Early warning

The next edition of The Machine is right around the corner.
Easily going to be the best one so far.

Also joining us will be the Asian Sensation, all the way from Oakland, DeeJay Santa Maria!

Aussie rock

My friend Aaron (Livefastdie) just put out a great article on the most classic of rock from Australia.

Check it out.

Haswell and Hecker remix Popol Vuh

From haswellhecker.blogspot.com
"Popol Vuh’s soundtrack work for the films of Werner Herzog in 1970’s and 1980’s are some of the most stunning in the field. Editions Mego is pleased to present 2 re-workings of classic Vuh tracks. Mika Vainio takes ‘Nachts: Schnee’ from the 1987 soundtrack ‘Cobra Verde’, and delivers a skillfully constructed ambient piece of beauty, which shifts and turns over 10 minutes. Haswell & Hecker turn the majestic ‘Aguirre I’ from the 1972 soundtrack ‘Aguirre - The Wrath Of God’ into possibly the first track to be played at the last rave on Earth. Unlike recent H&H releases on Warner Classics and Warp this does NOT utilize the UPIC system but vintage digital delays and freeze effect units, in conjunction with digital compositional tools. This release is pressed on red vinyl and packaged in a plastic sleeve with a golden sticker." (Presstext)

DNA

Perfection, approached again!

It's safe to say my musical head has been revolving around the newest album by Silver Jews on Drag City.
The wait, and the want.

So I think it's supposed to come out in June, but the newest album by Berman and Co. is fucking amazing. Or umm, at least that's what I hear.
I HEAR that Berman actually sounds better than he has ever sounded.
I HEAR that the songwriting is beyond amazing.
I HEAR that this is the fucking album that will re-define the guy.
I HEAR somehow or another, San Francisco B.C. will be the party song of the year.


The song Suffering Jukebox, heart breakin' genius/wowser!

Also, a friend that just "heard" the album had this odd ditty to mention of a song on the album.

"Damn, it's slide guitar used in the slightly demented manner of Gun Club crossed with REM (music and his vocals are really starting to sound like a Stipe-Cash man baby), and a tad of JMC"

Daryl Hall aint nothin to f**k wit...

When a post on the Yahoo music blog starts off "Some people may think that going to see SXSW 2008 keynote speaker Daryl Hall perform at South By Southwest is some sort of indie-ironic inside joke. Like, "Ha ha, won't it be funny to see that old has-been who sang 'Private Eyes'?"
I weep a little, then I die a little.
Hall and Oates. totally not a joke.


First get their amazing War Babies album produced by Todd Rundgren, then seek out the amazing Daryl Hall solo album Sacred Songs produced by Mr. Robert Fripp.
If all this is not enough, Maneater. That is all I gotta say.

Cross bearer

I went to a little meet up last night called "Jesus in the Talmud", and walked away thinking "damn, I really don't know Jesus as well as I thought. Maybe I should learn more. Maybe as a Jew, I should give the man a chance"
So where else to get to know him, but thru rock n roll?
I am happy to report that I'm still not converted, but I decided to highlight the songs about the original hippie from Bethlehem that I listened to over and over and over.
Keep in mind, for the most part, I tried my best not to include a ton of old gospel/early Sam Cooke/Norman Greenbaum because those are obvious (but still amazing).


1. The Waterboys Christ in You
I sort of just got hip to The Waterboys in the last year or so. It's all my fault for being a stuck up douche bag, but damn, they write some amazing songs. Lotsa stuff about Jeebus, and here on this song off one of their later albums Universal Hall they even compare him to some heartbreaker.

2. Soulsavers Jesus of Nothing
What the fuckity fuck? This is evil! Sitar + Mark Lanegan = the soundtrack to the porno version of Passion of The Christ, but really classy.


3. Tom Waits Jesus Gonna Be Here
You know Tom Waits knows Jesus personally? Like BFF or homies4life sorta stuff.
I think senior Yeshua gave Tom the divine power to write this filthy blues ditty.

4. The Oblivians Feel all right
K, so this is one of the songs on this amazing album that these loonies wrote, for what was their "gospel" album, and somehow, it sounds more like a song I would excpect to hear in a church on the south side of Chicago or deep in Memphis, than any of the covers on this thing.
Quintron's organ on this song is somehow both the holy and the profane.


5. Rev. Gary Davis "I belong to the Band-Hallelujah!"
There are 6 discs of Jesus songs on the Goodbye Babylon box set, this one might be the greatest. Had to put it.

End it now!

I gotta know why are people so into Chuck Norris? Whats the deal that I'm not getting?

who will help the nerds?

Did you know the guy who created Dungeons and Dragons name was Gary Gygax?
Thats a great name.

Too bad he died today or yesterday or something.

Many are sad.

Goodbye cruel world

We are so fucked.
First apes pick up smoking, now they find a fucking hexapus?!?!?!


We are all doomed.

Kids I grew up with

Being born in 1980, I'm part of the tail end of Generation X, maybe my status of late bloomer is my reason for not feeling close to my designated spot in the landscape of the ages.
When my kid's watch Singles some years down the line and comment on the flannel and the Mudhoney references ("touch me I'm dick"), and they say "daddy, people were funny looking when you were a kid", I will smile and eat my Soilent Green.
I "came of age" in the 1990's. The music of the period played it's part in my life. I Lost my virginity in 1996 listening to My Bloody Valentine, I think Fugazi and Pavement were the shit, and smoked a lot of weed and tried to wrap my head around Neutral Milk Hotel. That counts right?
Still, I have the Brian Wilson problem of not feeling like I was born for these (or in this case, those) times.
Some artists of the "alt-rock" kind, I may have gotten behind, just for the sake of being part of the bigger picture. Or maybe, I just wanted girls to think I was cooler than I was.
Whatever the case, I can't tell you the redemptive qualities of spending money on a CD that an older, cooler indie guy told you to get, not really liking it, then making out with a girl who was impressed with you for having it.
That album, The Afghan Whigs Gentlemen, and after that day, I was a fan.
So I am maybe the most shallow member of my age group, but as it stands, there is a very special place in my heart for the voice of Greg Dulli.
Now we are in 2008, and somehow or another, Mr. Dulli has found his way into the company of Mark Lanegan, who in the last few years has become one of my favorite voices in rock.
Together, they are The Gutter Twins, and their first album Saturnalia is out on a label quite familiar to both gentlemen of leisure, Sub Pop.

The sound this duo creates is a dark, American gothic. Other categories might include dark white boy blues, fire and brimstone, broken down and lonely or maybe the best record of these two men's careers.
Trying to describe it to a friend without sounding like a chump, I found myself saying the words "like Tom Waits singing for Bauhaus deprived of the glam influence."
I cringed at that statement, but try and listen to some of these tracks, such as Idle Hands and try to think otherwise.
Here we are in the dying days of winter, and an album so moody, and hopeless comes out, making us want to scratch away the last flakes of the cold and welcome some sunshine.
But long into the summer, I can still see myself saying this was one of the top albums of the year.