MGMT

Speaking of...can someone explain to me why people like these herbs? I am being sincere–I have no fucking clue. If people think that these shitheads are fashion-forward they should come to Austin like 3 years ago. We have hella dudes that look like unhealthy, faux-70s, indierock-bellied "artists". My tentative theory is that the internet vomits up something like this every year or so. First it was Crystle Castles, Vampire Weekend and now this. The best thing to do is to buy the Justice remix and wait for this crap to disappear. I figure if we get rid of Canada and pansy-ass east coast fontleroy training camps (read: private liberal arts colleges) we can probably eliminate this kind of garbage.

MASH SF

There are probably plenty of people in the world that are "over" fixed-gear dirt bags and they have good reason. There is a certain attitude that people who are really into fixed-gears have that makes them all seem like mega-douches. As someone who rides a fixed-gear and, all sceney bullshit aside, loves the beejezus out of my bike, I feel sometimes that the whole thing has turned into another shitty accessory and most people who are into these bikes spend more time picking out their cutoffs than riding. Life sucks, what can you do? The thing about biking that is different from, say, wearing Ray-Bans or a fucking MGMT headband is that biking is hard. You have to, at some point, earn it. This is why I think that fixed-gear people are totally tolerable if not awesome. Dudes that are mega bike dudes are kind of the meat heads of hipsterdom, and I respect that. Anyway, MASH is a crew out of SF that does crazy shit and films it, etc. They made a pretty awesome movie which you should see, but it is more about SF than them in my opinion. As someone from LA, I have a hatred for SF that can only come out a deep conviction that it might be the perfect american city. LA is clearly a third-world dump. Buy the movie from turntablelab and download the soundtrack here. If I were to make a CD about what I think it means to live in California I would pick a lot of this music: Richie Rich, Journey, Ozzie, Gorilla Biscuits, Bad Brains, M83, Gang Starr, Firehose, Eyedea. This is the CD where you realize that your aversion to backpack rap is stupid, that the Biscuits were the first band that made you really want to punch something and that Blondie is pretty boss.

The Avalanches

Do you remember how absurdly awesome the Avalanches album, "Since I Left You" was? For me, it was the first time I had heard someone really sample things in a way that completely mutated the source material. It was also about the same time as I got into the internet–I was a late internet bloomer–and I was just beginning to really take my already eclectic music tastes to the extreme. They brought all of these things together in a way that was 'gasp' artistic. Hearing them drop "Like a Rolling Stone" over "Holiday's" bassline made me completely lose my mind. Totally uncheezy ungimmicky. It is unfortunate that we entered mashup hell pretty soon after that release, perhaps overshadowing their greatness. What is interesting is that in the current (internet dance) music scene, I feel that people look to Hollertronix as the progenitors of the no-holds barred DJ mix, but it seems to me that the Avalanches were doing something similar, but more cohesive, earlier but get relatively little love. Anyway, here is a mix that I found at Nialler9, which has absolutely 0 dance songs and exactly 2 Van Dyke Parks songs. LISTEN TO THIS SHIT AND THEN THINK ABOUT THE FACT THAT THEY PLAYED THIS IN IBIZA.

Here we go.