2 THINGS

First thing: I am pretty much just hanging at the GAYSCIENCE TUMBLR nowadays, so go check them shits out. Hilariousness, internet linkage, shitty opinions, etc. Also look at my band's myspace.

Second thing: GAYSCIENCE is playing tomorrow and the next day at the Lab theatre at UT at 8:30 and 5:30 respectively. Let's get this shit apoppin.

AAAH, SPIDEY MOLEST

Thanks for ruining my day TTL.

Really Tho

The Clash was very good at creating, in my opinion, successful songs. Mind blowing? Infrequently. They excel at outlining the modest aims of their song and then achieving those modest aims with panache and raditude. Por ejemplo: Train in Vain. Problem: you said you would stand by me, you did not in fact stand by me. Secondary problem: I am still into you. Solution: Write a song outlining the problem as well as speculating the root cause of said problem (the inconstancy of women? lyin?), using the most elementary rhyming structure available in the English language, three chords, and a harmonica. Mission accomplished. 

SUPER ROOTS 10 IZ HEEERRRRREEEE!!!

I rarely offer to fight people over the internet, but I will go on record right now and say that I will fight any adult human being who claims that Vision Creation Newsun is not the best album to drive to/take drugs to ever made. Driving while taking drugs? Better. Actually, stop the car, do the drugs and then drive. The Boredoms have stopped fucking around, I guess, and have decided that, in lieu of being bizarro and mysterious, they will just shred constantly, which I whole-heartedly endorse. In my mind, The Boredoms transcend the "shred gap" that Agresta and I argue about ad nauseaum–the question being, does shredding=douchebaggery in all possible situations in all possible worlds? The answer is clearly no, because The Boredoms shred monstrously and are clearly not douchebags. Although the singer-guy has dreads. Fuck. Well, Super Roots 10 just came out and this song is apparently called "Ant 10." That may be a lie, though. ANYWAYS IT IS FUCKING RAD, so stop wasting your time and download this shit. Also, there are hella remixes, one by Lindstrom as well but I am sour on that guy since he has given up the crown of Swedish model-slayer and now, like, hangs in chatrooms with AC Slater or some other bloghouse garbaggio. SXFCE out. 

Violent Rage Attcaks

Sexface and Flava Flav: Great Minds?

HOLY FUCKING CRAP. Sorry. So I just found out today that Public Enemy, during their unsung (read: sucky) years, recorded a song called "Do You Wanna Go Our Way???" Subject matter: I don't know. All I know is that I listened to the first few bars of this and realized that they sampled the EXACT SAME PART of the EXACT SAME SONG that I sampled to make the beat for the Steak Fingaz mega-jam "Space Snacks." Does this kind of thing happen to real hip-hop producers, or just jokers like myself who's idea of "crate digging" is finding dead Hungarian music blogs? Whatevs, I think that Steak Fingaz brought it a lot harder, both on the beat and the rhymes–although this may have occurred during flav's ascent to reality stardom, in which case he gets a pass. NO PASS FOR U THO, CHUCK D!

Clube da Esquina v. Quarteto em Cy

One of my favorite past times–besides drinking champagne and watching Scrubs (not a joke?)–is listening to different versions of the same song, preferable with one of the versions being by the composer. I really, truly, enjoy this when the non-composer's version ends up being better. Why is that? Because it means that the song is actually better than the composer himself knew, which in my opinion, is the sign of a good piece o' art. Today I will be taking a look at two versions of the song "Tudo que você podia ser," (Everything that you could have been) originally written by the Borges brothers, Lô and Márcio. The original version of the song was released on Lô Borges* and Milton Nascimento's "Clube da Esquina" (The corner club) an album which cemented both of them as permanent fixtures in MPB. Without getting too into it, I will say that both of these dudes are super heavy duty hosses (Nascimento made an album with Wayne Shorter after this and gets mad respect from jazz heads and screaming, fainting Brazilian cougars, Borges became a little too saccharine but is still an unstoppable freight train of harmonically complex pop). Another thing that I will refrain from doing is translating all of the lyrics, but I will tell you that they deal with someone who has lost their childhood hopes of being a great hero. They really fit with the melancholy tone of the rest of the album, most of whose topics deal–in a dreamy, abstract way–with the two musician's home state of Minas Gerais, which is like the Texas of Brazil (I will explain someday why I say that). The melancholy of the lyrics works well with the somewhat ragged timing of the vocals contributes to their earnestness. The articulation doesn't entirely fit–almost like he is trying to stuff too many thoughts into the line. Check it out.

Lô Borges and Milton Nascimento–Tudo que Você Podia Ser

Next up we have a rendition of the same song by a group called Quarteto em Cy. Quarteto em Cy was a female vocal group composed of 4(5?) sisters who were famous for doing a lot of work with Vinicius Moraes–well known poet, composer, diplomat, bon vivant, lyricist of "The Girl from Ipanema" and general professional badass. One of their trademarks was the fact that most of the time they sang in unison. This sounds simple, but given that we are so used to hearing groups of females sing in harmony, the effect is kind of rad. Unfortunately, this often means that their rhythm is more formulaic, no doubt because it is hard getting everyone to sing in the same rhythm to begin with. You can't simply have everyone warbling off into the melismasphere. That means that this version comes across as snappier, drum set and all. Snappy syncopation is the enemy of Brazilian music. That said, this song is still beautiful so don't sleep on it.

Quarteto em Cy–Tudo que Você Podia Ser

So have I been denied my supreme pleasure of a second version being better than the first? Sort of. It turns out that some years later, Lô Borges–the composer–released a version of this song sans Milton. The result? Horseshit. So I still kind of get my cake and eat it too, a phrase that I never quite understood. holler.

*What a great fucking name

Gring Mode

Have you ever wondered what Trick Daddy would sound like on a Postal Service song? I haven't, but I found out anyway. Please note: hyper-melodic singing of phrase "Big Ole Titties."

Gring Mode–Ecstacy ft. Trick Daddy

I got this track off a mix called "Jook & Vibe" posted over at MadDecent. The mix itself is kind of horrible, unless you really want to listen to reiterations of that song "Get Low" for 40 minutes. You can thank me later.

What have we learned from this? Ben Hibbard can die and we will all probably survive, providing that crappy hip hop music continues to fill what I refer to as "the wuss gap." 

Flute Juice

God Damn. This was totes going to be the name of teh new Gay Science EP.

Flying Lotus is better than you

Flying Lotus has a horrible name. Really. Look at it and you think that you are about to listen to some sort of, if you are lucky, New Age yoga music. Then you read more and you are like, "Oh, instrumental hip hop? I will just file that with my turntablist CDs...in the trash, zing!" It turns out that Flying Lotus is some of the hottest shit out right now AND he is from the Valley. Go figure. This dude is Alice Coltrane's nephew and he makes some serious headphone music that manages to not be, well, headphone music. His tracks always seem to have some weird squirmy shit going on in them, definitely worth listening to. So here I post for you, loyal reader, a mix and a few videos. Beware, the last video is NSFW in a big, very troubling way. 

BBC Essential mix with Flying Lotus

Two hours of the Xtreme hotness. Go to the Mad Decent blog for the tracklist.

Interview for XLR8R TV, wherein FL proves that he is, in fact, a "serious artist."

Finally, the video for Parisian Goldfish. NSFfuckingW, yo.

PARRTY AT THE ULTIMATE HANGZONE!

Dudes, Will and I are going to get a keg, blast the soul music and watch PBS starting at 5. I invite everyone to come by. THE ULTIMATE HANGZONE (2101 Rountree Dr.)

!

Is that a joke, or is that a real question?

Joe Biden laughing in hater's faces.

Cheah

New Shit on the The Interworld

Want to know what I have been doing, besides posting? Well, the real answer is that I have been mostly watching Obama-related youtube videos and getting choked up. But here is some shit you should know.

Zizek on Some Radio Program from Brown.

His segment is called What's the Question? A lot of classic Zizek, but also some insights into Sarah Palin, etc. 

Check out Legion of Rock Stars. Here is the description from Stereogum

"the rules are simple:
A bunch of people put on noise-canceling headphones
They all listen to the same song and play along
The results are recorded and set to the original music video
Hilarity ensues"

Their version of Mother has got to be one of the best things on Youtube in a bit. Except for aforementioned Obama speeches.

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.

DIPLO SPEAKS

Diplo is kind of outstanding.

Victory Through Air Power

So into Disney propaganda films right now.