album retainined elements of their earlier work, but was a much more noisy and complex take on shoegaze and dream pop and included the addition of found sounds, tape loops, mellotrons, and white noise. “Park The Car By The Side Of The Road” is one of my favorite tracks on the album as Seana Carmony’s Bilinda Butcher-ish vocals swoon over the distorted noise only to be followed by furious guitar explosions that sound like My Bloody Valentine on steroids.
Swirlies experienced a slew of lineup changes following the release of 1994′s Brokedick Car EP, but are still alive and kicking today thanks to Damon Tutunjian and Andy Bernick who have been involved with the band from the beginning. Tutunjian and Bernick created a Swirlies offshoot called The Yes Girls with Rob Laasko and Ron Rege Jr. (drummer for Lavender Diamond) as well as a label/collective called Sneaky Flute Empire, a medium for their recordings. The lastest Swirlies release (and first in 7 years) was 2003′s Cats of the Wild, Volume II EP.
Check out some mp3′s and a video for “Bell” below.
When I first saw Ron Mueck’s work back in ’99 at the controversial exhibit Sensation (remember Giuliani getting his panties in a wad about the Virgin Mary painting with dung on it?), I was blown away. The Australian sculptor Mueck, replicates the minute details of the human body using silicon and mixed media, but plays with scale to produce impressively distressed images. His work is extraordinarily lifelike, bringing the viewer closer to study every detail, while inducing feelings of guilt from examining the vulnerable nakedness of the subjects.
Mueck’s solo exhibition can be experienced at the Brooklyn Museum now through February 4th. More pictures after the jump…
Last night I checked off one event from my list of ‘things I must do before I die’ and saw the legendary Les Paul at the classy Iridium Jazz Club. If you don’t know who Les Paul is (and hopefully you do), he is the pioneer of the solid-body electric guitar. He helped design one of the first and most popular electric guitars, the Gibson Les Paul. Developed in the early 1950s, it has become one of the most enduring and popular models in the world. Its design has been left virtually untouched for nearly 50 years.
At 91 years old, Les Paul is still performing and amazing audiences. Though his virtuoso finger-picking style has slowed over the years, he can still capture the senses with impressive solos and carry his backup trio through those classic tunes. Sharp as a whip, Paul kept the audience laughing with hilarious banter, including stopping in the middle of a song to pose for a picture and then proceeding to give the camera ‘the bird’. My particular favorite tune was Caravan, which Paul led with his personal 1972 Gibson ‘Recording’ model guitar.
The Iridium Jazz Club is set up more like a supper club and serves a suprisingly tasty food. At $35 a ticket, the show is not cheap, but it’s a small price to pay to see a living legend. More pictures after the jump.
I used the past week and time away from work to go back and listen to some albums that I didn’t get around to during the summer and fall months. I decided to ignore this blog and pretty much the internet altogether in order to give the albums my full attention.
The first album in my queue was The Paper Chase‘s fourth full-length, Now You Are One Of Us. The Dallas, TX quartet gives the listener fair notice on what to expect from the album’s cover art, which depicts the lower half of a man dangling from the ceiling in a little white room with a TV in the corner. The 15-tracks that make up Now You Are One Of Us evoke a sense of fear and darkness. They are paranoid and chaotic; driven by dissonent strings, trouncing pianos, angular guitars, and filled with samples taken from horror films. The result is 51-minutes of frightening beauty better fitting a release at the end of October rather than the summer (when the album was released).
Fans of The Paper Chase will (and probably already have) embrace Now You Are One of Us as their signature sounds and nasaly vocals of John Congleton are present throughout the album. Now You Are One of Us is also more accessible than the band’s previous efforts, making it the perfect introductory album for the first time listener. It’s by far one of the most unique and underappreciated albums of the year.
Keep an eye on the band’s website as they are currently planning a tour for early next year that will include East Coast dates. Now You Are One of Us is out now on Kill Rock Stars.
*cracks neck* It’s been a while since I was last here. And certain individuals, whom shall remain nameless but happen to have a penchant for lewd acts and even lewder fashion, have been encouraging me to be a tad bit more vocal. I have decided to make them feel that they have a purpose after all…despite what evolution said to the contrary.
This blog is going to be a little different – a bit off the beat and path. Kinda what Borat looks like dancing. What am I babbling on about? A little time consumer that I have been involved in – it’s called Gears of War. For those who happen to have had their heads stuck in places that often haunt me in the darkness of night, it is a video game for the Xbox 360. Yeah, I still play video games. Yes, I have a wife. Any other mundane, irrelevant questions? No? Good.
The game is a violent, visceral thrill. Running around as part of what little remains of the human forces trying to save what little is left of the planet from a horde of FUGLY SOBs called the Locust Horde. And if they are ugly, they are at least 3 times as ornery. This is NOT a game for the young’uns. This is big people fun here. There are guns, guts, glory, gratuitous grossness, and an overall middle finger prominently displayed for politicians, slack-jawed parents, and whiny ninnies who have nothing better to do than to complain about America’s laziness and moral decay. I have a good time playing Gears of War and I recommend it. Why? The game is gorgeous – if you want to see what “next generation” graphics look like, take a gander. When you have tactfully picked your jaw up off the floor and wiped away the drool, try picking up the controller. *shakes head* I said pick up the controller after you wipe off the drool. The control scheme is tight and intuitive – left analog stick moves you around, right analog sticks lets you look around, right trigger does what, class? It shoots – it is called a trigger after all. The movement is fluid; the intensity ramped up. I play quite a few games, and I was violently violated more than once so far. It is dirty, mischievous fun…like watching your sister’s hot friends when they come to sleep over. Plus it relieves stress.
Life is pretty hectic as it is. We have lives, loved ones, responsibilities, occupations – we can all use some distraction every now and again. Some people have alcohol…some people have porn…I have killing monsters that are trying to kill me and anyone else within their reach. It keeps me happy – it keeps me level. And I think all of us need that. Where we find it is up to our own idiosyncratic nuances. Sometimes, I get that from music (I am planning on writing something about one of my new faves, Cobra Starship, soon). As I have recently gotten a device that allows me to listen to mp3s, I feel able to spend more time with music. And I have missed that. But when I get home after a hard day, I fire up the 360, grab my Lancer assault rifle with the chainsaw (yep, there’s a chainsaw ON on the gun!), and forget that I have a responsibility to be morally upstanding. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
I missed this monthly post in October, partly due to the hecticness of CMJ, but here’s this month’s edition highlighting some of the albums that haven’t strayed far from my ears.
Joanna Newsom – Ys Joanna Newsom‘s Ys (pronounced “ease”) is sure to be topping many critics lists in the upcoming weeks. I have to admit, I really never got into 2004′s The Milk-Eyed Mender, something I plan on revisiting in the coming months after falling in love with Ys (and Joanna Newsom). A lot of great things have been said about his album, I read somewhere that it has been referred to as the “album of our time,” but I think Pitchfork’s Chris Dahlen captured my feelings about Ys with the following paragraph.
“This isn’t a great album because she owns a dog-eared encyclopedia, or because it stands above the cheap rewards or superficial freakiness we expected from her. It’s great because Newsom confronts a mountain of conflicting feelings, and sifts through them for every nuance. It’s intricate and crammed with information, but it’s never bookish, and she never sits back in a spell and lets her heart flutter:She swoops into the sky and races across the ground, names every plant and every desire, and never feels less than real. The people who hear this record will split into two crowds: The ones who think it’s silly and precious, and the ones who, once they hear it, won’t be able to live without it.” [Chris Dahlen for Pitchfork]
Tom Waits – Rain Dogs
I watched Jim Jarmusch’s “Dead Man” and “Down by Law” earlier this month, with the latter being my favorite of the two, even though I’m a pretty big fan of Johnny Depp. I was pretty impressed with Tom Waits performance in “Down by Law” and instead of springing for a Neil Young album after watching the movies, I put on Tom Waits Rain Dogs and have been listening to it since. I was on a pretty good Waits kick a few years ago and it looks to be starting again with today’s release of Orphans, Waits‘ 56-track outtakes collection.
White Magic – Dat Rosa Mel Apibus
Another excellent release from Drag City, White Magic‘s Dat Rosa Mel Apibus was released the same day as Newsom’s Ys. I mentioned before how this album has been the perfect companion for the season and it has also mixed in really well with my current rotation, well, minus all of the electro stuff. Stylus Magazine has a nice review of Dat Rosa Mel Apibus with mentions of Newsom throughout. Also, the packaging on the vinyl version of the album is just as beautiful as the music.
Beach House – Beach House
Along with Le Volume Courbe, White Magic, and Joanna Newsom, Beach House‘s hazy self-titled slow burner is another fall favorite. I was pleasantly surprised with the band’s live show during CMJ, as the duo captured the warmth and beauty of the album on stage with Legrand crooning about lost loves and longing. The band plays Tonic on Sunday, November 26th.
Whoa – it’s been a little while since I wrote 
