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I don't know what this has to do with anything...

Gotta love baseball drama!

"Tomorrow I head off to Seattle for the EMP Pop conference which takes place this (long) weekend. On Friday afternoon I'm doing a talk entitled Just 4 U London: Place and Race in UK Dance Culture from Rave to Grime (actually it extends all the way up to dubstep.... gonna play some fun London themed records from the length and breadth of the nuum). I went to the first EMP in 2001 was it and this year's looks to be just as fantastic as that one. So many fascinating-looking talks and panels (often clashing with each other causing much anguish--most frustratingly the panel I'm on is the same time slot as the one with Stelfox & friend discussing chopped-and-screwed music/culture AND another panel which includes Matos talking about students with their Bob Marley posters, two of the talks I'd most wanted to witness*). So if you live in Seattle and read this blog and are somehow unaware of EMP (inconceivable, surely) do come along, I think the conference is actually free this year."

fucking sweet! I'm definitely going :)

It's seriously fucking retarded because the argument has no chance for resolution. If laws were more lax, perhaps students would've had guns to combat the aggressor. But if laws were more strict, perhaps the shooter might have thought twice about obtaining weapons. Blah blah blah, whatever. It's all ridiculous political fingercuffing.

Events like this fall into a much greater, far more troubling trend than anything the gun control debate can muster. Like... how did this troubled kid slip through the cracks for so long? How could roommates, teachers, and school officials have had supposedly no inkling of the brutality Cho Seung-Hui was capable of? Dude was an english major for crying out loud. Didn't anyone ever really read his writing???

The first selection is El Coco's "Brazil", which is one of the scariest, most mind-numbing disco albums I've ever heard.

dude is actually stabbing that women...

Opening with the tom-roll slasher "Caravan", it doesn't take a genius to conclude that El Coco is making deeply perverse music. Sure, the corny synth melodies and mellotron strings sound like Martini music for aging hipsters, but it's all just a front. There's a latent malice here; it's the sort of music you hack many, many bodies up to.

By far the most disgusting track on the album is "Disco Carnival". You can almost feel your mind being reprogrammed to kill without mercy underneath all the joyous organ jamming. When the main melody kicks in, think "speed junkie mother from the 50's trying in earnest to apply lipstick". IF you can make it to the end, be warned: the first time I finished listening to this song, all the doors in my house simultaneously SHUT. Was my home cleansed of evil forces? If only my dream catcher could speak...

Anyway, I believe "Brazil" is an important album if only because it makes sense of the 70s Nazi-eske "Disco Sucks" campaign. As it turns out, the rock kids were right. Disco was too functional. It's function was to kill.

this cover is kind of awesome

I spent a great portion of 2000-2002 utterly depressed from reading Simon Reynold's constant drum'n'bass disses. To him, everything was wrong about the music--the drums, the bass, the soundscapes, fuck... everything. So I turned to the past to avoid reality, morphing my love for '93-era breakbeat hardcore into an outright obsession. It was stupid, too. I bet I spent thousands of dollars on dusty old records that sounded like complete shit just to quell this collector urge. I remember seeing Ghost World around that time, and completely relating to Steve Buscemi's absurd blues record fetish.

In the end, I gave up on all of it. It was too heartbreaking to realize this particular year in history had produced music that I thought was absolutely perfect. And it would never be repeated again.

Now, when I sit here reading about how Goldie and his new producer, Heist, are making shit that isn't straight up revivalism, but rather a "drawing of old powers", I can't help but be weary. This music is incredibly personal to me, and I'm sure, many others. To stick an album like this is the hype machine is irresponsible. That old 'sleeping with an ex' metaphor is especially apt in this case.

I mean, shit... did anyone ever really get over drum'n'bass?

For the click-lazy, the article spells out the scary truth behind Dendreon's "one-trick pony" approach. Since all our chips have been put into the drug Provenge, if the FDA board says 'no' on March 29th, we're pretty much fucked. But if they say yes, our stock will skyrocket and things will get very, very insane.

All we can do is wait.

The trick is: do not ever, ever, ever tell ANYONE that you "just moved" to town. It's like talking about ringworm patches on a first date.

...not that i've ever done that.

listening to this stuff makes me feel like my music taste is finally stepping out of 3rd grade.

Panda Bear – Person Pitch (Paw Tracks)

Taking in a wealth of influences, from Ariel Pink to Ghostbox to maybe even Burial, Animal Collective’s Panda Bear runs his third album through ghostly ooze, resurrecting dead eras of pop without ever settling on a concrete point of reference. Lazy people will claim “Person Pitch” sounds like a warped version of the Beach Boys, but the bittersweet / euphoric dynamic on “I’m Not” is more of a Beach Boys obituary than imitation. Any other comparisons go completely to shit on “Good Girl/Carrots”, as the song floats through disparate styles as one long, gooey dream sequence. “Bros” follows a similar trick, erasing any sense of temporality, continually twisting time and rhythm and melody on itself. Whether or not any of this fits into the Hauntology canon is beside the point—an album this undeniably imaginative, consistent, and immersive comes as a wonderful surprise and proof that maybe music isn’t as lost as it seems.

5 stars (out of...five stars)

How would you like your cheese? Shredded?

I just can't figure out how so many people can be so deluded. How many times can we re-replicate old guitars before we chock them up as products of their time? How does it take this much technology to make stomp pedals that sound... like they were made 40 years ago?

anyway. blah, I'm fucking crabby from this weekend. I should be thrilled though--after the NAMM show, I went to a shooting range with two of the members of the band KORN. They even gave me a copy of Guitar Hero 2. Of course, now I feel mildly indebted.

(p.s. KORN)

So, what was I listening to on a broad scale this year?

A lot of chicago house redux, for one. Earlier this year, I was obsessed with Tadd Mullinix's James T. Cotton and 2 AM/FM aliases. Unfortunately, dude isn't operating on the 'new track every month' release schedule, so it wasn't much to build a world view on.

best single of the year?

Dubstep finally went somewhere, and the contributions from Burial, Plastician, and Loefah kept me passively interested for most the year. That all went to shit after I made a mix for my Urb piece. I realized I actually do like the stuff quite a bit--a scary proposition since I don't know if I can go through another break-up like I had with drum'n'bass.

favorite album of the year, oh yes.

After falling in love with King Diamond all over again, I have to concede that this whole hipster black metal thing has really spiraled out of control. If you think your town has it bad, you haven't been to Seattle. It's like the whole city went out and bought AD&D Monstrous Compendiums one weekend. Girls with 20-sided die as necklaces? Come on. Where were you when I was reading Deckmaster magazine, dreaming of Mithril Chainmail, and writing up character sheets for my sentient swords? Fuck you.

Has: swampwalk, protection from white.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but I'm curious if anyone has some other good "best of 06" suggestions??

Check out the December issue of Urb. I have a feature article in there on Dubstep called "Calling for Reinforcements". It has interviews and unusual tales from the likes of Burial, Jamie Vex'd, DJ Clever, Kode 9, and even Noodles from Groove Chronicles (for the old 2-steppers out there). BOH!

The whole thing is first and foremost a fashion movement, but the bands associated with it (such as Klaxons and Crystal Castles) seem to be on equal hype footing with most trendy music mags as well.

I haven't totally decided what I think about the whole thing quite yet, but I found a few videos that I believe will serve as the template for whatever happens next with this scene. i know these videos are incredibly obvious picks, but what i'm struck by is how RAVEY they sound in retrospect. Pianos, breakbeats, synth bass.... might as well be Sonz of a Loop da Loop era!

Marky Mark - Good Vibrations

Naughty by Nature - OPP

clipse - hell hath no fury

we make neet raps!