Oh dog, oh deer.

I fucking love the radio. Not like online radio but car radio as in here I am in a car driving listening to sounds that someone else put on they're called a DJ disc jockey and they spin the tunes. I heard this song and it is ahhhhmazing. It touches me in a weird way, like a great inspiring way that not everyone and everything blows monkey chunks.

Eric Berglund goes by ceo and is formerly half of the Swedish electronic duo, The Tough Alliance. He released his first album last year called White Magic. The entire album is worth a listen but the song "Oh God, Oh Dear" just hits me like a book in the face. A hardcover. The only trouble is it's so short you may want to put it on repeat, which the neighbors might not like.

Get The Funk Outta' Bed!

Working late sucks. Don't try to shrug it off like "I'm a night owl." You're not a night owl, you're human being, and humans need a regular sleep pattern to keep them from hallucinating, dying or even worse, blogging. Personally, I'm coming off of a 5 night stint working as a de facto security gaurd. Since security gaurds are the WORST type of human being, this deserves an explanation.

Last week, my hometown of Williamsport, PA was badly flooded. Living in a relatively mountainous region, it's not good when your exit ramp is looking like a really good surfing break. The company I work for lost power, and once that was restored, the security system was out of commission. So I was recruited (read: forced) to be the guy to stay up from 6pm to 6am, walking around with a flashlight (read: watching movies and rummaging through other people's desks).

After 5 days of not being able to recall the day of the week, I'm finally being thrown back into the pool of 9-5ers (read: 7-3:30ers). The problem is, my circadian rhythm is fucked. So here I am at 5am wide awake, with nothing to do but drink more coffee and, WAIT, WHAT THE FUCK!?!...

Toro Y Moi just dropped a new EP?

As a Luddite-turned-blogger I'm still a bit skeptical of how quickly the internet has sped up our world. What ever happened to the good old-fashioned album-every-year-or-two music world that I fell in love with? Now artists are famous before (if ever) even realeasing a full length.

Or maybe I'm just romanticizing something that never actually existed. Regardless, these days music is being released at a pace that's hard to keep up with, which, while challenging, is very exciting. Just a few weeks ago I posted about Chaz Bundick's latest full-length under the Toro Y Moi moniker, released earlier this year. But yesterday this little nugget of electro-funk-whatever-you-want-to-call-it came out, and I'm digging it.

If Underneath The Pine was a turn in the direction of more traditional instrumentation, Freaking Out is a return to dancey, shake your ass form. It's reminiscent of 80's hip hop and funk, and if you ain't down with that, you ain't down with fun. Now, speaking of fun, I've gotta get to work.

From H to h.

True story. So about a year ago I quit drinking/using drugs. Did I do it on my own? FUCK NO! Addiction is some serious shit, and if you can kick a habit all by yourself, hats off to you. Not many people succeed. So, like of alot people who've tried every possibly way of getting sober unsuccessfully, I checked myself into rehab. What was it like, you ask? It was really, really boring, and consisted of alot of heroin addicts farting and shitting their brains out after eating their first solid meal after years of, well, doing heroin. I also learned about a TON of drugs I'd never heard of before. Did you know there's a whole subculture of alcoholics who drink nothing but vanilla extract? Neither did I. But I digress...

One of the things you find upon getting sober is that you suddenly have alot of free time on your hands that you used to spend either at the bar or hanging out with your annoying transvestite Mexican coke dealer. (Yuck.) You begin looking for healthier means of expression that still fuck you up on some kind of existential level, but don't inevitably kill you. In my case, instead of cramming stuff up my nose, down my throat, or into my veins, I found myself cramming the past 50 years of modern music into my ears.

In a way, you could say that I've started treating music as a drug. It's consumed most of my free time, mental space, and amazingly, in the age of free downloads, money. And like all drugs, everyone has their own personal preference.

In my case, I've found that I like heavy, slow, somewhat downtempo music; music that sounds like it was dredged from the bottom of a stagnant pond filled with warm acid and left to crystalize under the summer sun. Now the word heavy can be misleading. Heavy does not necessarily mean metal. Heavy isn't just a sound. It's an implication. I'll go out on a limb and say that Coast To Coast by Elliott Smith is heavier than anything Slayer ever recorded, because the heaviness I'm talking about isn't what's hitting your ears, it's what you're feeling once you've internalized the song as a whole. I guess you could say that I'm trying to describe heavy with a lower-case H. I'm talking about an abstract feeling, not a theatrical genre of guys in tights and face paint.

That being said, there are some amazing bands out there that, with a little searching, can be found to fit this (wait for it...) heaviness that I'm looking for to replace drugs. Since this is a blog and not a memoir on sobriety, I'll share just two of them with you for now.

First, there's Low. These guys have been around for the past 20 years, the past several of which they've spent with Sub Pop. These guys rock, in a slow, quiet, delicate-yet-heavy-in-their-own-right kind of way. They're one of the first bands to discover that when a crowd is getting loud, turning DOWN the volume will (amazingly) shut people up. This doesn't make them whisper-y pussies, though. In fact, their sound is rock solid. Where alot of bands have trouble tying their arrangements together, Low keeps things very, very tight. When people are talking about Slowcore music, they're inadvertantly paying homage to Low.

This one is from their newest album, "C'mon."


Second, there's True Widow. Why this band isn't more well known is beyond me, because they fucking ROCK. Remember Slowride? Yeah me neither, but apparently that guy decided correctly that "emo" was fucking lame and that woodworking was a better way to spend his time, a point I think most readers will unanimously agree on. After staring at planks of oak and walnut for a few years, Dan Phillips decided to give song crafting another shot, and the result was True Widow. Now, remember that this guy worked with wood for a few years, because that's what comes to mind when I listen to them: walking through a dank, dark forest. This is doomy, gloomy music for those more organically inclined than metal fans. Alot of write ups about them include the term Slowcore, but the band prefers "stonegaze," which seems pretty appropriate, considering everytime I listen to them, which is alot, I find myself gazing at the floor in an aurally induced stony haze. Did I mention that their bassist/vocalist is a total babe?

Here's a joint off their newest release, As High As The Highest Heavens And From The Center To The Circumfrence Of The Earth.


Stay fucked up, kids...

This be dyin' muzik!

Who actually listens to music? (yawn) Shit is bo-ring. What really matters is genre dropping. It's a known fact that music listening and music appreciation in general turns you into a HUGE pussy (pussy,pussy...)

Anyways, these days it's all about the name-callin'. While you're being sweaty and gross and generally covered in beer, skanking away on the dance floor to some jangly band, all "Yeah bro!!! I'm having so much fun!!!", I'm perfecting a working formula that looks something like this:

(Prefix)+(Adjective)(noun)=Your girl.

So, here's some Post-Chillwave, Gladys. Whatever. Enjoy.

Pitty Pincess

Some familiar summer songs to get you through the hell that is summer. I hate summer. I don't really like any season. Let's party!





Look at the awesome percussive instrument they use for the ding dongs in this next ditty.

Put on your jammies.

I said put dem on! Put on dem jammies! Where? ON! Put dem on!

YES!

11:25 of YES! Put dem on! Put on dem jammies! Put on! YES!

Have you ever seen Buffalo 66? It is kick butt kickin. I was confused and convinced. That's a recipe for a great film. YES. Put dem on! Dem jammies!

This Yes song is in the movie. Director Vincent Gallo (pictured above) picked out a soundtrack only a bounty hunter on his day off could love. It is that fucking good. "Heart of the Sunrise" is 17 songs in one. I like 14 of them. Giving me the shivers. PUT ON DEM JAMMIES!



I love Mark Wahlberg and seahorses.

Tiger & Woods: Doing It On Turntables, Not In The Fairway

I haven't used this medium of communication to convey quality new artists as of late. A lot of my posts are nonsensical illustrations of my thought process. Today I actually feel like its time for you guys to experience why I write blawgs, and, no, it's not because I trick myself to feel self important, rather it's to flaunt my extremely deep, passionate, and primal love of music.

If you recall previous posts, I talked a lot about that German dude Tensnake. Well back when I first started listening to him I downloaded his Resident Advisor Mix (click to download) and I came across this track...

...only to have my mind blown. Tiger & Woods' take on updating mid 90's deep/Chicago house can only be described as mesmerizing. The lead up to climax is a maze of filter house synths reminiscent of an era I was too young to appreciate. With such masterful cuts carrying the beat throughout this track, its no wonder that once you finally experience each layer together its like an orgasm of disco proportions.

Tiger & Woods just released an LP Through the Green which was all their old shit from previously released EP's. Unfortunately it sounds more like a compilation than a real LP. However, I would highly recommend downloading their Resident Advisor mix (click to download) which saved me from the shit winter we had this year.

Well I just came to the realization that the longer I live means the more things I will post about my music lust! For now I leave with you Dr. Burner...

Asia Does It Better

I just erased a paragraph of things I was going to say. Don't you wish you knew what it was? Maybe it was dirty? Maybe you could learn some dirty secret that would cease to be a secret upon its publishing? Ok, so instead of teasing you with vague possibilities, I will tell you a little story.

I just got back to New York after a 3.5 month long trip through Asia (Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Palau and India). Here are some of the highlights:

• My first night in Tokyo the hotel receptionist recommend that I go to Denny's for dinner. I did eventually go and the waffles were great.
• Also in Tokyo, I went through a magnitude 5 earthquake just a few days after the tsunami in Sendai. The next day, emotionally distraught, I went to the airport and felt aftershocks. The monitors which showed the flight schedules were shaking fairly violently and I was worried they were going to fall on my head.
• Kyoto happens to be one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen. Every 50 steps there is another temple with a perfectly manicured gardens and silence.
• Kyoto has the oldest bar in Japan. It had some good scotches and the old bartender gave me some on the house.
• I stepped into a wooden building built in the 700's in Mt. Hiei. This is the oldest building I have ever been in.
• I scuba dove with Manta Rays in Indonesia. These Manta Rays were about 10 foot across (for the biggest ones). The current actually took me straight into a massive manta and I apologized to him.
• I met some really cool photographers in Jakarta and became friends with them. We wandered around the city, taking photos and eating street food. My boy Ready inspired me with his kindness and hospitality.
• A guy told me to try a new vegetable in Taiwan and it turned out to be binlang (aka betel nut). I got really pissed off that he tricked me into using a drug. I couldn't sleep all night and threw up the next day.
• A prostitute in Saigon offered her services to me in a sweet high pitched voice but after forcefully telling her no her voice became really low as she scooted off, mumbling something in Vietnamese. I think it is safe to say that she was one of those ladys with a ding-dong.
• Speaking of ding-dongs, a mother held her little sons weener while he peed so as not to get the urine on some vegetables that were close by. This was in a market in Ben-Tre, Vietnam.
• At the same market, another woman was cutting the skin off of some frogs and putting them into a pile. There was this gigantic pyramid of skinless frogs and once she threw another one on top, the pile of pink automatons started hopping in different directions ruining the structure of the pyramid.
• The Mango in Vietnam is the sweetest mango I've ever tasted. In India they used crushed mango instead of sugar to make things sweet.
• Imagine eating new fruits! I really fell in love with Jack Fruit. Strangely, they cook it in curry and it looks like chicken flesh but the flavor is outstanding. Also, dragon fruit is super tasty and yellow water melon top notch as well.
• There was a week long program in India where I did yoga for 3 hours a day, 1 hour of mediation and 2 hours of hiking through the mountains. While the majority of my trip was spent absorbing external stimuli this time was to introspect and I found new places inside of myself that I want to visit more often.
• I swam with thousands of stingless jelly-fish in Palau.
• I became a vegetarian (3 weeks going strong!). I am not very militant about it but it helps keep me trimmer.

I really loved Asia. The people there are without pretense. I miss all of my good friends there and hope to return one day.