Thursday, September 28, 2006

A Little Shout to the Wolf Parade

Hot Dizzam!!!

Why is Wolf Parade straight rockin' my dirt marble recently???!!!! For some reason, I didn't think that much of them when I first heard their stuff, but I'm slowly becoming a true believer. They are bombs, ya'll.

BTW, I first heard them @ Sub Pop's site (see 'Free (legit!) Music' for link).......

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Yo La Tengo's I am not afraid of you and I will beat your ass

Ok killahs,
I just listened to the first three minutes of the TEN MINUTE(!), FORTY SEVEN(!) second album opener of Yo La Tengo's New Record. And lord god, it has given me sensations that would call for quinine and last rights were I reclining in the darkest Congo, not in a crumpled office chair in a mole-fart stagnant media basement. Typing furiously, as if this were my last actions on this earth.

With all deliberate speed listen to this album and support this band! I cannot underline this enough, even if I owned all the quills in cornwall, let alone, east anglia.

***

[update] - the party don't stop. the slaying track in question can be obtained, coveted and polished from obsessive rubbing, for FREE - on the up and up, courtesy matador records here. (direct .mp3 download link)

Ghostface and portastatic

I kna he's a RIAA artist and all, but DAMN! Fishscale just keeps bangin' and bangin'. That record doesn't ever stop. Why am I such a philistine that I don't really like listening to late 60's - 70's soul - but if Ghost samples some i'm like, "Thats my JAM, right there!" and it's SO good?

Ghostface official website @ defjam.com

***

Also - i don't know if there's time but: Mac and the portastatic are making a new record and if you get in on the 1st 100 pre-orders, they give you a bonus disc for free. Dope.

**
Also, Also - my flaming lips exposure is limited to : Soft Bulletin. But if I had a florin or a gilder for each time i played the record, OR if I had a half-pence for each time i played a TRACK off that record - I would line the streets of walterboro with such precious onyx and jasper that the sun itself would have to set out of envy.

Tuesday, September 05, 2006

About Me, School, and the Jelly She Don't Use….

The News:

Ok, so I'm sure our millions of readers have been wondering what in the h-e-double-hockey sticks happened to me. Well, I recently moved to Columbia, SC and started at the U of SC as a studio art major. Thanks, BTW, to Mr. Dr. Confusion for so aptly and sentimentally presenting this news to the rest of cyberspace.

Anyway, aside from being busy with school and the wife and staying up pretty much all night every night painting, I've been listening to loads of music. And, let's talk about that because, after all, that's why we're here, mammal.

Down To Bidness:

I was walking to school today, with the MP3 on shuffle, when "Chewin the Apple of Your Eye" came on. Now this is a very cool little acoustic-low fi type thing that sits right around the middle of The Flaming Lips' album Transmissions from the Satellite Heart, and breaks up the record great. It got me thinking about how I'd heard "She Don't Use Jelly" back when it came out (around '97, I think??). I remember hating that song and thinking that The Flaming Lips were just another idiot, no-talent band trying to skate in on the corporate side of the then new musical genre called 'alternative.' For some reason, the song just rubbed me the wrong way.

Of course, I'd never heard of the band at that time and so didn't have the affection toward their music that I do now- This left me wondering how much of my change in attitude (regarding "She Don't Use Jelly" specifically) was contextual and how much reflected my now different musical outlook. To state things more clearly: did my tastes change so dramatically, or did I simply accept The Flaming Lips' silly little ditty as a 'classic' after having been exposed to so many (other) masterworks by the group? I mean, how differently do we view individual works by an artist when we have other works by that same artist to compare them to? I think it often makes a difference to me, as I seem to be willing to cut more slack to artists that I respect when they come up with a silly or a lower standard piece of work.

This is not to say that I consider "She Don't Use Jelly" to be a lower standard work, but when you hear it by itself does it wreak of brilliance? What if I'd heard Transmissions from the Satellite Heart and it had sucked? What if "She Don't Use Jelly" had been the best thing, hands down, on the album? What then? Would I have said, yeah, The Flaming Lips, I was right about them……they S-U-C-K!.......(I'm stickin' with Nirvana.)

Makes you think, or at least, it does me. I need to go through my record collection and try to see some of the music I listen to with new eyes (or new ears, rather)- Shuffle is good for that. It also makes me think how you can develop a 'personal' kind of relationship with an artist over time and exposure to a greater bulk of their work, and through this relationship, begin to view their works with a sort of knowing 'familiarity,' a familiarity that turns a song like "She Don't Use Jelly" into a kind of inside joke that (maybe) only Flaming Lips fans can get.

And, to answer the question, is the song good by itself? I can only answer with that most popular addage, "I don't know if it's art, but I like it!" Pick up a copy of Transmissions from the Satellite Heart and decide for yourself *plug plug*.