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Death, jazz, art: Dr. Jack Kevorkian, artist, musician when not assisting suicides
06.03.2011
12:45 pm
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By now you’ve probably heard that assisted suicide advocate, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, AKA “Dr. Death,” died this morning at the age of 83.

But what you might not know is that Kevorkian was an accomplished painter and jazz musician.

Yep, it’s true. One day I was crate-digging in some record store in New York City and I came across his jazz CD, Kevorkian Suite: Very Still Life for a buck, so I bought it. The CD booklet has several full-color reproductions of his paintings, and as you can see in the video below, the subject matter of his paintings often pertained to rather macabre things, as I am sure will come as no surprise.  And yes, that’s his music, he’s playing flute and organ. Not bad, but it wouldn’t be the last thing I’d want to hear…
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.03.2011
12:45 pm
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Hey Hey My My: Neil Young and Devo together in 1978
06.03.2011
12:24 pm
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Released only on VHS and Laserdisc in 1995, Neil Young’s film Human Highway, filmed in 1978, contains this marvelous footage of Young and Devo having their way with Hey Hey My My. Match made in heaven sez I ! Enjoy this excellent quality clip before the corporate music police take it down.
 

 
With thanks to Brian Turner and Clint Simonson!

Posted by Brad Laner
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06.03.2011
12:24 pm
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Formed For Fantasy: Ben Butler & The Niallist’s ‘Infinite Capacity (For Love)’ free download
06.03.2011
09:35 am
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I have written about Ben Butler and his magical Mouse Pad on DM before, calling Joe Howe (who is in effect Ben Butler) the “Herbie Hancock of the Scott Pilgrim generation” and “Bernie Worrell jamming a Gameboy”. I stand by that because Joe is a brilliant producer. His lo-fi synthtastic noodlefunk is not to everyone’s liking, but if you dug some of the skwee sounds I posted a wee while back, if you like some 80s MOR pop but think it’s just too slick, or even if you just have a general interest in leftfield electronica, then BB&MP are worth checking out.

Having released their debut album Formed For Fantasy earlier this year, BB&MP’s record label LOAF are now giving away as a free download the first single, “Infinite Capacity (For Love)”, which features The Niallist on lead vocals. Who is that I hear you ask? Yes, it is me, and I know that makes me open to accusations of nepotism, but I would post about BB&MP even if I didn’t know Joe. There’s a reason I worked with him and that is because he is really good, and I am very happy with our collaboration. But you can judge for yourself - to have “Infinite Capacity (For Love)” sent to your inbox, enter your email address into this widget:
 

 

 
Other guest vocalists on the album include San Francisco’s Vice Cooler (aka Hawnay Troof), LA’s Bobby Birdman and the brilliant Scottish oddbod Momus. Formed For Fantasy is being streamed in full on the LOAF Records website. For more info (and free tracks) check out the Ben Butler & Mouse Pad Bandcamp site, and for general shits and giggles they also have a Tumblr. LOAF have also just released a new video for the track “Design” featuring Bobby Birdman. It’s the wigged out animated tale of a psychedelic Jesus-meets-Vishnu character:
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Supermotion: The sound of Ben Butler & Mouse Pad

 

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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06.03.2011
09:35 am
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Jimi Hendrix performs ‘Room Full Of Mirrors’ at Royal Albert Hall, 1969
06.02.2011
03:51 am
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Jimi Hendrix in an epic performance of “Room Full Of Mirrors” at Royal Albert Hall on February 24, 1969.

Chris Wood on flute, Rocky Dzidzournou on congas and Dave Mason on guitar
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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06.02.2011
03:51 am
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NSFW Caribbean sleaze: Jamaican director takes on The Weeknd’s ‘Wicked Games’
06.02.2011
12:49 am
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The elusive The Weeknd…
 
This spring has seen 20-year-old Toronto-based R&B singer Abel Tesfaye—who does business as The Weeknd—zoom suddenly across the radar screen of the alt-music blogosphere and into the starry-eyed attention of pop star Drake and still-boring institution Rolling Stone.

And as if you need further proof of the irrelevance of the music industry, he’s done it as an unsigned artist on the strength of House of Balloons, a free downloadable mixtape of his tunes.

The hype surrounding Tesfaye springs from a couple of factors. One is the anxiously defiant swagitude in his smooth, loping, MDMA-tinged electro-soul sound. The other is the guy’s tantalizingly un-R&B low visual profile, which has resulted in the dissemination of a handful of mostly black-and-white photos of the handsome cat.

Tesfaye’s relative anonymity has also resulted in his fans producing some video interpretations of his tunes. Most of these have gone for a pretty literal black-&-white noir-city-apartment setting & narrative.

But Jamaican indie filmmaker Storm Saulter—director of the feature Better Mus’ Come and curator of the New Caribbean Cinema series—sets his disturbingly sunshine-soaked take on The Weeknd’s “Wicked Games” off the waters of his home island’s coastal parish of Portland.
 

 
After the jump: a more typical, though well-crafted, take on “What You Need”…

READ ON
Posted by Ron Nachmann
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06.02.2011
12:49 am
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‘Monie in the Middle’: True Hip Hop Stories
06.01.2011
04:32 pm
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“Old skool” rap icon Monie Love—where she at?—tells the wonderful tale behind the lyrics to her signature hit, 1990’s “Monie in the Middle,” in an episode of True Hip Hop Stories. I still play this song all the time. It’s unbeatable!
 

 
After the jump, watch the original video for “Monie in the Middle.”

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.01.2011
04:32 pm
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Music With Roots in the Aether: Philip Glass,Terry Riley, Alvin Lucier, Robert Ashley, etc.
06.01.2011
04:16 pm
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Love 20th Century experimental music and have 14 hours to spare? You’re in luck ! Long enshrined at the redoubtable Ubuweb, and available for purchase from Lovely Music in what I’d presume to be far superior quality, here’s the entire series of 7 films, each devoting a generous 2 hours to the composer, presented by composer Robert Ashley entitled Music With Roots in the Aether in YouTube form. Each film begins with a solid hour of unedited and consistently fascinating conversation in odd landscapes, frequently surrounded by people engaging in unrelated yet complementary activity leading into an hour of musical performance, most of which is solid wonderful-ness. One terrific example: See Alvin Lucier (as pictured above) performing Music For Solo Performer wherein his brainwaves are massively amplified through speakers attached to a battery of orchestral percussion instruments. Good times !
 
David Behrman

 
Philip Glass

 
Alvin Lucier

 
much more after the jump !

READ ON
Posted by Brad Laner
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06.01.2011
04:16 pm
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UNKLE and Nick Cave’s new video for ‘Money and Run’
06.01.2011
03:34 pm
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Whoa! Here’s a rather shocking and ultra-violent video for UNKLE’s “Money and Run” featuring vocals by Nick Cave. I’m simply rendered speechless. Who directed this, Pasolini? BTW, the video is probably NSFW.

 
(via Testspiel.de)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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06.01.2011
03:34 pm
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Chris Stein interviews William Burroughs, 1987
06.01.2011
01:52 pm
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“Towers open fire.”
 
Here’s a short but compelling clip of Blondie’s Chris Stein and William Burroughs having a chat in 1987. Wish there was more. 

Chris describes the scene:

This is a pretty simple discussion here, (i was trying to sound intelligent)... Bill is just saying that war is part of the natural plan, universe whatever… he drops a lot of phrases that come from Buddhism, he and Kerouac, Ginsberg and co. were all enthusiastic followers… i dont really think that Bill was a devoted practitioner… he was more of a mystic or animist in my opinion.

This was shot in the basement of the last and biggest Warhol factory which was the old Con Ed building on Madison and 33rd street for a segment of Andy’s cable tv show hence the models who were directed to wander through the shots.”

“This a war Universe.”
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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06.01.2011
01:52 pm
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Asheton alone: Isolated guitar tracks from ‘No Fun’
05.31.2011
03:14 pm
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In 2007, Asheton described his guitar sound: “I get a brighter and brassier sound than a lot of people. It’s almost painful. I’ve been told, ‘Your guitar sound is painful, man!’ And I go, ‘Hey, cool. All right!’”

I love this description of Asheton’s playing on “No Fun” from Tim Lucas:

For the first 2:43 of the song, Asheton anchors the song with steady, distorted, rhythmic riffing from the right channel—and just when we think we’ve heard everything this anthem to teenage boredom has up its patched denim sleeve, Iggy’s pleas prompt Asheton to launch into the fuzziest, dirtiest, squiggliest, squealingest, noodly guitar solo ever heard, absolutely merciless in its full-on drilling against the hard stone walls of ennui.”

The man who gave courage and inspiration to thousands of fledgling punk guitarists, launching a rock and roll revolution, the godhead of psychotic, six string, sonic sublimeness, Mr. Ron Asheton:
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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05.31.2011
03:14 pm
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