Cheerleading for squarepusher

Sound the alarm! Alert the town crier! One of the most decisive albums of the year is sliding underneath the WXYC radar. Santa's getting confused. The best-of-2007 lists are spilling out the mail slot, but Squarepusher's "Hello Everything" has been suspiciously absent from this year's crop. Look at the nine panels on the cover and understand what this album is -- it is one man, pushing pieces of plastic and steel around with his hands, zipping around electrons to move in metal. The metal of my speakers and his instruments shakes and pulses with hype. Furious hype. And my electrons. 1990s. British scientists uncovered the perfect rhythmic noise -- the Amen breakbeat -- and well, the rest is history. You can speed it up too to slowly so that they move more quickly in time. It's like it's dance music, except way too fast for anyone to dance too. That is, if using your body. Use the electrons!! Listen to this album www.squarepusher.net or watch the videos and understand that "The Modern Bass Guitar" is played on the bass guitar somehow, using fingers. I refer to the cover for proof that they really are fingers. Fingers are doing this.

-tyler

SLICK SCALPS

Artist: Sic Alps
Album: Pleasures and Treasures
Label: Animal Disguise

This overloaded album of feedback and feverish hallucinations was recorded in San Francisco and Mendocino CA in 2005, courtesy of Mike Donovan (Big Techno Werewolves), Bianca Sparta (Erase Errata), and Adam Stonehouse (The Hospials), with Flying Luttenbacher wild-man Weasel Walter doing the mastering. The current incarnation of the band is now a duo consisting of Donovan and Matthew Hartman (Cat Power, Coachwips), so theres no telling what they actually sound like now. But on this release, they destroy rock music to the point of absurdity and beyond, completely drowning your point of view in a garbage dump of distortion and abrasive noise overlaps. Somewhere inside, hollowed out vocals moan out a druggy dirge of busted melody, at times completely obscured by the onslaught of psychedelic sludge. Imagine Royal Trux in their smacked-out Twin Inifinitve days, with crunching guitars jangling in and out of rhythm to tampered time and complete obliteration. It isnt a very settling listen, but the unpredictability and cacophonous jubilee make me a fan, and when it rocks, it fukkin rocks (see track 5). Take a ride with the slow-moving guitar chugs of righteous repulsion, shredding song structure with a machete along the way.

My Spare Time is a Bleary Eyed Sip of Cheap Wine

Not to begrudge this blog, as it is a valuable resource with which XYC jocks might share our vast collective musical knowledge and initiate thought-provoking discussions about new and old musical styles and artists, but right now it seems as though this page is mostly a clearinghouse for youtube links, which while perhaps modestly entertaining, are of the most debilitated visual and audio quality and do little to demonstrate the heavy potential of this space on the interweb. Not to be one to simply smear the format and content and then bail, I must posit this humble observation concerning the potential of the blog format, and issue it as a personal challenge to myself and others to up the bar for our own wastes of time.
For an excellent example of a blog which instructs and inspires, head to the No Doctors homepage. Despite the fact that I consider these dudes my friends, I also admire their homepage for its lively discussion and interesting mix of fact and fiction. I issue a challenge to myself and others for the XYC blog - put some of yourself out there and let the world know what you think about music, the world, and our relationship to sound. If we could but smear some of the email jeezus that we produce over topics such as tuba or the legacy of luc ferrari, we would go a long way.
That said, TIME magazine has certainly indavertantly made an ass of themselves by hailing blogs such as this as harbingers of some new era in pluralistic entertainment provision, insinuating the the whole of America is ready to be entertained by folks with lots of spare time, like myself. Hmmmm. Maybe my own presence on the internet is not ready for my own chagrin at the bevy of crap that shuffles it way through the aether and spurts its electronic spunk all over my slow wireless connection. Blorch.

To Live and Shave the Thursday Night Feature

On last week's Thursday Night Feature, I exploited the work of Miami-based avant/industrial/pre/noise/dub band TO LIVE AND SHAVE IN LA. For three whole hours, listeners were treated (annihilated) to an audio history of the band, starting with main founder Tom Smith's work in Peach of Immortality and winding all the way up to the new album, Noon and Eternity. Mr. Smith was even nice enough to engage me in an interview, which was also included in the show. If you missed it, or you were one of the many who turned off your radios, you can relive the magic by downloading the show in its entirety below.


To Live and Shave TNF

If you like what you hear, be sure to pick up Noon and Eternity, which was recently released on Menlo Park Recordings.

Last Minute Holiday Gift Ideas

It happens every year. You are busy, things get hectic, and in the end you forget to do any Holiday Shopping! Uh-Oh! How will all your loved ones ever know that you love them without a gesture of consumerist reciprocity?!?

The sad truth is that they won't know and will therefore stop loving you. Therefore it is imperative to give them gifts to win their love. What's that? No money?!?

Well, the re-gift is a classic, though tacky, move. But do you know what's better than the re-gift? The modded re-gift.

It's simple really: take the crappy electronic toys and gifts from yesteryear and tweak them to make them completely awesome! The perfect gift!

The Sesame Street Talking Alphabet!


A Talking Pikachu!


A Toy Guitar!


A Playskool Keyboard!


And many, many more!

And for all your other tweaking, building, hacking, and DIY needs, let me highly recommend the MAKEzine blog and their archive of music and audio centered projects.

Best,
Kellen

the New Zealand Trick

Instead of studying or paper writing, check this out. Its cooler, I promise.

This might not make any new fans, but here I've got a pretty cool 1984 television program that takes a look at Christchurch and Dunedin. Its mostly Flying Nun-centric, but who cares? There's lots of interviews and live clips from folks like Shayne Carter, the Verlaines, Look Blue Go Purple, Backdoor Blues Band, and Alastair Galbraith. There's some forgettable stuff maybe- but this is definitely fun. Part III is probably best.

(too much to post right onto our blog, so check out some links)

Part I
Part II
Part III

And I couldn't resist putting up these videos from two huge NZ pop groups. They will make new fans, quick.
The Chills, Pink Frost. From 1984, can be found on Kaleidoscope World, an early singles collection. Its a hit.
The Clean, Anything Could Happen. Released as a single sometime during their first existence (1978-83). You can find it on Anthology, and it rocks. David Kilgour wears a Bob Dylan costume. Cool.

Inspirational Religious Leaders, pt. 3: This Guy

who is he?? someone said his myspace page was here, but i don't think that's right. we need to give this guy a time slot on XYC.

Inspirational Religious Leaders, pt. 2: Jonathan Bell

wow.

Inspirational Religious Leaders, pt. 1: Reverend Alicia

pimp it.

Feedback Farm Goes Christmas Shopping: Crap + Junk, Part II

Those of you who heard Feedback Farm on Wednesday might think I'm lying when I say that due to a technical glitch the recording of the program was lost and thus cannot be presented to you here. It would perhaps be understandable that we wouldn't want the recording of that episode made public. But I tell you, it's true.

And, in fact, as evidence of my earnestness, let me make an appeal to anyone who may have recorded the show at home: If you have a copy of the November 29, 2006 Feedback Farm, please contact WXYC and I'll get it up on the blog to the considerable embarrassment of all involved in that show.

For the benefit of those who missed the program, the best we can offer is a play-by-play of what went down:

From 9pm until about 9:10pm, the Feedback Farmers scrambled to hook up their equipment and reconnect the power to the microphones. Due the the cramped quarters, tight spaces, and the farmers' large hands, replugging the microphone mixer power cord proved more difficult than it should have been. Thanks wholly to Kevin, the signal going out over 89.3FM and wxyc.org was kept alive by a lovely Bing Crosby loop with a spoken word piece succinctly describing the Christmas season: "More is never enough." Unfortunately, the loop and spoken word lost the brunt of its considerable impact long before it ceased playing. The home listener was probably bored by 9:05pm, and given the concomitant, huge men's basketball game, most people had likely turned off their radios before the Feedback Farmers ever turned on their microphones.

At which point the fun really began.

The point of the show was supposed to be to talk about the insanity of the Christmas shopping season. Black Friday, people getting shot to get that last PS3, people camping all night to get into Best Buy, etc.

The show did cover these topics, it must be said. Cole set up the discussion, PJ took his cue and mentioned Black Friday so that Kevin could spin the Steely Dan song of the same name, and Robin told a touching anecdote about Christmas shopping with his family.

But all too often the Farmers got distracted and the discussion veered away from the evening's purported focus. As if we really care what your favorite Christmas cookie is or whether you believe in Santa Claus. O muddled inanity! Farmers, your disparaging British telephone caller may have it right when he says your show is nonsense. Please don't let him be right!

There were a few nice moments. The philosophizing caller who extrapolated from the ever-lengthening Christmas shopping season (decorations in stores before Halloween!) the day when we go shopping for next next Christmas was particularly memorable. Still, in the end, the show was one to be missed. In the future, hopefully the Farmers will stay on topic and keep their petty bickering off-mic.

That about sums up what you would have heard if you had listened live or if an archive of the show were available to download. And with that, hopefully you're all as excited as I am to tune in on December 13th at 9pm WXYC-time for the next fabulous episode of Feedback Farm!

(Seriously, though, see the blog post from November 15th "Oh, the Hypocrisy" for a sample of what the Feedback Farm can be.)