RICHARD PRYOR & THE SEMANTICS OF RACE

Watching "Dynamite Chicken" recently has resulted in a re-appreciation for the genius of Richard Pryor. Here's a clip from way back in the good ol' days, when SNL was still relevant, insightful and edgy...

RANDOM MUSINGS FROM A PICNIC TABLE ON PINE STREET

-- After a manic spree of music and movie purchases, I haven't bought a new album or DVD in weeks. I did rent Old Joy (which I loved) and I have been listening to a lot of out-of-print albums I've downloaded from the "Collected Animals" site. The next new album I will probably buy is the new White Stripes, which from the leaked tracks I've heard, I'm pretty excited for. Who knows, maybe I'll even buy it off of iTunes now that they've finally started selling DRM-free, 256kbps mp3s. But I doubt it.

-- So with the money I've been saving from not raiding PurePop every week, I've been investing instead on gadgets to make my own music. Here are some of my new toys--

FENDER TWIN REVERB RE-ISSUE


I've been dealing with a little Fender JAM amp for too long, so I sold some prized possessions on eBay & bought my first real amplifier. I bought it used so it's a little knicked up & missing the footpedal and one of the volume knobs, but it still sounds great.

ELECTRO-HARMONIX OCTAVE MULTIPLEXER


A fun little pedal that makes my twangy Fender Telecaster sound worthy of playing the slap bass theme song from "Seinfeld". Maybe this gadget is jazzy enough to get me back into the "The LeDuo (Septet)"....

GOOD NEWS & BAD NEWS


The good news: I've recently been introduced to Ethiopian music & I love it--incredibly funky and jazzy, with some really unique vocal styling. Here's one of my favorites from the wonderful "Ethiopiques" series:

"Temeles" from Ethiopiques Vol. 3

The bad news: I was planning to make one of my favorite connections (world music & cuisine) in this post by linking to my favorite Ethiopian restaurant, Messob D'Or on Monkland Avenue in Montreal. Unfortunately, while doing a Google search to find a link, I discovered that they filed for bankruptcy this month & have closed their doors. A good Ethiopian restaurant is hard to find in this part of the world, and Messob D'Or was one of the best; what a shame.

46 DAYS, 9 HOURS, 26 MINUTES & 33 SECONDS


So my iTunes music collection has finally reached the point where I couldn't fit the entire library into even the biggest iPod (I'm at 80.61 GB). Apparently Toshiba is working on that problem for me, according to the rumor mill...

(By the way, the title of this post is how long it wouldn't take me to listen to every one of the 14,493 songs in my iTunes library. I think it's either time to take a couple months off of work or clean out my mp3 collection. The latter is a bit more likely)

LOU REED & BRIGHT EYES


The crusty ol' curmudgeon himself, Lou Reed, made a surprise guest appearance last night at the Bright Eyes show in NYC. Bright Eyes? C'mon Lou; this is almost as bad as Robert Smith playing with Korn.

Apparently Connor Oberst must have promised to throw a few of Lou's tai-chi videos on the Bright Eyes merch table during his tour...I can't think of another explanation.

As always, here's the obligatory poor-quality cell phone video evidence--

PITCHFORK MUSIC FESTIVAL - FINAL LINEUP


As I've already mentioned on this blog a few times, Jaime-Lynn & I will be headed to Chicago in July to attend the Pitchfork Music Festival. The lineup for the fest was finalized today, with a few last-minute artist additions, in bold below:

Friday, July 13:

Sonic Youth perform Daydream Nation
GZA/Genius performs Liquid Swords
Slint perform Spiderland

Saturday, July 14:

Yoko Ono
Cat Power and Dirty Delta Blues (w/ members of Dirty Three, the Delta 72, and Blues Explosion)
Clipse
Mastodon
Iron and Wine
Battles
Grizzly Bear
Voxtrot
Califone
The Twilight Sad
Girl Talk
Dan Deacon
Oxford Collapse
Professor Murder
Fujiya & Miyagi
Beach House
William Parker Quartet
Ken Vandermark's Powerhouse Sound

Sunday, July 15:

De La Soul
The New Pornographers
Of Montreal
Stephen Malkmus
Jamie Lidell
The Sea and Cake
Junior Boys
Menomena
The Ponys
Deerhunter
Klaxons
The Field
Cadence Weapon
The Cool Kids
Craig Taborn's Junk Magic
Nomo
Brightblack Morning Light
Fred Lonberg-Holm's Lightbox Orchestra

RAHSAAN ROLAND KIRK - "PEDAL UP"


Insane...

CLICK HERE

"NEVER TOO LATE: THE PANTS LIVE AT HIGHER GROUND" - COMING SOON TO A THEATER (OR MUSIC VENUE) NEAR YOU!

Just received this press release today from Bill Simmon--


The Pants Live!

Candleboy films will premiere a sneak preview of the upcoming concert film, Never Too Late: The Pants Live at Higher Ground, this Sunday, May 27, 2007. The preview will be available online at candleboy.com/thepants.

Disbanded in 1999, The Pants zipped-up for a one-time reunion concert at Higher Ground last summer as part of Seven Days'10th anniversary celebrations. Unwilling to let the band rest in peace, Candleboy Films is releasing a DVD commemorating the concert and will unveil a sneak preview on their website on the one-year anniversary of the show.

The preview movie will be available in both an iPod-ready stereo format and as a Quicktime movie with surround sound. A lower-resolution YouTube version will also be available.

For information, contact:
Jeff Lawson
jlaw5@mac.com
(802) 238-6420

OAK @ LANGDON STREET CAFE, MONTPELIER 5.23.07


Tanner, JB, Jenny & I took a nice road trip to our state's capitol earlier this evening to see Oak perform a show at the Langdon Street Cafe. It was my second Oak show and my first trip to the Cafe, and I was quite impressed by both.

I guess I should clarify by saying that it was a performance by "2/3 Oak" because it was only Toby and Sara-Paule tonight, but they did a fine job of making up the difference. Toby filled in with some extra effort on the MicroKorg & Sara-Paule played some amazing EWI (Electronic Wind Instrument--don't feel bad; I didn't know what it was either until tonight.)

Despite a couple of minor glitches, the show went really well. I actually preferred it to the CD release party show (which had a full Oak and a much larger crowd) in some ways, mostly because it seemed more casual and open to improvisation. The CD release show seemed a bit more self-conscious to me in the attempt to make every note perfect (understandable, considering there were some high expectations from the crowd that night). Tonight just convinced me that not only can this group write and accurately perform intricate songs, they can also adapt, experiment and develop. It makes me very excited to hear what the sophomore album will sound like....

(sorry for the lack of photos--I forgot my digital camera & was too engrossed in a riveting game of scrabble to break out the cell phone cam)

THE TUESDAY RUNDOWN...


For those of you who have not visited The Le Duo blog lately, JB has been recently quite obsessed with the free-jazz and has been posting like a madman--obscure album downloads, YouTube videos, a great interview with John Coltrane, etc. As a man who has the occasional music obsessions myself (lately it's been the Rolling Stones, following an Animal Collective period), I appreciate the importance of becoming completely immersed in a sound. And in July, JB & I will get to immerse ourselves in the free-jazz live when we go see Han Bennink in Montreal!

In other local blog news....In case you've been living under a rock and haven't heard already, the venerable Casey Rea (yes, I'm implying that you're old Casey) is leaving his post as the voice of Vermont music at Seven Days and is pursuing the not-so-greener pastures of our nation's capital, Washington D.C. Let's wish Casey & his new bride Brooke the best of luck! And knowing Casey, I'm sure his eloquence and charm will land him a job as a U.S. Senator in no time...lord help us all :)

Oh, and speaking of Casey, he'll always be with us in blog form: check out his new blog "The Contrarian"

Here are a couple of my favorite YouTube videos of the day:

Here's a pre-smack Pete Doherty being a witty little smart ass on MTV, making fun of Oasis when it was cool to make fun of Oasis (i.e. before everyone knew that they sucked):



And here's Lady Sovereign having yet another temper tantrum and walking out in the middle of a show...I think this hack white lady rapper's career is pretty well over at this point.



"Hope Is Emo" = ROFL



Oh, and in closing--the reason why there hasn't been any trivia this month is because....well, I'm flat broke! My apologies to last month's winners who still haven't received their prizes yet, but I assure you they will be shipping out this weekend.

Take care everyone & enjoy the fairly decent weather out there!

NICE SOUNDS TO MAKE YOUR EARS HAPPY


You've gotta hand it to Animal Collective fanboys--they have great taste in music, and it turns out they're generous as well. Check out this wonderful album share that they set up on the Collected Animals forum--

COLLECTED ANIMALS ALBUM SHARE

I'm sipping some spearmint tea & listening to the blissfully noisy Les Rallize Denudes album right now...a great way to spend a lazy sunday afternoon.

CAN - TAGO MAGO


I picked up the remastered version of this album a couple of weeks ago and finally got around to listening to it tonight. I forgot how amazing Can is, especially on this album, and how incredibly ahead of their time they were.

If you've never listened to Can, pick up Tago Mago & Ege Bamyasi. Now. Go do it.

Can - Halleluwah (224 kbps/31MB Buy "Tago Mago"

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE - "STRAWBERRY JAM" IN SEPTEMBER


Well, the new Animal Collective album title and tracklisting are official. It appears that the album will be titled "Strawberry Jam" and the album tracks are as follows:

01 Peacebone
02 Unsolved Mysteries
03 Chores
04 For Reverend Green
05 Fireworks
06 #1
07 Winter Wonder Land
08 Cuckoo Cuckoo
09 Derek

Although I'm sure it's just a matter of time before the album leaks, if you want a preview of some of these songs, you can download this live show on Archive.org.

802 RAP

Mad props for the Green Mountain State...

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE - CUCKOO

New song by Animal Collective, rumored to be on the new album.

LOW OPENING FOR WILCO'S SHELBURNE SHOW


Why didn't anyone tell me that Low is opening for Wilco's June 29th show at Shelburne Farms? I might have to get tickets now....

"NAUGHTY, NAUGHTY BACON BITS!"


"Todd, your khram has more fuzz than my back pussy...niiiiiiiice!"

ARTHUR MAGAZINE IS BACK!


Via Pitchfork:

Just a few months after a tragic retirement from newsstands, it seems Arthur magazine is getting primed for a triumphant return. As reported in Los Angeles weekly CityBeat, editor and co-founder Jay Babcock (as Arthur Publishing Company) recently bought out publisher Laris Kreslins' 50% share in the bi-monthly rag, which Babcock has designs on resurrecting.

"I have now gained 100 percent control of Arthur," Babcock told CityBeat, "and I intend to resume publishing the magazine as soon as all the financing is in order."

To secure funds for the buy-out, Babcock turned to those he knew best. "When I reached out, it was to a close circle of family and...longtime friends," he told CityBeat, adding, "We probably will do a benefit or two or auction off one-of-a-kind items to help me pay back all the people who loaned me money."

Since establishing the periodical in 2002, the folks behind Arthur have published 25 issues devoted to music, art, and cultural and political criticism, and distributed them free of charge. The 26th issue, in process at the time of Arthur's premature demise in February 2007, will not see print, most of its content having already appeared in other publications or on the Arthur website.

Babcock hasn't forecasted precisely when Arthur will return to the press. "It's not time yet," he told CityBeat. "All the ducks are getting in order, and then we'll go for a swim."

It's also not clear at this time what this means for Arthur-sponsored festivals, nor the Arthur-spawned imprint Bastet.

Kreslins, meanwhile, confirmed the business transaction in a recent e-mail to Pitchfork. He also sought to clear up some of the confusion regarding his break with Arthur: "There's no 'one' version of what happened...There's a full scope and it's complicated and emotional. I had been openly planning my departure from the magazine for a long time and marked issue 25 as my last issue as publisher more than a year before it went to print," he wrote, adding, "I really am looking forward to the next issue of Arthur."

Kreslins will continue work "developing a concept for a Philadelphia-centric magazine and focusing my attention on projects I have going on locally." What's more, "I just found a litter of kittens who don't have a momma, so that's taking up a chunk of time, too."

TWO MINUTES TO POST....

* Last night's Racc-oo-oon/Pink Bacon show was rocktastic. As I told Tanner at the show, I'm pretty sure Pink Bacon has completely reinvented country-western music as we know it.

* It's a beautiful day--get outside!

THE LOST HIGHWAYMEN - "DEAD FLOWERS"

Amazing performance of one of my favorite songs. It almost makes me respect Ryan Adams. Almost.

RACCOO-OO-OON/EVAN MILLER/PINK BACON @ KRIYA SUNDAY


Here's another excuse for you heartless bastards to ditch your poor mothers on their special day--a great show at the wonderful Kriya Studio!

Here's the press release--

hi friends,
great mother's day show coming up this sunday at kriya studio.

raccoo-oo-oon
evan miller
pink bacon

sunday, may 13th, 2007
kriya studio
333 n. winooski
burlington VT

8pm
$7

raccoo-oo-oon is a free rock / freaky psych band from iowa city. in
the vein of the animal collective. they have a bunch of releases out.
http://www.raccoo-oo-oon.org
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyWcRrOoskk
http://www.raccoo-oo-oon.org/music2.html

evan miller is touring with raccoo-oo-oon and he'll be playing a set
of acoustic guitar tunes. Evan Miller is an Iowa City 6-string slinger
who grew up in dusty Oklahoma. Over the last couple years he has
devoted himself to the craft of his instrument, honing his songwriting
and perfecting his playing. He's studied the greats and shows it on
this release, with a nod and an ode to the late great John Fahey. Evan
toils in the dirt of rural Americana and blues, but keeps his sound
fresh and original at the surface.

pink bacon is a local burlington band (ben, todd and brian).
they do dada dub-noise freak outs. last time i saw them,
there was bacon all over the stage and todd was eating ganja apple pie
during the set.

see also casey's nice write-up in this weeks seven days:
http://www.sevendaysvt.com/music.html

hope to see you all there.
spread the word!

Ditto.

THE AMPERSAND (&) - THE CIRCUITRY OF NON-SPATIALITY


A nice droney, buzzy little 30 minute experiment by the late Edward Kurland.


the ampersand - the circuitry of non-spatiality (31MB)

EVERYBODY MUST GET...MEDICATED


A really interesting article from Pitchfork (yeah, I know, sounds strange to say that...) about how the chemical muse for popular musicians has recently shifted from street drugs to odes about pharmaceuticals.

READ "PLEASE MR. PHARMACIST @ PITCHFORK.COM

HAPPY SUNDAY EVERYONE

Hope you all partied like a rock star this weekend...

JAY STEALS GREG'S IDEA & LISTS HIS FAVORITE ALBUMS OF THE WEEK

Leonard Cohen, "Songs of Leonard Cohen"; "Songs of Love & Hate" (remastered)
Can, "Tago Mago" (remastered)
Sly & The Family Stone, "Stand", "There's A Riot Going On" (remastered)
The Rolling Stones, "Get Your Ya-Ya's Out" (remastered)

(2007 is really the year of the "remastered" album, isn't it? A clever idea to get CD sales back up...and it's working)

Yoko Ono, "Season of Glass"
Oak, "EP 1 & 2"
Uncle Woody Sullender & Kevin Davis, "The Tempest Is Over"
Ravi Shankar, "Live at Monterey"
The Besnard Lakes, "The Besnard Lakes Are the Dark Horse"
Bjork, "Volta" (shhhhhhh......)

PETER ROSE FILMS ON UBUWEB



I was first introduced to Peter Rose's films via my film professor Simon Tarr. He's a very unique experimental filmmaker in that he is often more interested in content (usually linguistic ruminations) than form, but still manages to blend the two to make for a uniquely cinematic work of art. And they're also funny as hell, especially "The Pressures of the Text".

He's not for everyone, but if you're interested in language and film, check it out:

PETER ROSE FILMS

Also, check out Rose's website here

LOOK AT MY STRIPED SHIRT!


Look at my button down striped shirt! Fucking look at it! This shirt means one thing! I'm coming home with some pussy tonight! That's right! It's been a long week at the office and it's time to blow off a little steam! I am a Junior Vice President! I have business cards that say "Junior Vice President" on them! They're glossy and magnificent! Here! Have one! Take it!

My boys are coming out with me tonight! They all have striped shirts too!

I figure we'll kick off the night with some Golden Tee! I am going to smack the shit out of that little white ball! It's going to be so fucking loud! I'll bet I can drive that pretend golf ball 600 fucking yards tonight! I'm that fucking pumped!

I can almost taste those Jager Bombs right now! I fucking love Red Bull! I put it on my God damned cereal! I'm crushing one right now!

I'm thinking about buying a boat this year!

I'm gonna fight someone tonight! I pray to God someone makes eye contact with me! I will beat his ass! And God help him if he gets any blood on my striped shirt! If he does, I'll scrub it out with his dick and some bleach! I mean it!

I'm gonna grind on girls asses tonight! You heard me! When I see a group of girls dancing in a circle, I will select the most attractive one and dry hump her until it hurts! I will rub my cock against her so that she can feel my throbbing hard on!

I will valet tonight!

I will treat the valet with contempt and make sure that he knows that I am superior to him in life! I will tell him to "Take it easy on the brakes, Champ"!

I will talk to people I don't know about my job tonight! They will all know that I am an important man! I will call female bartenders "Babe" and male bartenders "Chief"!

When I do not hook up with a girl at that club, I will say that the place is "full of skanks"! We will wait in a long line to go to another bar only to strike out again!

I will give up and decide to order a gyro off of a street vendor! I will make fun of him to my friends for being foreign! I will look ridiculous purchasing my gyro because people will be able to tell by my striped shirt and tinted sunglasses that I struck out and am settling for a gyro!

I will make one last attempt to hook up by trying to coax two big girls who are also ordering gyros to coming back to my place for "after hours"! When they say no I will make fun of them for being fat! I will leave!

When I get home I will go to the bathroom and hold the straight razor to my wrist again! I will gently drag the razor laterally against my vein, making sure not to actually cut myself!

I will then go to my room and pass out! I will need some shut eye so that I'll be ready to fucking party again tomorrow!

From the book Look At My Striped Shirt! Confessions of the People You Love To Hate

A COMMUNIQUE FROM THE OTHER SIDE...

Sorry for the lack of updates lately; not having access to Blogger at work has severely limited my capability to ramble on endless about a bunch of stuff that you may or may not be interested in. Despite this, know that I still love each and every one of you. In a non-sexual way. For the most part.

I was planning on having a review up about the Oak show by now, but it's just been a really hectic week, so I'll probably get to it tonight or tomorrow. In the meantime, here's a nice picture I snapped on my cell phone of the band warming up--


All right, time to leave the coffee shop & get back to work...have a good weekend everyone!

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

APRIL TRIVIA WINNERS!!!--


We had quite a nice showing for the final installment of this month's trivia challenge; here are the answers:

1) 8 1/2
2) Federico Fellini
3) La Dolce Vita, Amarcord, La Strada, Juliet of the Spirits, etc.
BONUS:"Stardust Memories"

And here are the winners:

TOM - 15pts. + 5pts. bonus + 5pts. for first correct entry
GREG - 15pts. + 5pts. bonus
JB - 15pts. + 5pts. bonus
CASEY - 15pts. + 5pts. bonus
MOLLY - 15pts. + 5pts. bonus

Adding those to the rest of this month's tally, we have the following winners:

1st Place: TOM - 95 pts. (PRIZE: $20 PurePop gift certificate)
2nd Place: GREG - 85 pts. (PRIZE: $10 PurePop gift certificate)
3rd Place: CASEY = 60 pts. (PRIZE: My undying love & respect)

Congrats to our winners & good luck next month!

RAVI HENDRIX

After doing some Google searches to find what the name of the strange organ that Jack White uses on the new White Stripes album, I went off on a tangent & started to just search for random weird instruments.

I quickly found a wonderful site called Oddmusic.com and stumbled upon their wonderful photo gallery of freak instruments. Some were pretty standard, such as the theremin and dulcimer, but a few were just completely out there.

I think my personal favorite is the "e-sitar", which is a 17-string sitar neck on an electric guitar body--



Kick....ass.