Billy just alerted me to the fact that this is national news and not just a local Philly story. I thought it was just the weekly insane beating. Pretty routine stuff.
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/newsupdate/20080909Psychohammerssubway_passenger.html
Coincidentally, this is the line I ride to and from work. Don't tell my parents.
Comedy Central has just debuted a new show by Michael Ian Black (The State , Stella) called Reality Bites Back. It's the perfect sendup / amalgam of all the ridiculous reality shows out there these days. Here's the first 10 minutes of the first episode. Let's hope this gets some ratings and stays on the air for a while. I'm still sad that the Stella TV series didn't last more than 10 episodes - it was pure genius. It's definitely worth waiting until the end of this first clip. Even though all the comedians featured in the show aren't necessarily the best out there, the real treat is watching Mr. Black as the host, constantly placing the contestants in the most awkward situations possible. That being said, I'm still pretty excited about a couple of the contestants on the show as real up and comers. Check it out.
Or, rather, sucked. Very, very briefly.
That's not an easy thing to write, but I was motivated to anyway, because last night while preparing the grill for a housewarming party, I put on a copy of Beefheart's 1974 sell-out attempt Unconditionally Guaranteed, and it was so much worse than I remembered that I felt like I needed to blog-purge.
The accepted narrative to describe Beefheart's career arc is that there are three phases: an extremely fertile, innovative first phase, a crass semi-commercial middle phase, and then an almost full-circle return to form. The typical qualification of the mediocre middle period is that even bad Beefheart is better than most of what's out there. In fact, in the John Peel-hosted BBC documentary, a Virgin A&R dude says almost exactly that while the screen shows CB on the Old Grey Whistle Test promoting the Unconditionally Guaranteed single, "Upon the My-Oh-My" (check around the 2:00 mark here). Beefheart looks so uncomfortable and out of place, and the whole thing is so bizarre it's hard to ignore the editorial suggestion and not think, "Hey, this is certainly Diet Beefheart, but it's still pretty cool."
They fail to convey that the album opener "Upon the My-Oh-My," half-assed as it is, is the best song on the album, and it's a nosedive from there. I take it back. The second cut, "Sugar Bowl," is my favorite. It sounds like demented School House Rock. But, the rest is a nightmare. The instrumental performances are phoned-in classic rock, and Beefheart, being apparently psychologically incapable of true (or at least effective) sell-out--or even simply writing a conventional lyric--give us gems such as:
Anyway, the "Bad Beefheart is better than good [insert artist]" line is a pretty tenacious meme. I've definitely listened to the two offending middle period albums a lot, sincerely thought they were crap, and have still found myself repeating the line to people. I remember a top 10 favorite albums list in a book published by Spin where Mark Arm from Mudhoney's listed something like "Captain Beefheart - everything except Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans and Moonbeams," and I remember thinking that was unfair at best, posturing at worst. The more time passes, though, the more I'm on board with Mr. Arm.
Actually, I will go on record that Bluejeans and Moonbeams (released later the same year) is much better than Unconditionally Guaranteed. In fact, I think exactly 3 of the 9 songs on BM are above average mid-70s MOR rock ("Twist Ah Luck," "Same Old Blues," and "Observatory Crest"), and the others merely irrelevant, as opposed to the blanket crappiness of UC.
But again, this is just a turkey burger-fueled e-rant. I invite you to rebut.
That's not an easy thing to write, but I was motivated to anyway, because last night while preparing the grill for a housewarming party, I put on a copy of Beefheart's 1974 sell-out attempt Unconditionally Guaranteed, and it was so much worse than I remembered that I felt like I needed to blog-purge.
The accepted narrative to describe Beefheart's career arc is that there are three phases: an extremely fertile, innovative first phase, a crass semi-commercial middle phase, and then an almost full-circle return to form. The typical qualification of the mediocre middle period is that even bad Beefheart is better than most of what's out there. In fact, in the John Peel-hosted BBC documentary, a Virgin A&R dude says almost exactly that while the screen shows CB on the Old Grey Whistle Test promoting the Unconditionally Guaranteed single, "Upon the My-Oh-My" (check around the 2:00 mark here). Beefheart looks so uncomfortable and out of place, and the whole thing is so bizarre it's hard to ignore the editorial suggestion and not think, "Hey, this is certainly Diet Beefheart, but it's still pretty cool."
They fail to convey that the album opener "Upon the My-Oh-My," half-assed as it is, is the best song on the album, and it's a nosedive from there. I take it back. The second cut, "Sugar Bowl," is my favorite. It sounds like demented School House Rock. But, the rest is a nightmare. The instrumental performances are phoned-in classic rock, and Beefheart, being apparently psychologically incapable of true (or at least effective) sell-out--or even simply writing a conventional lyric--give us gems such as:
Think of all the love we've been missing
Then we start to kissing and kissing
I could barely hold my pride
With my baby right by my side
Loop-de-loop,
Ride and glide
Swoop-de-swoop,
On the New Electric Ride
Anyway, the "Bad Beefheart is better than good [insert artist]" line is a pretty tenacious meme. I've definitely listened to the two offending middle period albums a lot, sincerely thought they were crap, and have still found myself repeating the line to people. I remember a top 10 favorite albums list in a book published by Spin where Mark Arm from Mudhoney's listed something like "Captain Beefheart - everything except Unconditionally Guaranteed and Bluejeans and Moonbeams," and I remember thinking that was unfair at best, posturing at worst. The more time passes, though, the more I'm on board with Mr. Arm.
Actually, I will go on record that Bluejeans and Moonbeams (released later the same year) is much better than Unconditionally Guaranteed. In fact, I think exactly 3 of the 9 songs on BM are above average mid-70s MOR rock ("Twist Ah Luck," "Same Old Blues," and "Observatory Crest"), and the others merely irrelevant, as opposed to the blanket crappiness of UC.
But again, this is just a turkey burger-fueled e-rant. I invite you to rebut.
I was just listening to "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and was reminded that when I was young--maybe 2nd or 3rd grade--I couldn't understand the line, "A girl with kaleidoscope eyes," and at some point started singing, "A girl with colitis goes by." I'm positive I didn't know what colitis meant. Must have heard it on television, inferred it was a bad thing, and thought it was a clever substitution.
At any rate, I mainly bring it up, because I've been listening to a renegade remix of Sgt. Pepper's by the mysterious internet personality/collective known as Purple Chick. I'm loathe to point you to Rolling Stone for more info, but this article sums it up pretty well:
"The Beatles' albums came out on CD in 1987, but fans have long complained that the early digital technology used to remaster the recordings left them sounding hollow and thin -- and that the official remasters are way overdue. That's where Purple Chick comes in -- a secretive fan (or group of fans) who has been quietly remastering classic discs like Revolver and A Hard Day's Night, and releasing the digital files for free online. How is this possible? The Beatles' CDs sound so bad that carefully digitized tracks from pristine vinyl copies are noticeably better -- with crisper highs, a fuller soundstage, and more realistic reproduction of instruments and voices. And the Purple Chick editions are superior to the originals in other ways, too: The Sgt. Pepper collection contains the original record in mono and stereo, and four discs' worth of studio outtakes; the White Album comes in a whopping twelve-disc version, including alternate takes, studio chatter, demos and fascinating jams. So how do you get this stuff? Google is your friend: Try searching "purple chick and megaupload" to get started."
It's worth noting that if you choose to download the flac's on Megaupload, don't get tricked into downloading the site's worthless toolbar. In fact, if you don't mind mp3's that somehow still sound light years better than the officially released CDs, you're better off avoiding Megaupload and heading to Heavy Sugar Radio for a handful of the more worthwhile Purple Chick remixes hosted on rapidshare.com. Among them are Revolver (which comes with the period singles "Paperback Writer" and "Rain" of which the remix is so clear you can actually discern lipsmacking and pre-line inhaling on the vocal track) and the mono White Album (notable for being originally remixed at the time of pressing for mono, as opposed to simply reducing the stereo mix to mono, which resulted in notably different versions of a few songs, particularly "Don't Pass Me By," "Helter Skelter," and "I'm So Tired").
Purple Chick has also produced what might be the most perfectly satisfying bootleg rendering of the Beach Boys Smile, using the 2004 release Brian Wilson Present Smile as a blueprint for sewing together all of the extant original Smile material. I must say, this was an idea I had as soon as I heard news of BWPS in 2004, but, you know, I was hindered by lack of means, patience, skill, etc... So, I was waiting for someone to do it, and it turns out the person (or web collective) that finally did it to perfection is Purple Chick. For the summary, dig this from Ear Candy. As someone who, after seeing the Smile tour, basically gave up on ever getting excited about an original Smile bootleg ever again, the Purple Chick version left me, within the first two cuts, just sort of clutching my hands and shaking my head in awe.
At any rate, I mainly bring it up, because I've been listening to a renegade remix of Sgt. Pepper's by the mysterious internet personality/collective known as Purple Chick. I'm loathe to point you to Rolling Stone for more info, but this article sums it up pretty well:
"The Beatles' albums came out on CD in 1987, but fans have long complained that the early digital technology used to remaster the recordings left them sounding hollow and thin -- and that the official remasters are way overdue. That's where Purple Chick comes in -- a secretive fan (or group of fans) who has been quietly remastering classic discs like Revolver and A Hard Day's Night, and releasing the digital files for free online. How is this possible? The Beatles' CDs sound so bad that carefully digitized tracks from pristine vinyl copies are noticeably better -- with crisper highs, a fuller soundstage, and more realistic reproduction of instruments and voices. And the Purple Chick editions are superior to the originals in other ways, too: The Sgt. Pepper collection contains the original record in mono and stereo, and four discs' worth of studio outtakes; the White Album comes in a whopping twelve-disc version, including alternate takes, studio chatter, demos and fascinating jams. So how do you get this stuff? Google is your friend: Try searching "purple chick and megaupload" to get started."
It's worth noting that if you choose to download the flac's on Megaupload, don't get tricked into downloading the site's worthless toolbar. In fact, if you don't mind mp3's that somehow still sound light years better than the officially released CDs, you're better off avoiding Megaupload and heading to Heavy Sugar Radio for a handful of the more worthwhile Purple Chick remixes hosted on rapidshare.com. Among them are Revolver (which comes with the period singles "Paperback Writer" and "Rain" of which the remix is so clear you can actually discern lipsmacking and pre-line inhaling on the vocal track) and the mono White Album (notable for being originally remixed at the time of pressing for mono, as opposed to simply reducing the stereo mix to mono, which resulted in notably different versions of a few songs, particularly "Don't Pass Me By," "Helter Skelter," and "I'm So Tired").
Purple Chick has also produced what might be the most perfectly satisfying bootleg rendering of the Beach Boys Smile, using the 2004 release Brian Wilson Present Smile as a blueprint for sewing together all of the extant original Smile material. I must say, this was an idea I had as soon as I heard news of BWPS in 2004, but, you know, I was hindered by lack of means, patience, skill, etc... So, I was waiting for someone to do it, and it turns out the person (or web collective) that finally did it to perfection is Purple Chick. For the summary, dig this from Ear Candy. As someone who, after seeing the Smile tour, basically gave up on ever getting excited about an original Smile bootleg ever again, the Purple Chick version left me, within the first two cuts, just sort of clutching my hands and shaking my head in awe.
Maybe this is old news, but it just made its way to my inbox. This link to the mp3's hosted by Chunklet, a magazine that once called one of my friends a "turd," so I haven't bothered going to the main page to see the context, but whatever...
Van Halen - Runnin' With the Devil (lead vocal only)
I've actually been hoping to hear a mix like this for a couple years since my friend Will and I were DJ'ing a public radio morning classic rock show called Biscuits n' Gravy. Though we stuck to a core playlist of inarguably classic rock, we took a few dips one morning into the more, uh, arguably classic realm of our own 80's nostalgia. I, for one, confess to playing Eddie Money's "Take Me Home Tonight" (when I told one friend about this guilty pleasure, he told me he'd seen EM circa 1982 in Dayton, Ohio, on the same bill as the Clash and the Who!!!). Will played "Runnin' with the Devil," and went on a diatribe about how the song featured the most demented lead vocal in rock history. It was like a magic eye or something. I had heard the song probably hundreds of times but never, ever thought about it before. Why the fuck is David Lee Roth yelling like that? What makes someone think that that sounds cool? Is that what running around with the devil would sound like? There was definitely precedent at that time for the crazed 80's hard rock vocal, but the Zep/Sabbath/"Helter Skelter" screech had never been deployed to such abjectly stupid ends. This mix heightens the effect a million times. The wheezing is crazy. At points, he's creating several pitches at once like an Inuit throat singer.
Oh, and also note what slipped past the censors that's clearly audible here:
"Godammit, baby, you know I ain't lyin' to ya."
Van Halen - Runnin' With the Devil (lead vocal only)
I've actually been hoping to hear a mix like this for a couple years since my friend Will and I were DJ'ing a public radio morning classic rock show called Biscuits n' Gravy. Though we stuck to a core playlist of inarguably classic rock, we took a few dips one morning into the more, uh, arguably classic realm of our own 80's nostalgia. I, for one, confess to playing Eddie Money's "Take Me Home Tonight" (when I told one friend about this guilty pleasure, he told me he'd seen EM circa 1982 in Dayton, Ohio, on the same bill as the Clash and the Who!!!). Will played "Runnin' with the Devil," and went on a diatribe about how the song featured the most demented lead vocal in rock history. It was like a magic eye or something. I had heard the song probably hundreds of times but never, ever thought about it before. Why the fuck is David Lee Roth yelling like that? What makes someone think that that sounds cool? Is that what running around with the devil would sound like? There was definitely precedent at that time for the crazed 80's hard rock vocal, but the Zep/Sabbath/"Helter Skelter" screech had never been deployed to such abjectly stupid ends. This mix heightens the effect a million times. The wheezing is crazy. At points, he's creating several pitches at once like an Inuit throat singer.
Oh, and also note what slipped past the censors that's clearly audible here:
"Godammit, baby, you know I ain't lyin' to ya."
Well, guys, Continuum accepted my proposal. Just putting the finishing touches on this, doing one more interview with Jeffrey A. Townes, and it should be out in time for the 20th anniversary.
So, I was checking out this video I saw highlighted on Pitchfork today. It's a live version of "Cold As Ice" by Atlas Sound. I instantly clicked, hoping to hear an amazing cover of Foreigner's hit song from 1977. Well, it wasn't. But, in reading the little blurb, I saw that they mentioned something about a quote on the main guy's myspace page:
Ummm... yikes! In an attempt to locate a hipster reference, they totally whiffed and gave credit to the wrong artist. Surely they were trying to mention Love's "Alone Again Or." I searched around to make sure Love hadn't covered "Alone Again (Naturally)" both to fact check and because, I have to say, I'd like to hear that cover. But yeah, "Alone Again (Naturally)" is, of course, the Gilbert O'Sullivan classic from 1972 (not to be confused with Gilbert and Sullivan classics like "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General"). On a side note, back in junior high, my friend Mike's dad used to think it was hilarious when we would play Nintendo WCW wrestling and I would pick Eddie Gilbert and Kevin Sullivan as the tag team of "Gilbert & Sullivan." I had no idea why until he finally explained it to me. Maybe they were even actual tag partners, but it seems they made a pretty good team in the game.
But uh, back to the lecture at hand. A wrong credit and a missed opportunity (like Hall & Oates) to namecheck a Foreigner classic? Oof. I'm sure I'm overreacting, but I guess I'm just sick of the concept of what being a music fan means for the hipster set. It's like every kid gets a primer on what's cool and that's that. And I'm just bored with it. I feel like I had to listen to a LOT of crap music and put a lot of time and effort in to find the music I appreciate now. And, you know what? That music wasn't really even all that horrible. Just different. OK, some (probably most) of it was crap. But come on! Gilbert O'Sullivan! Foreigner! That's some classic stuff. People should just know that.
Sadly, I still read their site most days. Pitchfork, I wish I could quit you.
p.s. - Speaking of Hall & Oates, I saw Duke play Boston College at basketball earlier this year. My favorite player from BC? John Oates. Yeah!
"'Alone again, naturally,' reads the Love-referencing quote on Cox's Atlas Sound MySpace page."
Ummm... yikes! In an attempt to locate a hipster reference, they totally whiffed and gave credit to the wrong artist. Surely they were trying to mention Love's "Alone Again Or." I searched around to make sure Love hadn't covered "Alone Again (Naturally)" both to fact check and because, I have to say, I'd like to hear that cover. But yeah, "Alone Again (Naturally)" is, of course, the Gilbert O'Sullivan classic from 1972 (not to be confused with Gilbert and Sullivan classics like "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General"). On a side note, back in junior high, my friend Mike's dad used to think it was hilarious when we would play Nintendo WCW wrestling and I would pick Eddie Gilbert and Kevin Sullivan as the tag team of "Gilbert & Sullivan." I had no idea why until he finally explained it to me. Maybe they were even actual tag partners, but it seems they made a pretty good team in the game.
But uh, back to the lecture at hand. A wrong credit and a missed opportunity (like Hall & Oates) to namecheck a Foreigner classic? Oof. I'm sure I'm overreacting, but I guess I'm just sick of the concept of what being a music fan means for the hipster set. It's like every kid gets a primer on what's cool and that's that. And I'm just bored with it. I feel like I had to listen to a LOT of crap music and put a lot of time and effort in to find the music I appreciate now. And, you know what? That music wasn't really even all that horrible. Just different. OK, some (probably most) of it was crap. But come on! Gilbert O'Sullivan! Foreigner! That's some classic stuff. People should just know that.
Sadly, I still read their site most days. Pitchfork, I wish I could quit you.
p.s. - Speaking of Hall & Oates, I saw Duke play Boston College at basketball earlier this year. My favorite player from BC? John Oates. Yeah!
So, I just read about Iggy and the Stooges performing a couple of Madonna songs (Burning Up and Ray of Light) at her induction to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in lieu of a performance from the diva herself. I'm not going to lie, after reading about this, I was kind of excited about its potential for greatness. I'll let you, dear reader, judge for yourself (who am I kidding, we don't have any readers!).
I was walking through my local major video outlet earlier this week and glanced at a movie in the new release section called Diggers I picked it up, only to see that it starred Ken Marino of the brilliant sketch comedy troupe, The State. I've had a long-standing rule that I'll try to check out any movie featuring a member of The State, Freaks and Geeks , or The Kids in the Hall (or even Saturday Night Live,). That explains how I've seen both A Night At The Roxbury and Pootie Tang in the theater. I didn't rent the movie there, but put it in my online rental queue and received it a few days later. I popped it in the DVD player last night and, to my surprise, saw in the opening credits that it was written by Ken Marino. NICE. I jumped online to check out the details. It looks like it originally came out in theaters in April 2007 and then on DVD in May 2007 (according to Yahoo Movies). Weird that I just now saw it in the new releases section. At any rate, I'm not any sort of critic, but I did really enjoy the movie and would recommend it. I feel it was worth it just to see the individual characters in the movie. So, tonight I decided to watch some of the bonus features and checked out an interview with Ken and the director, Katherine Dieckmann. During the course of the interview, Dieckmann mentioned that she has been working on a movie about the all sister anti-pop group, The Shaggs. Curiously, this came up when she was talking about casting Diggers with Lauren Ambrose and Maura Tierney because she had been in touch with them for the Shaggs movie. Whoa. I'm not really sure what will come of it, but it seems as if she's been working on it for years and years, so I'm not expecting anything very soon. Either way, it's kind of great that they're making a movie about it, and I feel like it's probably in very capable hands.
I'm not a huge fan of The Shaggs, but it's interesting music and certainly an interesting story. I used to talk about them and a load of other esoteric pop crap back in my Bloomington days with my buddy, Jason Williams. He also freaked out about this movie called, "Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains." I just checked, and it seems like it still hasn't been released to DVD. Let's hope I'll be able to see both that and the Shaggs movies at some point in the near future.
In the interview I mentioned above, there were several mentions of how Diggers has similarities to the classic movie, Breaking Away. I probably wouldn't have noticed it on my own, but I can definitely see it since it was pointed out. Maybe that's why I liked it so much. Breaking Away always makes me think about a particular moment from the first time I lived in Bloomington. Shortly after midnight on the early hours of my 20th birthday, I left the party that was going on at my apartment (which, sadly, was not for me) and jumped in a car with a couple of high school acquaintances and a guy that struck an eery resemblance to David Koresh. Somehow, we ended up at the Empire Quarry where we went swimming in the pitch black. I'm a bit surprised I made it out alive.