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11/11/09 Oberlin College IL
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11/12/09 North Star Bar Phila, PA 11/13/09 Brooklyn Bowl Brooklyn, NY 11/14/09 Ottobar Baltimore, MD 11/15/09 Bowery Ballroom NY 12/08/09 Mono Pescara 12/09/09 Circolo degli Artisti Rome 12/10/09 Live Forum Milan 12/11/09 Spazio 211 Turin 12/12/09 Bronson Ravenna |
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Eddie looks like a guy that doesn't take himself too seriously. He seems to like to drink a lot and talk a lot (but with his thick British accent, it's not like we could understand half what was said). He seems to swagger on stage a lot, often using his left arm to illustrate the songs.
There wasn't enough room on stage for Argos to do his infamous microphone skip, but he did manage to sing half of "DC Comics" by the bar section. Speaking of which, I think it's cool that Argos is a huge DC fan - since UK comics are usually, you know, 2000 AD/Judge Dredd sort. During the song, Argos spouted out what I hear as "Christian Bale", "Booster Gold" (if I can remember, I think he was basically a janitor from the future with future tech and a Legionaires flight ring), and something about "Metropolis".
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The thing about "The Passenger", from their latest album Art Brut vs Satan, is that it got this great introduction. Eddie explained how he thought the Iggy Pop song was about taking the subway, "Iggy doesn't seem to me to be the driving sort." It wasn't until later did he discovered that Iggy's song was about taking heroin in back of a limo with David Bowie. Too funny.
Oh the other thing, the way Eddie sings, if you can call it singing, is quite interesting. It's more like rambling, it definitely feels at time like The Fall - only with a lot heavier backing band.
The band left and came back with three encores. I thought I heard Eddie saying "we don't normally do this", which may have been said in an ironic kind of way. I really couldn't tell, all I know is that the encores were met by the fans' demands.
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11/11/2009 00:00:22 ♥ vu (
) ♥ artbrut.org.uk ♥ myspace.com/artbrut
Automatic posting from my Twitter Account:
- 07:32 I'm 0-2 on holiday knitting projects. 2 projects that seemed like they'd be cute but turned out not to be. At all.
- 07:34 Maybe the dinner party rule should apply to knitting gifts: don't make anything for the first time.
- 19:23 Crazy night to be grilling - and yet, we are.
- 20:37 Having these salted butter-pecan cookies around the house is dangerous bit.ly/36NUrZ
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Suburban Noize Records have been around since the mid-90s, catering to a very certain market of young hip hop, herb culture, and punk fans. We have a few items from them for review.
For starter, SubNoize Souljaz (myspace) is like the all-star supergroup, consisting of 15 or so Suburban Noize artists, including members of Kottonmouth King, Big B, and Jared Gomes (singer of Hed PE).
Their third album, Blast From The Past, just dropped late last August. While I am unfamiliar with some of these titles, I almost knew all the cover songs from hearing them on the radio. Except this album are all done in the style of that only Subnoize can deliver. With the variety of rappers and lead singers - the music is somewhat uneven, but at least the vocals stands out from each other. Particularly, I was impressed with Judge D's cover of LL's "Mama Said Knock You Out" and a funky The Dirtball's cover of RATM's "Microphone Fiend" (the bass is really good on this song) and Slick Rick's "Children's Story" by Daddy X.
It's evident that these guys owe a lot to influential bands that came before them (NWA, 2Pac, Snoop, Dre), so this album is a tribute to them. If you like old-school rap, particularly Death Row Records, as much as anyone that grew up in the 90s, you will definitely do yourself a favor and check out Blast From The Past.
 Tour Dates
11/15/09 El Corazon Seattle, WA
11/16/09 Satyricon Portland, OR 11/17/09 DNA Lounge SF, CA 11/18/09 Boardwalk Orangevale, CA 11/20/09 Starline Fresno, CA 11/21/09 Modesto Virtual Modesto, CA 11/22/09 Chain Reaction Anahiem, CA 11/23/09 Karma Victorville, CA 11/24/09 Roxy Los Angeles, CA |
Anyway, Brokencyde is a "crunk"-core band (apparently this genre is a fusion of hip hop and electro, and possibly other genres like punk and rock). The band embrace the brand, and even have a song called "Get Crunk!".
The album actually did chart on the Billboard 200 at #86, which kind of impressed me, considering that many of the artists I hear about, they never chart. I think the high debut might possibly be due to their presence on this year's US Warped Tour. However, despite the success, the album was critically condemned. My favorite is (name redacted) review from NME: "even if I caught Prince Harry and Gary Glitter adorned in Nazi regalia defecating through my grandmother’s letterbox I would still consider making them listen to this album too severe a punishment." Critics who hates them, I don't think they understand that the album was meant for them... certainly the album is not meant for me. I am curious what the band will sound like when they've matured a bit. Although, I will have to confess that I did smile a bit when I heard "pee pee" sung on "Sex Toys" and "let's get retarded" on "Rockstar".
They look and sound very young (hey, FYI, their singer is called Se7en), which makes their debut album I'm Not a Fan... But the Kids Like It even more-so ironic. I did feel that despite their youngness, that
Stronger songs on the album are: "Freaxxx" (with the catchy "let's get freaky" lyrics), and "Yellow Bus" (boasting about sex with groupies like Miley Cyrus??? WTF!).
If you don't mind the naughty messages, some autotune, some screamo, some electronica, check out I'm Not a Fan... But the Kids Like It at amazon.
 Tour Dates
11/13/09 Budweiser Event Center* CO
11/14/09 Mid America Center*, IA 11/15/09 Uptown Theater* Kansas City, MO 11/17/09 Val Air Ballroom Des Moines, IA 11/18/09 Aragon Ballroom* Chicago, IL 11/19/09 The Fillmore* Detroit, MI 11/26/09 Grove of Anaheim, CA * with 311 |
Their latest release is Hidden Stash 420, an epic 2-disc album. This is basically a collection of unreleased tracks, b-sides, remixes, demos. The packaging is also nice, it's a fold-out digipak. Hardcore fans will want to purchase the album directly from Subnoize Store or Best Buy stores, as that comes with a bonus DVD called The Lost Adventures of the Kottonmouth Kings.
While it's easy to just dismiss the band as pot smokers, that all their songs about weed, and although it's true, I believe they also deceptively paint a vivid picture of what their lifestyle is like. Check out tracks like "Take a Ride", as it describes California and family, all under a catchy chorus of "west coast is the place for me, never know what you'll see". But it's not all serious, there's a goofy song called "Late Night Call" with cultural reference of "me so horny", "facebook" and "myspace".
The collection is mostly older songs, and it's interesting to see some of their experiments. One song, "Tangerine Sky", seems like it's paying tribute to the Beatles LSD song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". "Tangerine Sky" comes off as being more melodic and slower than most of their songs. The other non-conventional KMK is a poppy song "Let the Music Play". I wish I knew the story behind this song, but what I can tell you that it sounds very happy and 60s love. Perhaps Jackson Five?
Anyway, my favorites are usually the faster-constantly rapping songs with a loopy DJ backback, like "Evolution" and "Got It Get It". The later is a new Kingspade (a division of Kottonmouth King's rap duo, Johnny Richter and D-Loc) venture, which may be important for fans, as they haven't released anything under Kingspade in the last two years.
Hidden Stash 420 is out now. A perfect Christmas gift for any stoner in your family.
11/10/2009 18:05:38 ♥ vu () ♥ suburbannoizerecords.com ♥ suburbannoizejapan.com
David Gray has been a regular visitor to KCRW since before his album “White Ladder” launched him to stardom. In fact, the Welsh singer loves KCRW so much, he even dropped by for a performance on his wedding day many years ago. The multi-platinum selling artist was back today to perform songs from his latest hit record, “Draw the Line” – including the title track and other favorites like “Fugitive” and “Kathleen.” He also performed a special cover of Bob Dylan’s “Meet Me in the Morning.”
Jason asked him how he could be such an easy going guy to chat with but channel such heartbreak and cutting emotion in his songs. David replied that when playing music you get to access the “reaches of your tortured soul.” And aren’t we glad he does!
RR
Is it "Write A Blog Every Day For A Month" again? Because I'm already 10 behind. So here is a post from about two years ago where I said "Oh, I'm going to post about every computer I've ever used!" and then I stopped, right after this one. Lord Kalvan has been posting about a bunch of old computers and it reminded me of my original intent.
So here goes - I'm going to take a few posts to talk about the different computers I've used. I'll start with the very first one. This is the Commodore CBM-8032. This came out around 1980 and had a massive 32k of RAM. It had an 80 column by 25 line green monochrome screen. The CPU was a 6502 2Mhz.
This was owned by the science department at my high school. 1980 (10th grade for me) was well before the school had computer labs, etc. This was the ONLY computer in the school and we found it in the back of a store room where it wasn't being used.
It was beautiful. I used this from 1980 through 1982.
The base model used tapes, but the school actually had a dual floppy drive for it. I sent a letter to Commodore to see if they could send me any information on it, and they sent me a copy of their Commodore magazine. It was cool because it was filled with source code you could key in and also had instructions on how to do things with the system - like print. Yeah, this was before all of the magic we rely on today. Internet? Ha! I don't think so.
My first program was in BASIC and said something like:
10 PRINT "DEWITTE"
20 GOTO 10
and I'd run it... and run it.. and run it... There were three of us who started hanging around the back of the science room every chance we had - before school, after school, during lunch. We'd write programs and key in games and play them. One I recall the most is StarTrek (where you were a big E (for enterprise) and it moves around looking out for K (Klingons). Ah, good times, good times.
I would send a note to Commodore and when I received a reply, it would come from a different address. I thought something was up - they kept moving. Eventually I think they went away, but that wasn't until after the Vic-20, Commodore 64, and the Amiga. The only one of these I seriously used was the Amiga, but that's for another post.
I used to sit in the back of the classroom and just write mindless programs and listen to Supertramp on a cassette boom-box that I built (yes, built - and sad really because I don't have a single picture of it).
Check out this great piece by Peter Davies and Mark Scherzer about turkeys - from their history to a hilarious account of eating turkey in Turkey...
Food52.com launched a tournament (think college basketball style brackets) to decide who had the best cookbook of the year.
Finished The Shadow Club Rising by Neal Shusterman.
This takes place after the events of The Shadow Club. Not surprisingly, nobody at their school trusts the members of the (now-disbanded) Shadow Club. And when a new student (the incredibly obnoxious and unfortunately named Alec Smartz) starts getting hideous pranks played on him, everyone (students, teachers, the principal) believes it's because of The Shadow Club in general and Jared in particular.
So Jared has to prove his innocence. I preferred this to the first book but still like Unwind most of all. :)
Orgone brought some funky grooves to our Santa Monica studios -- a full throttle live performance despite the early morning hour, with a full horn section and Fanny Franklin on vocals. While a lot of soul/funk bands tend to sound entirely retro, Orgone seem to have created a vibe that is fresh, unique and very much influenced by Southern California. Their cover of “Funky Nassau” has been a favorite among our DJs and they managed to squeeze it in, along with a Meters’ cover, just before the end of their set.
RR
KCRW put together a compilation through iTunes of songs straight from our DJ’s playlists and we are offering it FREE for our listeners. It’s 20 tracks, including Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, Mayer Hawthorne and Miike Snow – all who made their debuts here and have been getting a ton of buzz – as well as Moby, St. Vincent, and Iron and Wine.
Here’s the link: http://www.kcrw.com/selections
Get it while you can!
RR
KCRW Selections: 20-Track iTunes Playlist
ARTIST / TITLE
The Morning After Girls / Part of Your Nature
Fanfarlo / Ghosts
St. Vincent / The Strangers
Headless Heroes / Just Like Honey
Nickodemus / Calle Sol
Black Moth Super Rainbow / Smile the Day After Today
Sonic Youth / Malibu Gas Station
A Camp / Here Are Many Wild Animals
Iron and Wine / Belated Promise Ring
Zap Mama / Do You Wanna?
Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros / 40 Day Dream
Miike Snow / Sans Soleil
Eels / In My Dreams
Bibio / Ambivalence Avenue
Generationals / When They Fight, They Fight
Moby / Pale Horses (Empyrean Dub remix)
Mayer Hawthorne / Maybe So, Maybe No
The Temper Trap / Sweet Disposition
Quantic and His Combo Barbaro / Un Canto a Mi Tierra
Mocky / Birds Of a Feather
