I'm a Tide

PLEASE BE CAREFUL YOU MIGHT REALLY EXCITED AND BITE YOUR OWN HEAD OFF

I've been agonizing about which songs to put up from the Broken Strings cd I received in the mail a couple of weeks ago and last night got the green light to put up the entire thing.

A lot of you from around the Bay Area know Adam Croce (guitartwangerdrumthwacker from Tommy Lasorda/Missing Pages/International Postmen/Magic Bridges/Los Rabbis/Lugosi/etc.etc.etc.) He recently retired to his blue bedazzled shelter shack in San Mateo (rugged older-brother to my own Foster City hometown)where we once saw Weird Al at the county fair, and where he recorded this brilliant 16 track opus all on his lonesome. At first listen I said he's been listening to a lot of TREX PAVEMENT GRUNGE EHHH??? It sounds good good, but ok good alright. but no! Not so simple. When we used to play music together I always used to feel some chagrin that he couldn't just play all of the instruments. For Broken Strings, he uses an old 4-track and some dusty mikes and does just that. While I feel like the home studio is an easy and comfortable base for totally unaccesptable wankery, Broken Strings just sounds like a really incredible and personal band- just the right beats, tones, speeds and a million little melodies to hang a noose off of.

The themes range from fantasy surf quest, life pathology dissections, pharmacy/library work, loneliness, literally losing it etc. Adam uses a bunch of cast-off and dismissed equipment to imbue each theme, from the minutest little dream ditty to the larger epic freak-out question with a sinserity that is killing me. With each listen I get wrapped up in his micro-constructions, feeling increasingly joyous, nostalgic, and full of admiration. Some of the songs don't hit me but I still can't pick just a few of the jams because I feel like they work together and create a voltron document. Also, you can't get this anywhere else so a "teaser" just isn't fair. I wish I could do this with all of my favorite albums, but such an opportunity is a rare privilage so I'm reveling in it.

I wasn't going to editorialize and just transcribe the little note Adam sent but oh well. Please dismiss my emotional ramblings and read this...
"Here's the Broken Strings stuff. Inspect/Select/Dissect. From the bedroom that wrought the Hormones. Beating on the Big Guy's bass drum, come, Broken Strings.
Psychotic tunesmith records self and none others on 1980's machine aquired by the sale of one soul. Then she broke it. Rock n'roll Faustian bargain proves true as fruitful asynchrony amounts in innumerable pop hits, but wait, there's blood on the four track.

Influences include: Feynman's bongos, Sagan's sportscoat, lithium, 10,000 year clocks, scarabs, Laird Hamilton, Post Intelligence, Olympia's Homeless, the King of the Goddamn world, Knowledge Gods everywhere."

Adam's moving to Olympia this weekend and will not rest until he has Calvin Johnson's shoes around his neck. Contact him by writing HERE

WHOLE ALBUM Broken Strings-Greetings from Mateo
Broken Strings 1. My Baby Bites My Head Off
Broken Strings- 2.Stolen Car
Broken Strings- 3. Eyes of the World
Broken Strings- 4. On the Cow
Broken Strings- 5. Aloha Sweet Monster
Broken Strings- 6. The loneliest girl in the last ten billion yrs.
Broken Strings- 7. Surfing Everyday
Broken Strings- 8. Which Witch
Broken Strings- 9. I Sing Along
Broken Strings- 10. Straight on the Crooked Flats
Broken Strings- 11. Jackets Of Leather
Broken Strings- 12. Jewels was a man
Broken Strings- 13. Feel Free
Broken Strings- 14. I'm At Tide
Broken Strings- 15. Mars
Broken Strings- 16. Geezer Knights

ENJOY!

10/11/06 Sorry everybody, you had your chance! Not only do we need this room to put up more awesome music, but it turns out that True Panther Sounds and Big Raccoon records are going to end up putting this album out. Look for it by the end of the year.

Dory Tourette and the Skirtheads

I think when I first heard that there was a 10th Anniversary of Geekfest in the works I suggested that they go on myspace and try to track down a million horrible funk-metal bands from Concord and set up a generator on the first superfund site they could find- in the interest of authenticity of course. What Micah, Robert, and John actually did was show me (among a few hundred other people) that the seemingly inane drug-pit some of us called our "teenage years" was in fact a pretty good platform for some "eternal bonding" and little bit of inspiration for the young'uns. Regardless of anything, it was great to see so many friends in one place, and so many good, exciting bay area bands (Bikini Weekend, Missing Pages, Baby Jail, Dory, Icky Girlfriends, etc.)

I think the highlight for just about everyone I can think of was the Dory Tourette and the Skirtheads reunion, a totally out-of-tune excercise in collective memory/crowd control. Watch in awe as the entire band and everyone in the room (re-)learns the songs all at once, as they are played. A few songs are captured here for those that missed it....
Crooked Eye

My Sperm Comes from My Eye


also, check out some flickerzzz HERE

ok seriously folks

this blog was gonna be totally epic and about how much i miss mac dre and the death penalty and how cool c is on death row and george ryan being inspirational and i was gonna tie it all together all awesome...but it's 4:40am, we are drinking patron, listening to bootsy collins, eating mushrooms, after i've been on LSD all day and all i can
think about is that I MISS MAC MUTHAFUCKIN DRE!

RIP: one of the best tributes

peace

Mac mall, Geezy, Bavgate- Throw Up ya T'z

Cats and Dogs

Serving as an informal "counselor" figure- over the phone but I could still feel my hairline receeding, tweed patches forming on my exema elbows, long hair reluctantly forming itself into a ponytail. creative facial hair. I tried to take secret and quiet notes of demands so I could remember what to relay without the party hearing the computer keys and feeling strange. Not Much Information Was Recorded.

[REDACTED]

Also, Semitism is bacterial

Also also also got an email with a Zainaba compilation attached from my favorite blog today. So expect some righteous tracks, along with a 3 part series on "failed brushes with pseudo-fame" coming up when I get my head above water

God = Jeff Lynne?

.....or Jeff Lynne = God???

Electric Light Orchestra- 21st Century Man

Rudy and Wild Kid

called out!

first of all arthur lee died last week.....



Love- Little Red Book



p.s. RIP Mac Dre 4 eva (picture of what i spelled on the fridge at work!)


old school east Palo Alto Represent: 11-5 Garcia Vegas

rick ross album came out: Rick Ross- for da low


jesus and mary chain...best band ever? Between Planets

the blue things means songs you can download...also LISTEN TO RAP LOUD STUPIDS

xoxoxox


plus the new batch of LSD is amazing!

As some of you have noted recently, I've been dipping my toes in rap blog territory a little bit more and more over the last few months. I guess I can admit I am a little obsessed and I want to share these things but I think it'd be better to leave it to the pros (where is chris mcvicker???) I don't have enough history or knowledge about rap and feel like I end up sounding a wee tad bit foolish.

For the last few weeks I've been pretty obsessed with new and backtrack recordings of DAMAGE CONTROL RADIO out of Houston. It's a weekly radio show done by the dude behind Houstonsoreal blog. The website is pretty busted and doesn't have too much information sometimes but you can always find new episodes up on the blog. They pretty much do everything exactly right, playing a few hits mixed in with totally crazy/scary/awesome Houston rap I've never heard before. So the towel is thrown in and I will add it to the kindling pile for the existing torchbearers. BACK TO THE WORLD TIME NOW!

YESYTEYESYESYESYESYESY!!!!!!!!!!!

YESYESYESYYESYESYESSSSS!!!!

via Virtual Apple

very.busy.lately

Happy Returns

I've been trying to find this Peggy Seeger for a while, since it's one of the only records I am aware of that has "Snake Baked a Hoecake" on it. When I first heard the song, I fell for it. It just reminds you how weird and light folk music can feel. I like songs where animals act like people and also are so mundane that they don't make any sense. Like, animals really acting like people and being boring (snake makes cake, gives it to frog to watch, lizard takes the cake, snake asks for it back and calls lizard a name, the end). Also, that piano part is so beautiful I can't handle not being able to play it myself (trying to learn it at this moment).
Anyway, it's hard to find this record and I'm also lazy. It turns out that, that Smithsonian Folkways has recently (?) placed a huge amount of its catalogue available for download and will continue to add more. I spent 30 bucks already and I imagine dropping tons more money in the months to come. You can search by instrument, culture, language, country, genre...!

Well, in honor of finally getting my digital paws on Peggy Seeger's "Animal Folk Songs for Children" I present three of the best....Peace!

Snake Baked a Hoecake
Of All the Beast-es
Jack, Can I Ride

Where's Dumbledore McPants?

sorta kinda speechless, but not really

deans been a bloggin machine but i promise i'm gonna make a comeback!! i ran out of LSD, so i have nothing to write about...

RINGTONE

Polyamory is now OFFICIAL. Let's hear it for the sandwich generation! So is RINGTONE!

Totally speechless

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!

Not only did he put up Weekend a full TWO HOURS before me, now he's made THIS and I cannot bow in praise fast or low enough..e.f,adskjfea.

I GIVE UP!!!!!


3:48 PM P.S. P.S. P.S. S.O.S. Band- Weekend Girl
Have a good weekend!

Dimebag

Stockholm goes dumb

HEY 300 MB of surprise server space for true panther. Happy friday! Of course, we pass the savings along to you...

Here's a mix DJ Mark Marcelo doing his unstoppable Hyphy mix live in Stockholm. Swedes are always so with it! It seems like there's a new hit to follow and dance around to every 2-3 days so things get outdated pretty quickly. Regardless, if you're looking for a good collection of some of the better recent Bay Area songs, this is a good one...

DJ Mark Marcelo- Dummy Live in Stockholm

and if you want a more comprehensive one, try to track this down.

Cat Food Fancy Feasts

Oh hey, hi hi hi, how are you? Good good. Oh me? I went to the awesome Clorox Girls show last night. It was great great great. There was a "secret" Two Gallants house party show down the street too. Oh, that was ok saw some old friends. Anyways, I'm not feeling so good this morning, so if you don't mind I am just going to eat this audio quaalude really quickly. Wow! I feel much better, do you want to massage one another? Yeah, your small hobbit hands are so strong. You know, a lot of people say they're turned off by your sharpened anal tusks, rabbit's whiskers and sneaky, ignorant, underhanded facial features- but you seem pretty alright to me...

Cam'ron- Weekend

Awesome Power

Man, one of these days I am just going to start my own one-man-band-one-man-blog but until that fog of fear and anxiety related to "going it alone" lifts I give you another entry into the holy pantheon of this righteous pseudo-genre....
-------------
Just when I thought that "OLD EUROPE" could no longer create anything that I had more than a marginal shameful interest in, I saw this video. Andre Diamant is a young Parisian and the sole member of a project he calls Duracell. He hooks cheap contact mikes up to each of his drums, runs them through a Clavia Nord G2 Rack and then processes each of the signals with a computer program that assigns them each a distinct sound. So he ultimately ends up with a range of notes and tones that is assigned to each piece of his drums. He can control the speed, volume, and arrangement of a mass of the instruments by the speed and intensity with which he hits each piece of drum equipment. YEA YES YSE YT SEYES!

WARNING: There are lots of Franco/British people dancing and headbanging in this video.

Granted, it sounds an awful lot like video game Lightning Bolt (including an actul Lightning Bolt cover at around the 2:30 mark) but if you let it simmer and build (give it 5 minutes!) it really ends up looking and sounding incredible.

Check the web site for more.

P.S. I do not really doubt the artistic output of "(M)Old (Pee) (Y)Europe". The introduction of this blog entry was simply some of the ole "embellishment" to add some of the ole "gusto" to this standard piece of LOVE JOURNALISM Look at this and this for god's sake.
P.P.S. BONUS Outdoor Clip!