DJing music. Cratediggin' and curatin'. Web programming. Hindi. Studying.
Music
SOME CONSISTENT ARTISTS:
The Velvet Underground. Joy Division. Public Image, Limited. My Bloody Valentine. Chrisma. Polyrock. The Monks. The Stooges. The New York Dolls. Suicide. Young Marble Giants. Liquid Liquid. A Certain Ratio. The Slits. The Birthday Party. The Clash. Echo & the Bunnymen. Cristina. Sonic Youth. The Damned. Wire. The Modern Lovers. The Undertones. Bauhaus. Tones on Tail. Manic Street Preachers. Pere Ubu. Adam Ant. Husker Du. The B-52s. Crispy Ambulance. Stiff Little Fingers. Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark. Nico. Magazine. Cocteau Twins. The Selecter. Madness. The Ramones. Flipper. Nina Hagen. Mission of Burma. Talking Heads. Violent Femmes. Richard Hell & the Voidoids. Gene Vincent. Lizzy Mercier Descloux. Helmet. X-Ray Spex. Lou Reed. The Adverts. The Buzzcocks. The Smiths. Cure. The Fall. Gang of Four. Brian Eno. Roxy Music. Television Personalities. Brainiac. The English Beat. The Teardrop Explodes. XTC. Dinosaur, Jr. Nirvana. John Cale.
OTHER ARTISTS:
April March, Pale Saints, They Might Be Giants, Mercury Rev, Klaus Nomi, Stockholm Monsters, Human League, Billy Bragg, ESG, Hawaiin Pups, Josef K, Intro to Airlift, The Raincoats, Swell Maps, Ride, Vaselines.
PRODUCERS... I SHOULD PAY MORE ATTENTION.
Martin Hannett, Brian Eno, Steve Albini.
SOME PREFERRED GENRES:
Proto Punk, American Punk (esp. early New York & Boston scenes, No Wave, some Californian, some Washington, D.C.), British Punk, Goth & Post-Punk, 2Tone & Ska Revival, some Synth Pop & New Wave, Sixties Psychadelic, Shoegazer, IDM, Underground Hip-Hop, Power Pop, Reggae (esp. Rocksteady & Dub).
Movies
Music Documentaries. Guy Maddin is a must-see, especially Careful. Hal Hartley's Trust and Surviving Desire take a straight look, like Alan Dugan's "Love Song: I and Thou." I think Jean Genet's great, really dig City of Lost Children. Old Boy was stunning, recently. American Movie is still inspiring. I'm waiting to see Stunt Rock. Sans Soleil.
Television
An infrequent escape. Too often in the background... sometimes white noise would be better on the eye. British is funnier. Six Feet Under really socked me.
Books
Just finished Ian Wilmut's book about cloning, which was so-so. Lately, I've liked Bob Dylan's autobiography, Jared Diamond's Collapse, Simon Reynold's Rip It Up And Start Over Again, and have spent lots of time studying code. I highly recommend: Fyodor Doestevsky, The Brothers Karamazov. Haruki Murakami, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles. Georges Perec, Life: A Users Manual. J.D. Salinger, Nine Stories. Roald Dahl. Michael Ende, The Neverending Story. Alan Dugan. Mark Leyner's fun. Kafka, Borges, Whitman, Sandberg. Lester Bangs. Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer. Andre Maurois' Ricochets is the best book I ever bought for its cover.
Heroes
Ghandi. Shakyamuni Buddha. More villains come to mind. Now Brian Wilson comes to mind. His dad was a drunk pecker.
I'm acting like I know something in the hopes that I'll learn something... about music, mostly. Also about public personas. And motivation.
I sold my bones... to Billy Gibbons!
This video is so wrong and so right -- scary brilliance that sends some people to the door. The video is by Shorty, a band I recently learned about from Zespe. The singer and guitarist went on to from U.S. Maple, a band that blew my mind at Second Story. What I remember most about that mid-90's U.S. Maple show? Everything was constantly falling apart, in keeping with some hidden script that only U.S. Maple had read. I never saw a show like that -- I guess that's deconstruction for you. Half the crowd cleared the room, but I was rooted to the spot, horrified and delighted. This unforgiving music is a philosophy, and it's more true than you want it to be; the spazz rock analogue to Kafka's literature. Believe it or not, (singer) Al Johnson is actually using real English words... but you'll probably need to buy the CD and read along as the music plays to believe that. When I first saw U.S. Maple, Johnson seemed to just grunt the syllable "hai" repeatedly with varying inflections of drunken-ness, schizophrenia, and nausea -- "Hai-yuh... Hai-hai-Hai yuhhh... WOOOooOoooo!" The music opened my jaw and I haven't shut it since. Seeing this transports me back to college, makes me think about meaning, how it's really found in the space between the eye and the page, all that other pseudo-intellectual bullshit I sometimes rattle on about. So here's a video from Shorty, a band I really know nothing about... and thanks to Chris from Ativin for posting it!
If you like this, I'd download TubeSock and save a copy for yourself, because it's a temporary post. Check versiontracker.com for the program if you don't have it.
Now... if you'd like to clear the palette, exhibit B is ZZ Top, the spiritual godfathers of U.S. Maple. In this cheesy video, they make a grab for that new wave demo. Tom Petty did it, too... in his desert/delorian video. This video has kitsch value only. The bearded bluesmen with carpet on their guitars broadcast themselves as broadsided yanks, with no frickin' clue what to make of British hair and synthesizers...
Who I'd like to meet: Brethren. Teachers. Driven Collaborators. Muses. People I should have known long ago. People I've stood in basements with.
can't wait to see all your pics and read all your stories. i have a good friend working in bombay if you need a link. a real bookworm like you- bet you would get along.
mmhmmm...nope sorry, all my mind will continue to conjure is the three point structure, triangle walk ...oh and accurately cited sources that strengthen your argument by lending crediblity.
time i seen US Maple the dude came out & dropped a switchblade knife on the stage as if by accident then nonchalantly picked it up & put it back in his pocket rolling straight into singing & made no mention. or did someone tell me that? but that was not an accident but good staging.
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