One of the reasons I moved to Williamsburg is the music scene, which sadly I haven't had enough time to take in of late. Anyway one of the things that got me out here is that one of my favorite acts - the Fall - played here a few times. They were suppose to return this February, but sadly it doesn't look like it's going to happen.
When I first moved into my apartment at 331 Keap Street I would keep getting mail for "Bishop Allen". It seemed obvious that this Bishop guy was too lame to contact the post office to forward his damn mail. I mean it's so easy, you go to a website and pay $1, anyone or their cat can do it. After a few weeks I started to wonder just who this Bishop Allen guy was, so I googled it - turns out to be an indie rock band (photo above). Anyway it seems they are getting some good press:
Bishop Allen
Daily News: The song also seems to discuss life as a struggling musician.
JUSTIN: Sometimes it's frustrating to know the life you've chosen makes it so you don’t really get to experience anything breathtaking. You can work on songs, you can write them and you can live in these vistas of your imagination. But you can think about that thing, but there are definitely moments where you’re like "I’m dirty and cold and looking at the same little room."
Ah yes the vistas of the imagination - it's been over a year and I'm still getting music catalogs and their unpaid Blockbuster Video bills stuffed in my mailbox. But I did manage to use the fan that they left behind...
By the way if you want to see Bishop Allen, here is their website...
just cuz yer in a band doesn't mean yer a god
grow some balls and join the human race. i don't give a shit about how much you claim to care about me. you are in love with yourself and are a total jackass.
just cuz you can play some instruments and get up at some dive bar in front of a crowd of 10 does not make you john fucking lennon. hell, you couldn't even be ringo starr. and remember: just cuz you have an audience doesn't mean they are listening to you. they are just at the wrong place at the wrong time.
and if you get some random girl to come home with you, don't make out with her til you get her in the sack cuz you are the worst kisser i've ever had. you bring new meaning to the phrase sucking face. and don't turn on the lights if yer naked cuz goddamn...you really need to shave, and i don't mean your face.
i am so glad we are no longer together. you are going to end up a bald, overweight, hairy, broke, miserable guy stuck on a dream that you'll never get. and by that point i'll have completly forgotten you.
Would you like that with some attitude sir?
I was just taking the J train home after a long day of work, and out of the corner of my eye I spotted this guy playing with this rather odd bit of technology. He had his headphone plugged in - but unlike most iPod folks he would keep playing with this somewhat oversized box. It wasn't unil we hit Marcy that he put his gear away when I spotted the make of this cool device:
It's called a Streetboxx SB-246 and it's a portable Hip-Hop beat generator of sorts. It comes stocked with a number of pre-done beats including old school and kangish.
The McCarren Pool concert series is well under way - in fact I just missed the Deerhoof show this weekend! What's funny is that I'm even seeing posters for it at the Lorimer L train stop too. The only thing I dislike about the series is that they charge - but not everthing in life (or Williamsburg) is free. But on the bright side there are a few shows that will be playing over the next few weekends:
Here's a video of of Montreal playing the pool on July 30th:
It looks like there's a new Scissor Sisters album on the way:
The new Scissor Sister's album hits stores next Tuesday. "The end result is, as ever, wildly eclectic, brilliant, life-affirming pop. The overall sound? Its fuller, says Del, and thicker. And Jake [who, with Babydaddy, forms the bands main songwriting axis] has gotten wordy as hell."
All across the land Tower Records is closing their doors. To me the Tower Records store in the village was one of the treasures of my youth, it seemed to be such a magical palace stocked with several floors of goodies. But to be honest I hadn't returned there in a few years except to buy gift certificates for others. However my last visit was sort of a recap with everything that was wrong with the store, and with the music business in a larger sense.
A few months ago I had a bad craving for George Harrison music. As any Beatles fan knows poor George passed away in 2001, and not only can't you find any Beatles music on iTunes but you can't even find any solo Beatles music on iTunes either! Faced with this gap and a hunger for Harrison I set off on a quest to Tower Records to find a "Best of..." CD collection.
Well going to Tower Records I was quite disappointed with what I found, or didn't find. There were only several Harrison solo records in stock, and of course they didn't put out a "Best of..." collection. Worse yet the CDs that I did find were getting into the $20 range. Harrison had a good song or two about every album, but to be fair there were quite a few weak tracks as well, so the idea of paying $20 for a song or two was very unappealing to me. What's worse is that I would have to spend $100 to get half a dozen decent tracks, which assumed that I knew which albums to get and that Tower might have had them in stock.
Well I left Tower Records empty handed that day with no George for my iPod, and Tower didn't have any George in their cash registers either. At that point I had started to wonder what the point of the store was and now I'm seeing via the ugly side of capitalism that the store no longer had a reason to exist. Part of it wasn't the fault of Tower Records, it's the music industry that doesn't quite get it. I had my credit card handy, would have spent perhaps $50 for a few songs, but the goods weren't there.
Related article:
Tower Records USA to be liquidated
punknews.org/article/20164
A "nerd meets hipster" event worth checking out:
Blip Festival 2006
Nov. 30 - Dec. 3
"THE TANK and 8BITPEOPLES are pleased to present the Blip Festival, a four-day celebration of over 30 international artists exploring the untapped potential of low-bit videogame consoles and home computers used as creative tools. Familiar devices are pushed in new directions with startling results -- Nintendo Entertainment Systems and Game Boys roaring with futuristic floor-stomping rhythm and fist-waving melody, art-damaged Sega hardware generating fluctuating and abstracted video patterns -- and that's only the beginning.
An exploration of the chiptune idiom and its close relatives, the Blip Festival is the biggest and most comprehensive event in the history of the form, and will include daily workshops, art installations, and nightly music performances boasting an international roster larger and more far-reaching than any previous event of its kind. Small sounds at large scales pushed to the limit at high volumes — the Blip Festival is an unprecedented event that is not to be missed."
This is a French music video from Vitalic, it has a pretty catchy electro beat (that and silly costumes will always get you a blog entry):
Here's some background info on Vitalic from Wikipedia:
"Vitalic is the main project of Pascal Arbez, born 1976. According to a joke made in an interview, Arbez is Ukrainian and emigrated from Ukraine to East Germany when the Berlin Wall fell, accompanied by his dog, "Mini Robot". Pascal was actually born in France and is of Italian descent."
This is an amazing video of Bo Diddley playing on japanese television, looking at his age and the style of costume my guess is that it was from the late 60s:
Performing Honeybear and Man:
You talk to anyone in the entertainment biz and they'll tell you that 'the record industy isn't doing well'. Everywhere companies are cutting back, and the blame seems to go back to 'the old Napster issue'. The more I think about about it, the problem with the recording industry is that they aren't making good music these days.
I'm always tempted to think that I'm long out of the demographic that buys music, but that isn't the case as I do spend quite a bit on my iTunes. However most of what I'm buying isn't coming from large labels. What's funny is that these large companies don't see the product itself as the problem. In fact they seem dead set to crush creativity where ever they see it. In the below New York Times story the Recording Industry of America went after a DJ for mix tapes. In the good old days inteading of arresting this guy, they would hire him (or even bribe him) to play their music:
With Arrest of DJ Drama, the Law Takes Aim at Mixtapes
"In the world of hip-hop few music executives have more influence than DJ Drama. His “Gangsta Grillz” compilations have helped define this decade’s Southern rap explosion. He has been instrumental in the careers of rappers like Young Jeezy and Lil Wayne. He appears on the cover of the March issue of the hip-hop magazine XXL, alongside his friend and business partner T.I., the top-selling rapper of 2006. Now DJ Drama is yet another symbol of the music industry’s turmoil and confusion.
On Tuesday night he was arrested with Don Cannon, a protégé. The police, working with the Recording Industry Association of America, raided his office, at 147 Walker Street in Atlanta. The association makes no distinction between counterfeit CDs and unlicensed compilations like those that DJ Drama is known for. So the police confiscated 81,000 discs, four vehicles, recording gear, and “other assets that are proceeds of a pattern of illegal activity,” said Chief Jeffrey C. Baker, from the Morrow, Ga., police department, which participated in the raid."
I don't quite like this song as much as "Smile" but this video isn't too bad:
My favorite non-techie podcast is doing some great work of late! Live from the WB is now featuring bands playing live music in each of their podcasts. The first episode in this format features Penny Winblood. This is a great way to sample some of the local music here in the Burg:
"Live From The WB, the premier podcast based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, has launched a live band performance and interview format. Once a month, traditional episodes will be replaced with 30-minute shows dedicated to a single band. Each show will feature new material, band interviews and the wacky antics, for which Live From the WB has become known. The premiere band episode features Penny Winblood, a hard rock drum and guitar duo based in Brooklyn. Future episodes include Repellent and Boctok. The band episodes are recorded and mixed at Translator Audio Studio in Dumbo, Brooklyn."
A promo film showing off disco genius Giorgio Moroder hard at work in the 70s.
Found via Toby Sprinks (man how I miss Live from the WB).
This Art of Noise music video is fun (mind you not as good as "Close to the Edge") but check out the VJ intro speech on working at the mall and dealing with yuppie businessmen of the era who may be security guards "“I don’t shoplift, I’m not a drug dealer and like I don’t have a gun”
A classic moment from a 1985 promotional spot for music video channel U68.
It's hard to believe this was from twenty years ago! A year later Nirvana would have their first minor single, but this sort of sound didn't break through until about 1991.
I think Amy should come to Williamsburg to cut the album:
Amy Winehouse mulling album of 'cool' Hanukkah hits, producer says
"Amy Winehouse could be the next British Jewish songstress to enter the mid-winter holiday spirit, with a collection of Hanukkah tunes. Winehouse's producer, Mark Ronson, told Rolling Stone magazine this week that the two had discussed an album of Hanukkah and Christmas songs.
"She was kind of f**king around, but I was like, 'You have all these amazing records to play for Christmas, like Motown and Carla Thomas and the Charlie Brown Christmas, and unfortunately, us Jews have nothing that cool to listen to. So we should do something," Ronson told the magazine."
Do the Lambrett Twist! The scientists are the Quartetto Cetra, an Italian act formed in 1940 that became big for doing spoofs of popular songs from the the 50s and 60s. Here's a cool album cover that I came across:
Found via zaeega.com.
Shown above is a cool illustrational video from the Netherlands which has something to do with this website.
Found via Jemibook.
This entire clip is so strange as it's hard to think of Nina on daytime talk TV — my best educated guess is that the clip dates from around 1986.
Found via mediafunhouse.
Imagine just getting an entire album for 87 cents? I love the groovy animated graphics on this vintage TV commercial from 1971.
While walking home one night I came across this amazing band poster — it's funny sometimes how the creative world mirrors reality. Not only the name of this band (Thinning of the Heard) reflects the nature of the economy, but I was also impressed how the lo-fi design complimented the name as well.
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