I can never get enough of studio videos, always interesting and inspiring.
Wednesday
Flavor Flav sings in his new song
Here's something no one ever asked for.
Not only the worst song of the year, but also the worst video of the year.
Note when he's on the side of that hill, holding his ipod deck so he can sing along to his song.
This is like a Mad TV skit without the laugh track.
Quality.
Fireflies - Covers
Just found this great artist.
His music sounds like it's being played by a full, solid band,
when in fact he plays all the instruments and does anything else himself.
This free album consists of (very random) covers.
Ranging from The Ramones to Asobi Seksu to Talking Heads to Joy Division to Neil Young.
Did I mention free?!
Monday
Charles Hamilton - Normalcy (mixtape)
Mr. Sonic the Hedgehog has returned from a weird little hiatus.
The rap blog king is back to rule the blogosphere once again.
Need I remind that these artists are putting out free, amazing music?
Let's make our downloads count!
Enjoy.
Friday
The Cool Kids - Merry Christmas (mixtape)
First track:
Gotta love the Cool Kids.
Christmas morning and they made me get excited for a mixtape.
Download and support!
If that link is slow downloading, just get it here:
Thursday
Theophilus London, This Charming Documentary
Theophilus can do no wrong.
Here's a little documentary of his second (amazing) mixtape, This Charming Mixtape.
Fittingly called This Charming Documentary.
Uffie - MCs Can Kiss
Girls are the future of music.
And the past, and the present.
Uffie sounds like if Blondie had a black boyfriend.
Sky Ferreira - Happy Dre
Sky is young, beautiful, talented,
and in this song she sings a Beatles cover over the claaaassic Dr. Dre beat.
Wow.
Enjoy.
Wednesday
Eric Wareheim's In Lust
I love this man.
A series of clips of him catching this girl's crotch in his face.
Set to Bat For Lashes' "Daniel".
Enjoy.
Susan Boyle, “I Dreamed A Dream” (Nottz Remix)
I can almost get behind the Susan Boyle hype because of this.
...nah.
Tuesday
Whispering of the Gods (2005)
Watched this truly disturbing film earlier today.
This and Antichrist definitely take the cake together for most fucked films I've seen this year.
I'm honestly still trying to figure out the reason for making what I just watched.
A really good reviewer, Tom Mes, expresses the same thoughts in a review:
“It's hard to tell exactly what debuting director Omori is trying to say with the forced hand jobs, fellatios, bestiality and plain old physical abuse. Is it an indictment against the church? An allegory about the human condition? A warning? Pure fiction? There are no clear indications, but what is sure is that it paints a very bleak portrait of contemporary humanity. Its last line of dialogue, "Let's get back to shoveling shit", seems to express its viewpoint most clearly.”
Straight up, Tom Mes.
The cinematography was definitely beautiful.
That always seems to be the case with fucked up movies,
the director hires some guy who is amazing with lights and you walk away like,
"Damn, that was fucking grotesque.. Sure was pretty though, huh?"
But seriously, director Omori? Explain yourself.
I'm waiting.
Radiohead back to the lab
“The vibe in the camp is fantastic at present, and we head off into the studio in January to continue on from the work we started last Summer .. I am so genuinely excited about what we’re doing, but for obvious reasons I can’t divulge anything more.. anyway we all love surprises don’t we? 10 years ago we were all collectively (that’s the band) in the land of Kid A .. and although hugely proud of that record, it wasn’t a fun place to be .. What’s reassuring now, is that we are most definitely a different band, which should therefore mean that the music is different too and that is the aim of the game….keep it moving.”
What’s kind of sad (for me) is that they really are a different band since the land of Kid A.
I never got why people thought OK Computer was the most important thing in the world.
{It's certainly up there...)
But,
Kid A has always stood out and always will for me as absolutely pivotal,
for themselves and for everyone else.
Nonetheless…
Already psyched for 2010!
Duke Nukem Forever
Wired just ran a really great, thorough article on the history of Duke Nukem Forever,
the game that has been over 12 years in the making.
What it breaks down to is a surprisingly depressing story of an endless project run by a directionless leader -
with an excess of funds, to boot.
Sunday
Asher Roth not only loves college
He also [doesn't] love men.
Apparently, the whitest rapper alive has [not] come out of the closet.
"Rapper Asher Roth will appear on E!News during the Christmas Holiday celebration to talk about his recent “coming out of the closet”. Asher was recently at a Gay Rights Parade with Lady Gaga, American Idol Winner, Clay Aiken, Blink 182, and REM lead man Michael Stipe."
~cwebnews (credible source, eh? [I knew this source was just too legit])
With Roth's line of work, he's basically [not] got a foot (or something else) in every minority possible:
white, [not] gay, jewish, a fan of college.
Will he survive? That is the question.
[regardless, hopefully not]
Saturday
Michael Jackson - Wanna Be Startin' Something (demo)
I like the fact that an MJ demo is better than any artist's studio recording of a song.
Funny to hear him mumbling the lyrics that he's still working on at the time.
White Stripes Canadian documentary
Shitting my pants over this.
Can't believe I have to wait until March.
Frusciante says farewell to RHCP, again
John Frusciante left a note on his myspace this week announcing that he was done with the Chili Peppers once more.
This certainly wasn't a "fuck you" to anyone, they've always been supportive of John's solo work
(I remember reading that Anthony was fascinated and emotionally shocked when he first listened to what John was creating).
It also didn't give the impression that they'd never hook up again,
more of a "I'm done with this right now".
As he says in his note:
"To put it simply, my musical interests have led me in a different direction. Upon rejoining, and throughout my time in the band, I was very excited about exploring the musical possibilities inherent in a rock band, and doing so with those people in particular. A couple of years ago, I began to feel that same excitement again, but this time it was about making a different kind of music, alone, and being my own engineer."
I'd say it's for the best.
The only thing that ever seemed to be holding back John's music was his attachment to the band.
What's unfortunate is that he's no longer fucked up,
so he can't make the raw masterpiece he could've if that was the situation now.
But he'll definitely still make some amazing things, like this classic:
Thom Yorke on The Stupid Show
Thom is really the only rock star I can respect who steps back
and actually uses his voice in public for political issues.
I just can't stand the sight of Bono at press conferences and all these dongs.
Thom is respectable because he sees the negativity and brings out
the pessimism in everything around the world.
The bad and messed up are always more important than the good.
And the creator of Kid A understands these things better than anyone.
This is from a British web series called The Stupid Show, covering the coverage of climate change.
I like to imagine I'm interested in these things, at least slightly.
Friday
St. Vincent
An old friend convinced me tonight to check out St. Vincent.
So glad I gave in.
I need to go play some guitar now.
Ruby Weapon - Don't Worry Baby (Beach Boys cover)
I may like this more than the original.
He's got the frailty and vulnerability in his voice
that I thought this song needed more of.
And a beautiful wall of reverb.
Pill on growing up and struggles
He's mumbling for the first minute of this, but after that his words, and thoughts, become clear.
Thug contemplation.
Wednesday
A Boom Bap Continuum
“For me the intention behind this is simple:
to highlight the lineage of hip-hop production and beat making from the turn of the millennium to the present day,
and perhaps shed some light on the fairly quiet revolution
that has been taking place under the surface of mainstream media in recent years.
With some strange tags being applied to the current standard in beat making,
I feel it it is important to shed some light on to this lineage.
This is a journey from late 90s crate digging, to the circuit-bent soundscapes of the so called ‘post-dilla’ era.
I hope this music inspires you as much as it has inspired me these past 11 years.”
-Jim 2tall, London, November 2009
10 years of a genre in 80 minutes, enjoy!
A Boom Bap Continuum... ten years of beats from '99 to '09 by ABoomBapContinuum
[right click + 'save as']
Mos Def's Best of 2009
Can't get enough of Mos Def's thoughts.
His opinion on beef between artists around 9:20 in the video is refreshing.
Washed Out, "Belong" (MP3)
This song is just, too good.
I usually am not feeling this lo-fi, no-fi stuff, but he doesn't let it obscure his talent.
Tuesday
The Libertines were the not-gay, less masturbatory Oasis
I mean, they sound nothing like them, but deserved at least their level of fame.
Oh well.
Shaun Boothe - Poor Boy (video)
I've been emailing back and forth with this guy for a little,
genuinely nice and super talented guy.
Wicked use of the sample.
Realism emerging in video games
I remember thinking when I was a kid how I would despise if video games looked like and imitated real life.
Back then there seemed to be no chance of such a thing happening,
with Donkey Kong's pre-rendered 3D graphics being the most cutting edge thing to ever grace my TV screen.
But it seems the older I get, the more accepting, and expecting, I get of realism in video games.
If I want to open fire on civilians in an airport, I can have at it.
If I want to blow myself up in a police station, what's stopping me?
If I want to just drive a car.. Well, you get the drift.
What's amazing is that all these things have been more or less possible through the history of video games.
The first Grand Theft Auto was released in the mid-nineties, but what sets the present apart from the past is that I'm now able to see a freckle on the detached arm of a person I blew up with my rocket launcher.
And isn't that a beautiful thing?
Gran Turismo 5 is coming out sometime next year.
To say the graphics are great is an understatement.
At this point, if your eyes don't leave the frame of your TV screen, you're literally driving a car.
Once a game like this comes out,
all it makes me realize is how hard it will be for me to go back to Rad Racer:
Friday
Thursday
Vinyl & Vodka: Issue No. 1
"For the past two months, I have been working really hard on a side project of this blog: an online magazine. It has always been my dream to persue a career in publishing and in magazines other than blogging, and I feel like this is the right time to start to get a sense of what it’s like."
I'm definitely jealous of V&V editor Willis.
Online, non-profit magazine that seems to be discussing everything I'm interested in.
(and don't be scared of the thought of 'online magazine' - it's not annoying like you'd imagine it to be)
Plastiscines
Beautiful, French, fashionable, indie, talented, rockstar girls.
They exist. And the four of them have formed a band.
Wednesday
Michael Jackson composed Sonic 3
Black and White (French magazine dedicated to MJ) released an interview recently with Sonic the Hedgehog 3 composer, (someone had balls to pitch this idea to the editor) Brad Buxer.
Apparently, the rumors (can you call them rumors if nobody really spread them, nor cared originally [and probably still don't...]) that MJ composed part of the soundtrack for the 1994 Genesis game are true!
B&W: Can you clarify the rumor that Michael had in 1993 composed the music for the Sonic 3 video game, for which you have been credited?
Buxer: I’ve never played the game so I do not know which tracks the developers have kept among the work Michael and I did, but we did compose music for the game. Michael called me at the time for help on this project, and that’s what I did. And if he is not credited for composing the music, it’s because he was not happy with the result sound coming out of the console. At the time, game consoles did not allow an optimal sound reproduction, and Michael found it frustrating. He did not want to be associated with a product that devalued his music…
B&W: One of the surprising things in this soundtrack is that you can hear the chords from Stranger in Moscow, which is supposed to have been composed later…
Buxer: Yes, Michael and I had composed those chords for the game, and it has been used as a base for Stranger in Moscow. [...]
I don’t think I’ve ever found a fact more esoteric than this one, but nonetheless, MJ manages to be getting cooler with each day.
God knows which parts of the game he composed,
but I guess he can now also be declared the King of 16-bit.
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