James Chance and The Contortions performing “Almost Black’’ at La Maroguinerie, Paris, February 2010. James has still got those funky white boy moves. This was one stop on a short European tour.
“In Europe James performs with James Chance & Les Contorsions, French musicians who have been his backing band since 2006.”
I really like this recycled CD rack from Redimei Objetos. However, it’s a bit pricey at $60 a pop! I betcha you could make one of these at home on the cheap.
Here’s yet another Cher/Phil Spector rarity, “Ringo, I Love You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah) from 1964. This surprisingly punky ditty was recorded by a then 18-year-old Cher (performing as Bonnie Jo Mason) and was co-written and produced by Phil Spector, but it never charted. Apparently radio programmers thought her deep voice was a male’s voice, or at least deep enough to be confused as one, meaning that the song would have taken on overtones not orignally intended.
I’ve been working on my list of the best videos of 2010 and until I saw this vile piece of crap I hadn’t even thought of beginning a ‘worst of’ list. But this knucklehead cover of ‘Bad Company’ by a bunch of tough guy poseurs from L.A. with the mucho macho name of Five Finger Death Punch really blows chunks.
Promoting their album, the repugnantly titled War Is The Answer, this video is by far one of the stupidest things I’ve seen that lays claim to being rock and roll.
Considering it’s a song about ruthless outlaw killers, trying to re-work ‘Bad Company’ into a militaristic anthem is just plain idiotic. But even worse, the footage of the band in Iraq, brandishing guns, playing G.I. Joe and buddying up to actual soldiers, is pathetic and offensive. These pricks ain’t patriots, they’re assholes exploiting a war to sell a few records. Fuck em!
I can’t imagine seeing a more noxious video in 2010 unless Ted Nugent comes up with something new in the next few months. If these guys weren’t so stupid, they’d be dangerous…like bed bugs or crab lice.
Miles runs the brew-doo down! In honor of the 40th anniversary of Miles Davis’s jazzrock fusion masterpiece, Bitches Brew, Dogfish Head brewers have released a new commemorative beer. Not only is “Bitches Brew” a bitchin’ name for a brew, of course, that iconic Mati Klarwein cover painting makes the coolest label I think I’ve ever seen.
Miles Davis’ seminal Bitches Brew album was a game changer – a bold fusion of rock, funk and jazz. To honor the 40th anniversary release, Dogfish Head has created a bold, dark beer that’s a fusion of three threads imperial stout and one thread honer beer with gesho root. Like the album, this beer will age with the best of ‘em.
Speaking of Bitches Brew, I’ve been listening to this album a lot lately—I’ve always loved it—because I got the most amazing quadraphonic bootleg version of it. Apparently sourced from a reel to reel quad master, it sounds utterly incredible, as if you were in the room with Miles, Wayne Shorter, John McLaughlin, Jack De Johnette, Chick Corea, Dave Holland and the others, when these tracks were being laid down. Plus the sonics are uncrushed by modern remastering. Truly an audiophile’s delight. I can’t believe Sony is putting out a $125 box set of the, ahem, “definitive” Bitches Brew box set for the second third time and they didn’t bother to offer the multichannel version!
Incredibly slinky new track/music video from Cape Town, South Africa’s rising star—artist, musician, graphic designer, writer—Spoek Mathambo. This guy is brilliant!
This is lovesick dubstep at it’s best, ghostly and syrupy through the koppies and quarries of Cape Town.
The video for “War on Words,” features the story of a heartbroken widow performing pagan ceremonies to bring her dead husbands back to life…if only for a night. Her lovers are maggot ridden corpses, struggling through the dark passages of purgatory.
Sounds good, right? It is. Very good. He describes his sound as “dark township tech house sothocore new wave zulu funky.” That seems right!
I really like these hand-painted vinyl records from artist Daniel Edlen. According to his web site, Daniel also does drawings of authors on their books. I’m partial to the Zappa, natch.
One of the aural drivers of the 20th century—and the bane of many traditionalist stick-men—the drum machine has a rather undersung legacy.
The first drum machine was invented in the early ‘30s by Leon Theremin on commission from Henry Cowell.
The biggest one was recently built and toured around Stockholm by Propellerheads, the Swedish bad boys behind Reason music software. Kids stomped on it, and its interface was projected onto a big-ass building downtown. Bring that thing over here!
Olivier Messiaen is one of my absolute favorite 20th century classical composers whose body of work is all wonderful, totally worth investigating and far too huge to try to cover in one post. For now I’ll simply present what I consider to be one of the most powerful, violent and mezemerizing pieces of music anybody’s ever likely to hear, the 5th movement of his Turangalîla Symphony, composed between 1946 and 1948 and performed here by The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (in truth the only version I could find on YouTube, but they do a smashing job). Note the prominent use of the early electronic instrument, the Ondes Martenot, essentially an elaborate keyboard controlled Theremin, later use extensively by Radiohead.