Video number three in the countdown to Zombie Rave 3, which I can only assume is going to go live for download on Saturday July 3rd. I gotta say that this dragged remix of Tiffany’s “I Think Were Alone Now” joins ℑ⊇≥◊≤⊆ℜ’s rendition of “Send Me an Angel” as one for the ages.. well the dark and disturbed ages.
As always the visuals are handled by Cosmotropia de Xam using footage from 1993′s Doppelganger. Mmmmm 90s Drew Barrymore. I’ve never actually seen the movie though, all I know is that it’s Drew Barrymore’s “Hey I’m all grown up now and sexy” breakthrough role. Is it worth watching though?
God how I love this band, let me count the ways? One: they’re named after Philip K. Dick’s schizophrenic sci-fi odyssey which happens to be one of my favorite books. Two: Tom of Finland, Sly Stallone and Kurt Russel images all over their Myspace? Um fuck yeah? And three: Their sound… sweet sweet EBM, how I love thee.
Hailing from Chicago, which seems to be undergoing a sort of “Wax Trax” dance reassurance, Valis bring the pulsating thump and the funk to the dance floor that I just can’t ever get enough of. I wish I could give you more info on who is behind the band, but I unfortunately don’t have that information. Judging from the vocals they’re at least a guy/girl combo hell bent on whipping the club into submission.
Valis have 4 tracks for download on Soundcloud, each amazing and better than the last. I can’t help but think that as we head closer to the Armageddon we’ll know more and more about this great band. I just hope they keep leaking new tracks in the meantime. Valis if you’re reading, don’t stop making new tracks, ever!
I’m pretty sure I love everything about this: the discovery of a giant prehistoric sea-mammal. Naming it after Herman Melville, the author of Moby Dick. And of course, the fact that it was likely to perpetrate some serious fluke-on-fluke crime. Sort of like the Suge Knight of prehistoric whales.
That’s all, folks. After two perfect seasons, Party Down has been given the axe by Starz. Not really a surprise, but shitty news nonetheless.
“After careful consideration, we’ve decided not to continue on with subsequent seasons of Party Down and Gravity,” says Stephan Shelanski, executive vice president of programming for Starz Entertainment. “We’re grateful to everyone involved in the shows, and are proud to have had them on the channel. Starz remains committed to aggressively expanding our original programming lineup.” via Mo Ryan of the Chicago Tribune
Shortly after the official word was given by the evil bastards who run Starz, show creator Rob Thomas spoke with TV critic Alan Sepinwall:
“No one on our side is particularly shocked by the news,” Thomas said. “Frankly, the waiting has been excruciating, and there’s a certain amount of relief in knowing and being able to move on.”
Good thing the season finale works well as a series finale too. I’m going to slowly get drunk tonight and blast the latest Jackal Onassis.
If you’ve been a fan of Belgian metal for any period of time, chances are you’ve heard of Aborted. They’ve been around for over a decade and in that time, have produced some of the best work in the genre. In fact, Engineering The Dead and Goremageddon still remain, to this day, some of the most influential work to come out of the Belgian metal scene. That’s not an easy task either and once again, Aborted delivers a taste of the flesh with Coronary Reconstruction. It’s got all the tinge of a wretchedly-twisted grindcore EP and even an Entombed cover.
Coronary Reconstruction is 20-minutes of intensity; 5 tracks of balls-out death metal-influenced grindcore. “Coronary Reconstruction”, the title track doesn’t beat around the bush. From the get-go, its intent is clear, fuck everything and chop the rest to pieces with a chainsaw. Once “From A Tepid Whiff” comes around, we’re given a nice and heavy break from the onslaught. One thing to note, the stench-filled sound clip at the end just so happens to be from Dumb and Dumber oddly enough. Hey, at least they’ve got a sense of humor. “Grime” is a mind-fuckingly brutal track, filled with overpowering blast beats and snearing vocals interwoven with the classic death growls and breaks. It ends unexpectidly with super-precise riffs and a bit of melody. Yes, really. Moments like this show the differentiating and defining talents of Aborted.
In fact, the entire EP is filled with those moments. For 20-minutes, we’re shown how Aborted are rising above the rest one bone saw at a time. “A Cadaverous Dissertation” is the last track before the aforementioned Entombed cover. With an almost goofy black metal intro, it starts with a wallop to the gut. In what’s easily the best Entombed cover ever, Aborted takes a stab at “Left Hand Path”. Now if you’ve been into Entombed for any length of time, you’ll greatly appreciate this one. It’s easy for bands to get swept up in the grindcore aspect of death metal but Aborted have proved that with a little bit of variation, even a 20-minute EP can deliver to the most die-hard fans.
This 4th we’re bringing you Red, White, and Brews, this summer’s maddest day time rager. America, f#$@ yeah! As our 4th of July function approaches, I’ll be profiling each of the performing bands, rappers, and DJs, telling you what’s up with each of these awesome acts in several parts.
So we’re super stoked to announce that Ninjasonik has been added to the party. We weren’t sure f these guys could actually perform due to prior obligations but they came through and well now it’s A FUCKIN’ PARTY! I mean seriously, y’all know we couldn’t have a party with Ninjasonik!.
These dudes have been long time supporters of the brand and we’ve been longtime supporters of theirs and man can they ever turn out a party!
Their punk brand of hip hop brings the energy of hardcore into a hip hop setting, ensuring crazy shows every time. Seriously, these dudes tear shit up! ‘Nuff said. They’ll also be playing both HARD Summer Festivals, home boys are blown’ up!
It’s also our personal goal that at least three ladies get pregnant during their set. Please help us, help you make it happen.
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Next, we’re bringing you our boys, The Death Set. These dudes formed in Sydney, Australia in 2005, but soon after moved to the good ol’ U.S. of A., residing in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and now Brooklyn.
Since 2005 The Death Set has released loads of EPs, singles, and even a few remixes. In 2008 they released their first full length, Worldwide and have been creating a raucous with their incredible live sets ever since.
The Death Set brings some new and distinctive sounds to the table, melding together punk, electro, and hip-hop. The trio’s live shows are unlike anything else; they bring more raw energy to the table than Skerrit Bwoy. The Death Set will fucking barf on you.
Roofeo, their drummer, will also be on the ones and twos, dropping all the hot summer jams. You can expect tunes ranging from hip-hop to electro, in eclectic The Death Set fashion. Be sure to download his Call It What You Want mix!
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2-stepper Kastle (side project of B. Rich) will also be in house, or rather the beach rather, bringing sounds of UK grime and dubstep to your ears.. and trust us you’ll be thankful!
Despite only being a member of MySpace since 4/4/09, Kastle has already received praise from other bass-heads such as Starkey and Flinch.
Having remixed artists such as Sade and Cassie, Kastle puts his dark and grimy touch on some pop favorites. He doesn’t play out as Kastle all that often, so catch him live while you can!
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Yes, yes another big addition! Tittsworth will be on the beach as well! Hailing from our country’s capital, Tittsworth can be found all over the world, smashing it from Asia to Australia. Titts has shared the stage with modern day legends such as A-Trak, Jackbeats, and DJ Mehdi. This dude is big!
Tittsworth’s tunes are staples in today’s DJ sets. His production receives endless praise from URB, XLR8r, NME, and The Fader. Don’t miss out on this dude! Stay tuned tomorrow for more artist profile and even another major addition the line-up that we’re pleased to finally share with you all!
“A love song in sixteen parts—an exhilarating ode to reading and writing—by Pulitzer prize-wining author Michael Chabon, ‘the premiere prose stylist…of his generation’ (TIME).”
You know me well enough by now: this suckered me in. It might as well have been an email—.exe attached—that promised nude photos of Anna Kournikova (kournicopious. adj. – Blonde. Buxom. Bountiful but belaboring. “Backlogging this bevy of baskets of beautiful Barbies is becoming kournicopious.”). The cover hit all of my criteria, so when I stumbled across Michael Chabon’s Maps & Legends: Reading and Writing Along the Borderlands, I was really powerless to resist it.
I’ll pause a moment and say the following, though. I realize that I have skewed this ‘column’ very very strongly toward the critical-thinking/short-story or essay/pop-culturalist section of the book store. I haven’t even really been shy about focusing on the same authors time and time again. If you are interested in books, and you are interested in reading about books on the Bloglin, and you are really hating this trend, it is absolutely OK to say so in the comments thread. I mean, be gentle or something, but if you’d rather see more of something vs. another thing, that’s cool to say. I can’t really promise that I’m gonna get into much hard-boiled romance or freakonomics or anything like that, but, well, your feedback is welcome. I geek out on this sort of shit, and I figure you’d rather hear about this than WWII or Abraham Lincoln. Both of which are subjects I spend a lot of time reading about.
So yeah. Michael Chabon. I’ve recommended one of his books here before, and of course, this is not the first collection of short, breaking-the-fourth-wall essays I’ve talked about, and it won’t be the last.
All that aside, the main thing that attracted me about this book was it’s promise to be ABOUT reading and writing. Read this book that I wrote about reading and writing. Meta as fuck. It is, without fail, exactly what it says it is.
This book has several book reviews/essays of it’s own: Chabon gives us his thoughts on Chaykin’s American Flagg!, Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (Now a Major Motion Picture!). He also spends some time—tongue-in-cheek, but not entirely without sympathy—looking at and dissecting the cult of Sherlockians who make a habit of love-hating the work of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
More than anything else, however, Chabon spends a ton of time waxing philosophical on the idea of golems—both literal and figurative—and making the connection between the relationship between a rabbi and his golem and a a writer and his writing. Or a liar and his lying. Or a religion and it’s gods. It’s really—really—fascinating stuff.
And it occurs to me why I’m so transfixed by this guy’s style: he has this innate ability to keep his cultural background at the forefront of whatever he’s writing. He’s not heavy-handed with it, and yet it is almost a given that Jews and Jewishness are a top-tier theme in any given piece (I’m sure there are exceptions, but I am spouting. Let me spout). And it both makes me happy and sad:
Happy because there are guys like him out there really trying to mix and remix and share and re-share how he feels about the really complicated, really painful, and really weird things he’s feeling. He is honest-to-goodness creating his own strain of the culture he knows and grew up with. And I think that’s totally awesome. This particular book focuses on books he’s read and writers he’s experienced to that end.
Sad because when I try to apply that same idea of critical thinking and thought experimentation to my own situation, I kind of come up with a big goose egg. What IS the modern American cultural experience? Really. Is it lolcats and dick jokes? Is it Yes We Can and Change Into a Truck? I’m at a loss to—without invoking God, Liberty, or Patriotism—to answer that question. I don’t even think I could do it without the condition.
In one of the essays—Imaginary Homelands—Chabon recounts a tale wherein he unwittingly enrages the users of an online community whose purpose is to protect and enrich the Yiddish-speaking aspects of Jewry. Obviously, there is much more to the story, but just the idea that folks were online somewhere, talking, messaging, and posting about the trials and travails of their cause—their culture—made me realize that this—The Bloglin—is the closest thing a guy like me has to that. They feel passionately about protecting a language that without them will go the way of sanskrit, and I feel passionately about madballs and Jack Burton.
This Friday is Ryan Keely’s (Ms. May from the 2010 Мишка calendar) birthday party! But it’s not just a regular old birthday party, It’s going to be a costume party! So toga, fairy, faun or Grecian god costume are a must to enter, and believe me you’ll want to be there.
Ryan hasn’t had a birthday party in a long time so this is going to be big. You know you want to join. By the way, you can reserve a table for the event in advance by calling 212-725-3860. head after the break for some photos of Ryan getting, shall we say “un-costumed.”
Friday July 2nd, 10pm
La Pomme
37 West 26th St
New York, NY
In this fly-or-die world, your best hope is to stay airborne at all times. Plus it keeps your sneakers looking fresh too! I know there are some sneaker heads reading the Bloglin so recognize!
Music: Dropa “Dusty City Organ” from Mozart Park All-Stars
If Veronica Vasicka is leading the minimal synth sound from the labelhead (and sometimes DJ) side, then Montreal’s Xavier Paradis might just be her live music counterpart. A long-time music veteran, Paradis previously recorded under the name Arnaud Lazlaud and re-emerged under the moniker Automelodi last year to release the chilling Fair ses Courses EP. Paradis now follows up with a self-titled, full-length album that balances icy and contagious.
Paradis’ beats draw equal influence from coldwave and classic Italo disco, a mixture of influences that produces an album existing in its own foreboding little dancefloor. The minimal, low-toned electronics of opener “Schéma Corporel” avoid heavy-handedness, accented by the bright clang and pulse of classic-influenced, modern disco notes (see: Classixx). “Rayons De Rien” references the New Romantics, but paired with the vivid synth swells is an assaultive percussion line that sounds like someone beating a piece of sheet metal with a rubber mallet.
Paradis sings in French across the majority of the album, and after acclimating yourself to this, it becomes another chapter in the allure of his sound. His words waver slightly, then take off, lush with romanticism and spectacle. He successfully bridges an expanse of vocal moods from bright and upbeat (“Buanderie Jazz”) to tense (“Stylo-Bille”) to high drama (“Airline”). His voice often seems just put of arm’s reach, adding an air of mystery that drags you closer.
Paradis creates sounds that are culled from historically significant electronic music movements, and with Automelodi he balances the danceability of disco with the mystery of coldwave all filtered through the romanticism of his own voice.
