NOW THATS WHAT I CALL POWERFUL MUSIC II

the past week in jams:

Kid Sister (ft. David Banner - Family Reunion

Sounds Like: Nu Shooz, Fun, Rollerskating, Summertime
Apparent, first single from the Kid Sister full length. I called Kid Sister as the truth a hot minute ago, and then homegirl kinda went M.I.A for a minute and word on the album was kinda non existent. Then this joint with the beat by Diplo drops and it is kinda an amazing summertime jam, which I totally co-sign especially as were firmly into jacket weather.


Go! With Fourteen O - Made A Gun With My Fingers And Shot At My Friends

Sounds Like: Someone having an epileptic seizure with Battletoads for NES on pause in the background, I Shot The Duck Hunt Dog, Horse The Band, IAMERROR.
NintendoCore as it's called is kinda a tough sell. It presupposes that you can tolerate high pitched yelling and that you have a more than passing fancy with 8-bit orchestration. Truthfully most of the genre is complete shit with the practitioners knowing little about electronic music or grind. But, Go! With Fourteen O somehow has managed to make an EP of really catchy lil' numbers that are easily hummable and work because of (or in spite of) its completely anachronistic formula.



MF DOOM (as Viktor Vaughn) - Vaudeville Villain

Sounds Like: MF DOOM, Madvillain, DangerDoom, King Gheedorah, the ramblings of a schizophrenic rap nerd hobo.
I went to the back catalog of MF DOOM after hearing that he has a new album coming out later this month, and if you enjoy nerdy comic books, b-movies, late night TV trivia and obscure reference making rap that somehow manages to avoid poindexter-ism check out the Metal Faced Villain.
Memorable Line: "burnt out, but gettin' every edgy penny/then he hit him straight to the head like Reggie Denny/call him back when you need some more yak, Horschach/...doing 80 down the Van Wyck on horseback"


Young Jeezy - Who Dat

Sounds Like: The scene in Transformers: The Movie when Starscream elects himself king of the Decepticons, only to have his coronation broken up by Megatron, whom has a new body with an even bigger gun for an arm. you know what scene I'm talking about.

...AND JUSTICE FOR ALL

So, the other day I came across the trailer for the new Justice live DVD.
And as I watch this clip filled with crowd surfing, boobs, fights, guns, drinking, drunks, more boobs and homeless dudes rapping I couldn't help but think back to the OG rockstar stupidity caught on live video band; PANTERA.



While Pantera's home videos were decidedly more redneck, i still feel like they had some sort of influence on Justice's recent cinematic output. In fact, Justice have always come across to me as kids who wanted to be in a metal band but instead made synth music.

If you think about it, they dress like fucking Black Sabbath which is never ever a bad thing.

They have a rack of fucking Marshall stacks with a huge glowing cross on it like they were goddamn Cradle Of Filth or something.

They open their album with a Godzilla inspired doom riff.

These dudes are straight up an electronic metal band. Who are also in love with Michael Jackson. As we all know MJ is the farthest thing from metal, besides his weird forest creature ramblings on the beginning of "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough ". I can totally dig that as someone with an affinity for Sepultura and New Edition. Im very interested to see the full length home video of their techno-tronik metal even though I'd have no interest in seeing these guys in a live situation because while watching them turn knobs to make D.A.N.C.E blast ouf stack is kinda boring too me, if we mix boobs and bum fights in im totally with it.

IS LIKE WHAT YOU MIGHT PUT ON MOVIE FOOD... UM WHAT IS JALAPENO? GET IT LIKE A WHOOPIN WHEN YOU HOLLER AT YOUR SENIORS

Over the years I've been aware of Greedy Genius as purveyor of kicks and frankly I've never really been too impressed. their stock isn't bad but just never quite reached the level or refined freshness that I'd spend my money on. But then this season they dropped the Avalanche Cool Breeze and I found myself smitten. The Cool Breeze is a sleek silhouette reminiscent of a Nike Blazer or Puma Sky II High but with enough extra flair so it doesn't feel as though its a straight up bite of the aforementioned shoes. The Avalanche though is really sold on its color combination. the white is powerful on such a minimalist pair of kicks and the black laces just jump out as a great accent.


At this point I'd totally be willing to part with cash for 'em but then you turn the shoe around and see the houndstooth pattern on the heel and realize the shoe just elevated like Vince Carter in the '00 olympics. Houndstooth was really done to death last winter/fall but this kinda subtle integration really makes me reevaluate its place in my rogues gallery of patterns.


Lastly, the joints are patent leather, it really demands a certain personal flair to rock 90% white patent leather kicks in the winter. In summer white kicks are the order of the day but in the winter when the sun goes down at 5 it takes a lil balls because we all known white kicks at night (especially patent leather ones) tend to glow a bit. And when you've got that glow the rest of your ensemble is totally under scrutiny, any questionable decisions will be grounds for people to bust on you [||].
However, on the up side with some Mr.Clean Magic Erasers and some Jason Markk Shoe Cleaner patent leather will stay fresh way longer than any other white material.
In any event if you can find these, and that's a HUGE if, you should definitely cop 'em if youre up for the scrutiny.

NEW FALL FRESHNESS

looking at my rollie its about that time.
and that time would be fall aka get right for the winter time.
so lots of new gear has hit stores by now, and alot of its real bugged out and dumb looking as usual. So I provide you with this small sampling of selected freshness to get your gear game straight.

First up CAKE, i told ya'll about these dudes a couple months ago and now theyre back with their fall/winter 08 collection and it looks straight bananas. they stay on course with using hot ladies as the basis of most of their shirts, but they seemed to have expanded their design influence a lil bit and have come up with some really cool looks. the copped and screwwed tee featuring the chick with the trails and the cough medicine is a really great design.







Next up, is Flying Coffin who every season bring the heat with vaguely metal inspired selection of shirts, that don't actually require you to actually like metal. they really offer a great alternative to the epileptic seizure inducing color pallete and styling of alot of streetwear companies that are big these days.







Rockwell is the clothing line of French artist Parra, whose well known for his hand drawn typography and simple yet subversive drawings. Parra's uses a great selection of colors in his work without getting day glow, and I really how kinda creepy and off his images are, but at the same time his character design and illustration style make em all kinda cute.







Last but not least in the "these are entirely too much fucking money, but damn. maybe if i sell some blood..." category, are the Y-3s. These are high fashion Japanese sneakers that are really slick and futuristic looking without getting into the costume-y arena. if these sneakers didn't cost $250 bucks, they'd definitely be number one on my fall playlist.

NOW THATS WHAT I CALL POWERFUL MUSIC

Here's whats been getting bumped hard the last week or so:


T.I, KANYE, WAYNE & JAY-Z - Swagger Like Us
Memorable Line: "You can learn how to dress by checkin' my fresh...you can pay for school but you can't buy class"




SIGUR ROS - Live at MOMA
Sounds Like: Small children falling into black holes; you were six and you ran so fast thought you might be able to fly.




OCEANO - Empathy For Leviathan
Sounds Like: Deathcore, heavy like a middle aged woman, basketball shorts and rabbinical beards

AND HERE WE GO!

so sorry to have gone M.I.A for a month but I was mad busy in a cornucopia of convergent business. Between launching and populating the site for Midnight Club LA¹, working on new soon to be released/discussed projects, moving all the shit I have in the world halfway across the great borough of Brooklyn, entertaining ma dukes for two weeks, and going to my high school reunion my blogging has been non existent. and for that i apologize.

but im right back like i left something! uurrrly!

expect a slight change in format for the blog in the near future, there'll be less random postings of random shit and more of the longer, extensive critical examinations of things (comics/music/movies/design/fashion), similar to my posts on Jake Bannon's work, Judd Appatow's Pineapple Express trailer/Freaks and Geeks or my discussion of Kanye's promo videos from Graduation. as i get deep into pumping out new work, I'll be digging into the things that are inspiring me which will hopefully be interesting to you as it puts you onto some ish you might not have known about, or flips some stuff you knew about in different directions on some ol' Dominique Dawes shit. also expect to see postings on works in progress as those new projects i mentioned earlier start to come into fruition, there won't be anything that fucks with my NDAs but there will be some shit for you to chew on (no two girls one cup-o).

be seeing you.

¹you should be checking for Midnight Club LA, if you're at all remotely into racing games. i don't even like racing games like that, but cruising around LA in a Lamborghini all Bruce Wayne-d out is whats up.

COOKIES AND CAKES, WE THE BRAND NEW ENTENMANNS

as Jim Jones would say "we gettin' cakey over here". check out the new(ish) line on the block CAKE. all of their shirts share a consistent line of using imagery of models with or without baked goods. but the thing about the line the separates them from every other brand that's put a half nekkid chick on a shirt and thought they were money is... but before i get to that, the other day i was on Broadway gettin' lunch and i saw a dude with a shirt on that had a nekkid chick in some dunks on the front and on the back it said "nice tits, nice kicks". really dude? i feel like the only people who rock that shirt have in fact never seen "nice tits" in real life without the ever present smell of stripper baby powder wafting the air.




anywho, cake does the half nekkid lady thing, but always has their designs surrounding the half nudity on point. when i saw the eyes wide shut joint i was like wow, black rob was like whoa




CAKE CLOTHING

I HAVE NO WORDS FOR THIS SHIT...

when the day comes that Madonna decides to come totally out of left field and drop a pantera riff at the end of her live set is the day when i officially no longer can think of anything clever to say. i mean really? A New Level? that shit isn't even a Pantera hit, i mean if she goes into Cemetery Gates or This Love or something, i cna maybe might understand it. but, A New Fucking Level, was she just rocking out to Vulgar Display Of Power after she got done boning ya boy A-Rod? all of this just boggles my mind and poses the question, WHERE'S MY KYLIE MINOGUE SLAYER COVER?

ME I'M IN MY SPACESHIP, YEAH I WORK FOR NASA

in continuing the "get your fresh right for the summer, ballin spectacular of haberdashery", i present to you the two newest acquisitions to my footwear collection. may i present to you the RED SUNs (aka Supra TUFs) on some straight up communist, power to to proletariat heat.




and the AIR STERANKOS, on some serious
Jim Steranko Op Art jumpoff:



get your mind right kids!

HEEL CLICKS? REALLY DUDE? WELL PLAYED...

still not tired of this song at all, and the video costing all of $12 dollars somehow just makes this nonsensical train of thought mess of a song even better. i could totally imagine wayne actually wrote this song on the way to a video shoot of another song. and the heel click... it's the victory lap to selling 2 milli records in two weeks i suppose

HELL AWAITS

HellBoy 2 is out now! It's going to be a guaranteed stunningly creative and visually rich movie from Guillermo Del Toro (director of Pan's Labyrinth), I'm going to catch a showing of it tomorrow and bask in all the fantasy shoutouts and awesomeness, you should definitely go see that shit!

I'M A BARBIE GIRL, IN A BARBIE WORLD....

Alex Sandwell Kliszynski has made some interesting images of life sized Ken and Barbies, but not in the gross weird way a Real Doll is a life sized Barbie, but instead in the thought provoking, only slightly creepy, artistic way. speaking of creepy, remember that "i'm a barbie girl song.." that shit was annoying and very Guidette,but when i think of that song i then think of "the venga bus is coming" song which was used in mad six flags commercials with some fake old dude who was fucking uber levels of creepy as he danced around in sped up motion.





dead ass, if i'm outside mowing my lawn getting my leave it to beaver on in the burbs and that dude jumps out the bus, im locking my kids in their room and im calling the cops. and im calling Chris Hanson, tell him to come pick up his boy.

DEXTER WANSEL

i love all things space related including SPACE DISCO.
this isn't any shit on Ed Banger records or anything like that, this is jumpoffs from the late 1970s when synthesizers were new and futurism was still ingrained in the popular consciousness. Dexter Wansel was an in-house composer and keyboardist for Philadelphia International Records, writing songs for their artist. But when he dropped his spaced themed record "Life On Mars" in 1976 the proverbial "game" got real. It's a really palpable mix of disco beats, space synths, funk horns and occasionally proggy riffs. Some perople have told me it sounds like the soundtrack to a blaxplotation movie set in space, i retort simply "i dont see how thats a bad thing".


Dexter Wansel - A Prophet Called KG


Dexter Wansel - You Can Be What You Wanna Be

HASE

Evocative work by Japanese artist Ryohei Hase, great to see fantasy imagery realized like this.

Ryohei Hase

above is the magic of ong bak 2 starring ya boy tony jaa. if u grew up watching steven segal and cynthia rothrock and chuck norris kick people in the face and break bones, and you havent seen tony jaa in action yet... you need to watch this immediately, post haste even. in ong bak 1 jaa jumped over a car, with no wires or stunt actors just him being a crazy living weapon type of dude. watch this dude do work on peoples skeletal system.

TUCAN SAM THAT. TROPICAL COLORS YOU CANT MATCH THAT, GOTTA BE ABSTRACT!

really tight work by kelsey brookes an artist out of san diego. really dig his use of pastels and human/animal husbandry in his paintings. his work is what youd see on the walls of some kind of bad acid trip inspired eugenics institution. werd to Sir Francis Galton & Ken Kesey.

Kelsey Brokes

ALL HAIL FAT DUDE METAL!

somewhere around 10th grade is where i got into metal outright, previous to that dude was on his rap shit and some alternative/grunge as was the practice of the time. in tenth grade (circa '95-'96) my dudes put me on a steady diet of Metallica, Pantera, Biohazard and life of agony to get my metal weight up. This was also the days when a young dude was trying to learn how to play guitar and Dimebag Darrell of Pantera was the coolest motherfucker known to man, see evidence of such below.


the goatee match the headstock, thats fucking boss

so one day im reading guitar world or some such guitar related periodical with Dimebag on the cover and dude drops knowledge about how hes really into Crowbar and how theyre heavy as shit. So young me is like "if its Dimebag approved it must be good", which to this day probably isnt too bad of a rule to follow, with the exception of his fascination with KISS. fuck those dudes.

so i ran out and coped "Time Heals Nothing". and was seriously floored by how incredibly and unflinchingly heavy this stuff was. a great mix of punk and metal with none of the superfluous indulgences of either genre. the songs are all simple but destroy entire ecosystems with their mixture of 2-step parts, quarter time evil break downs and pure fat dude metal sludge. Kirk Windstein's vocals sound like he delivered them while trying to pass a kidney stone and yet he doesnt get anywhere near cookie monster vocal land (and he even pulls of some great melodies parts with no hint of wussery). Im totally convinced that the weight of this band adds to the enormity of their sound. back when todd strange was on bass they had to be pushing a cool 1000lbs collectively, which is impressive for a four piece. especially when your drummer is actually thin. you can't even begin to listen to or play crowbar without having that face you get when you get the first whiff of the dog shit you just stepped in.

check it:


Crowbar - Lack Of Tolerance

Crowbar - I Am Forever

I'm at a loss as too how these dudes never got Uber famous, they toured with Pantera¹ non stop at the height of their popularity, they made four records (at least) of brutal music and yet they still remain relatively unknown. in 1997/98 when Hatebreed put out "Satisfaction is the Death of Desire"
the innanets went nuts because that record was so focused and lean and terrifyingly bludgeoning. but heres the thing, that record is pretty much a Crowbar tribute album and Jamey Hatebreed openly admits to having a bromance with Crowbar². Hatebreed goes on to be one of the top 5 metal bands out right now and Crowbar is..well not so much.


Crowbar- All I Had I Gave



¹ Kurt Windstein from Crowbar joined up with dudes from EYEHATEGOD, Corrosion Of Conformity and Pantera to create a southern metal supergroup known as DOWN. their first record was pretty much a flawless victory as it showed a heavy Crowbar influence, later records showed less Crowbar influence and hence were less awesome.


DOWN - Bury Me In Smoke & Syptoms of the Universe (Sabbath Cover)

When the first riff drops out and we get that behemoth crushing second riff at 1:32. WTF!!! that's why i love metal

²Kurt Windstein also started a band with Jamey from hatebreed which despite what'd you'd expectwas not the most crushing thing ever. instead it was simply pretty aight.

PLEASE SAY THE BABY

The Carter 3 has leaked and after sitting with it for a couple days im very very stoked with the amazingness of Wayne's studio work, its pretty much like Rosie O'Donnel at a bisexual bridal shower. i was a little worried all the weirdness and drugged out rapping we heard on Wayne's mixtape work would be toned down for the commercial release. especially after the shitstorm that i refuse to acknowledge known as "Lollipop". but luckily for free association rap enthusiast most of the album is Wayne going nuts. i could sit here and describe how when dude is on its nearly transcendent but instead ill just hit you with some of my favorite lines.

"Ima venereal disease like a menstrual bleed..
Threw the pencil and leak the sheet of the tablet in my mind"
-A Milli

"richer than Nicole and a lion like her daddy"
-La La

"and yeah im a bear,
like black and white hair,
so i am polar,
and they cant get on my system cause its solar..."
-Phone Home

"i open the lamborghini, hoping those crackers see me
like 'look at that bastard weezy.he's a beast, he's a dog, he's a motherfuckin' problem',
ok you're a goon, but whats a goon to a GOBLIN?"
-A Milli

"you better keep payin me, you dont want my problems,
I'll be wildin like Capital One, '"What is in your wallet?'..."
-Nothin On Me

"I made so much ice they yell "skate wayne!",
she wanna fuck weezy, she wanna rape wayne..."
-Got Money

theres a bunch of subtle little touches on the album that just make me giddy like a school girl. example; on the second excerpt from "A Milli" above when he says "a goblin" and they screw his voice so he sounds liek a goblin.
party time, excellent.
whats also great is the sheer amount of tracks this due puts out in a year. im sure hes recorded about 4 songs in the time it took me to write this post. thats great for us the lsitener, not only because we get alot of content but it allows for you to create an album that totally suits your tastes. i personally cant stand the shitty rnb rap tracks, so i just discarded em from my version of The Carter 3 and replaced em with more excersises in weirdness. you dont really get to do that with too many other genres of music or at any other period in time. i appreciate such choice in my listening experience.

BOOSH!

Tupac Speaks about Tony Danza


who knew that ya boy tony danz was B.F.F with tupac? i did. remember that when you attempt to challenge my knowledge of the most trivial b.s. what people probably dont realize is that tupac also wrote "i ain't mad at ya" about tony danza. the story goes that tupac had to go to jail for a quick minute over some sort of concocted charge and obviously being away from his girl he was concerned that she might stray. so.. he tells his man (t. danz) to go undercover and watch his girl for him. so tony danza becomes tupac's baby's mama's live in housekeeper/nanny. after awhile t.danz falls in love with the chick and things pop off.

in a very awkward scene tupac gets home from jail and accidentally walks in on his BEST FRIEND in bed with his girl. tupac's onlw words were "i aint amd at 'cha". despite the trespass tupac held no ill will to his b.f.f tony danz. they remained tight till tupac's death.

true story.

THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS

click picture for new The Dark Knight trailer

why isn't it July 18^thyet?
seriously, i mean Iron Man was great and helps hold me over till The Dark Knight, but come the hell on, this shit is gonna be pure unadulterated Dresden level intensity fire (shout out to Kurt Vonnegut). Heath Ledge looks appropriately psychotic and Bale's Batman is the most on point non comic interpretation of the character since the Justice League cartoon. The cinematography is huge, the color pallete looks like what we'd have imagined David Fincher circa 1998 would've done with the big bat. Im seriously stoked.
Batman, all day.

PINEAPPLE EXPRESS

trailer for Pineapple Express, produced by Judd Apatow

new, new Judd Apatow movie starring ya boy Seth Rogen and James Franco, very stoked on this trailer, great to see a stoner comedy play with big action pieces like car chases and shootouts and not look like crap. Apatow and his crew have been on that Patriots undefeated ish (fuck the giants and retarded ass Eli Manning) with a string of great movies and tv shows. track record includes Freaks And Geeks, Undeclared, Forty Year Old Virgin, Superbad, Knocked Up and the just released Forgetting Sarah Marshall. I just caught Sarah Marshall this past weekend and es muy bueno, it runs a little long but still definitely worth the 10 bucks or whatever for admission. Britsh rocker dude gets the McLovin award and easily steals the picture.

If you havent seen Freaks And Geeks but fucks with any of the other movies do yourself a favor and Netflix the series, its only one season but posisble one of the most stellar comedy/drama runs ive come across. All the characters are fully realized & three dimensional with great arcs, which is amazing alone. but Freaks also manages to hit the mark of channeling shared memories of anyone who enjoyed a not-on-the-football-team/prom-queen high school career while fully avoiding cliched melodrama.

check this clip of THE DUDE bill getting home from school:




this scene is a lil heavier on the dramatic side rather than the comedic side but the balance between the two was what really made the show. while watching Bill laugh like a nut is fairly funny, the weight of it comes from dudes solitary amusement, really all my former latch key kids can definitely feel this scene, from the small details like the Entenmann's¹ and the TV tray table to the specifics of the time period that may change depending on your age/locale but still hit home (ie. the Gary Shandling show clip²).

great show, and i cant wait to see Pineapple Express knowing its coming from the same crew. Also great use of M.I.A's Paper Planes, i was NOT feeling that song prior to this trailer but now im 100% on board.

¹SHOUT OUT TO Entenmann!!! they make the best soft baked chocolate chip cookie jumpoffs. back in the day my house STAYED supplied in their products. a lil five minute drive away from my house was the local Entenmann's warehouse which would sell their products at a crazy reduced price because they were near expiration. So we would always some fresh soft baked cholocate chip cookies, or danish rings, or homestyle apple pies. dudes have the baked goods game on lock.

²i could never fuck with Gary Shandling, never really "got it" per se. but in my latch key days it was all about the after school power hour of Charles In Charge/Saved By The Bell at five on good ole WPIX channel 11. WPIX was a great syndicated run local station because seemingly all they bought the rights too was Star Trek: The Next Generation, Saved By The Bell, Charles In Charge and The Last Dragon. I have no problem with any of those shows. Picard for the win!

LET'S GET SERIOUS

Telex - Eurovision

i dont really have much to say about this song other than its completely and unabashedly awesome. the year is 1980, the location france, the beard neatly trimmed & restrained, but nonethelss powerful. the song amazing. it sounds like the theme song for a cartoon about a super cute lil alien/dog thing that gets into hilarious mishaps while dodging the evil INS agents. also there should be a lil boy in the cartoon named Jacque.
its warm outside and this is what you need to be listening to. REAL TALK!

FLASHBACK FRIDAYS (on monday)

Sepultura - Troops of Doom Live from Barcelona '91


back in high school i had this video tape of Sepultura live from Barcelona, and i used to rock that ish after school and try and learn the guitar parts, because there was no overdubbing so it was easier to figure out. all i ever picked up from that video was that Sepultura was awesome and that you should always either play really fast or super slow and evil sounding. Troops Of Doom was great because it had both of those key ingredients in one song. the opening riff is just mean as fuck, and after that first 30 seconds or so its just fast fast fast.

this video is really from the silver age of Sepultura, Beneath the Remains and Arise were out, both would become classics in their catalog and they still had to look forward to Chaos A.D (their most complete work) and Roots. Oddly enough this song is a kinda lost gem from their first album Morbid Visions, which sucks alot but had an amazing title. They also had an album called Bestial Devastation which was also god awful but had a great title. Bestial Devastation, how awesome is that? so many ways that can play out, all of em metal as hell.

Now, Sepultura is a shit band playing shit music with like one original member left. I do not acknowledge this band nor their music, in my telling of events after recording Roots Sepultura embarked on a mission into space to aid the Shi'ar empire in their fight against metal hating aliens. Sadly, they were never seen or heard from again

ALL CAPS WHEN YOU SPELL THE MAN'S NAME

Nike Commercial featuring Lebron James & music by Cliff Martinez


did someone over at the NBA film/marketing department recently discover the magic of instrumental post-rock and or soundtracks? about a month or two ago i saw the above commercial for Nike with Lebron James. excuse me, LEBRON JAMES. anyways, im watching the commercial and cant help but notice that the music is from none other than Steven Sodenbergh's 2002 Solaris. you know the remake of the 1972 Russian Sci-fi epic about a sentient hallucination inducing planet, starring ya boy George "worst batman, but still a good actor" Clooney. yeah, that Solaris that no one saw. so im like LEBRON is feeling the cerebral Sci-fi? who knew? but then this morning im watching sportscenter as i usually do in the a.m and i notice the below commercial featuring music by the ridiculously not talked about enough Rachel's. you know them the lil indie band from Louisville who make sprawling, sublime chamber music type jams featuring field recordings and no vocals. yeah that Rachel's. So im thinking the NBA marketing department must have recently gotten into Pelican and Sigur Ros as well. but then i stopped and realized the key factor in both of these jawns is ya boy LEBRON JAMES, basketball player extraordinare and connoisseur of fine music. i salute you LEBRON keep up the good work.




NBA Commercial Featuring music by Rachel's

IM SO LONELY

Mister Lonely Trailer

this is the new film by Harmony Korine, director of ultimate indie WTFOMGBBQ! weird as shit flicks Gummo and Julien Donkey Boy. I'm glad to see that the dude is A. still making movies and B. not making another flick about a kid that eats spaghetti in dirty bath water. this jam looks pretty ill, I've always wondered what would happen if Michael Jackson and Marilyn Monroe impersonators got together. really who hasn't. i especially dig the scene where they introduce the other impersonators, somehow it feels like some kinda mental hospital production of League Of Extraordinary Gentleman, but obviously with mroe crazy involved.

FLASHBACK FRIDAY PT.1

Mos Def and Talib Kweli are Black Star - Definition

throwback joint to 1998 before Mos Def was an actor and Talib was irrelevant, great video shot out of/inside of the Flatbush Avenue staple, the dollar van. all the visuals of Flatbush Avenue with none of the maddening traffic/congestion and foul smells. i remember my homegirl sent me the mpfrees of Black Star and Mos Def's Ms. Fat Booty back in like '99 when it took like an hour to send three songs. Ms. Fat Booty was on some other other ish, being a must include for any mixtape given to a chica with even the slightest bubble. but back to the joint at hand, Definition was a straight banger with the pseudo dancehall beat and all the "i-took-courses-in-black-studies-at-college" musings of Mos Def and Talib. It was a nice respite from the jiggy era and the cash money millionaires post industrial rap complex. never quite understood why this genre was regulated strictly to college campuses and coffee shops. for a second we thought mos def was gonna smash the world but thats not how it went down. Kanye is as close as the genre got and only half of his output has this feel to it, so cheers to you conscious rap, you were fun while ya lasted.

SAY WHATS UP TO YA BOY YOUNG BOBBY DRAKE

The days are getting longer and the skirts are getting shorter, so obviously its getting to be spring round these parts. Along with rising temperatures and hemlines comes the yearly tradition of re-upping on fresh gear, my first acquisition of the season are these metallic blue Nike Dunk Zoom Highs which I've surreptitiously redubbed the Bobby Drake Specials. I imagine they will keep the entire block chilled like that Jamaican dude who used to run the Good Humor truck back in the day.

ABOUT FRACKIN TIME!

This Friday, April 9th TV's best show about religious fanatical, genocidal humanoid robots returns to the air after a year long hiatus. and no im not referring to Desperate Housewives, but instead im talking about Battlestar F. Galactica. For the uninitiated Battlestar Galactica is a show set in a futuristic world where a sneak attack by robot forces leaves all but ~50,000 humans and one warship still functioning. On the surface this sounds like a standard enough plot for any number of rather shitty Sci-Fi Channel originals. But the thing about Battlestar is, while the show is outwardly about a war between humans and robots in space it is more concerned with questions of faith, gender roles, morality, religious fanaticism, genocide, government, existentialism and the nature of humanity itself. all of that plus lasers, dogfights, giant spaceships, robot/human/robot 3 ways and torture. if they added in cyborgraptors it might just be the best television show ever. as it stands its an impressively adult and serious take on sci-fi which is something we don't usually see paraded around openly in mainstream pop culture.
if this sounds liek somehting you could dig on, then id say with the utmost of urging to check out the Battlestar Galactica miniseries available at Netflix or at Blockbuster or wherever you rent your DVDs from, just dont watch the new episode on SciFi Channel on friday as it'll spoil 3 seasons worth of developments and prolly wont make much sense.

HALF ROBOT. HALF ALLIGATOR. HALF MAN.

photos from Genghis Tron last night at the knitting factory.
pure techno rave brutality. live their mixture of electronics and grind really ceoms through quite powerfully, although they had a tendancy to stop between songs like a hardcore band would instead of stringing the music together into a larger experience as a dj/eelctronic artist might. but ill let that slide since they brought the killer RAVE LIGHTS. Daft punk may have better lights but do they have blast beats? exactly. genghis tron 1, daft punk 0.

live they really do come across as a more composed and streamlined version of dillinger escape plan. or rather a streamlined version of dillinger escape plan in 2001. really, what dillinger escape plan would sound like now if they still gave a shit about music and weren't so concerned with shitting on my hope in musicianship and artistry in extreme music.


previous thoughts on GT here
and here.

youtube of a GT performance below sans RAVE LIGHTS.