We were supposed to play in Toronto with CSS but the show was canceled due to a bomb threat. If it were up to me I would have played the show anyway, but then again I have no soul and I don’t give a shit about anything. My friend DJ Jumbo Shrimp hooked us up with a last-minute show in Detroit at this dive bar called LJ’s Lounge. We really didn’t know what to expect and the bar wasn’t really equipped to handle our elaborate pop show, but we needed some extra cash and a place to stay, so as they say, “The show must go on!”
Archive for December, 2008
DETROIT - SSION TOUR PHOTOS
NEW YORK - TOP TEN NEW AGE SELF-HELP BOOKS I READ IN 2008
I started off this year depressed, unemployed with no prospects, dumped, and fresh to New York with no money and none of my stuff, living with a freak of a dude who told me he wanted our apartment to be a sanctuary but kicked off my first night there setting off fireworks inside. Then came the boxes of weapons on a daily basis. As I watched countless knives and beat-down batons join the arsenal of guns, ninja stars, machetes, lead pipes, and bats with screws driven in, my sense of feeling safe in the world declined rapidly. Depressed and terrified, I turned ever more to meditation and self-exploration, and did a bunch of soul-searching that ultimately built my trust in the universe that all will be good and sane and calm and fantastic. And it was. OK, that’s really heavy and I’m sure this makes me a wimp but fuck it, here are the top ten books I read that set everything dandy in my mind and in my life.
LONDON - STUCK FOR NEW YEAR’S EVE JAMS?
Sheesh, choosing a tracklisting to fit your New Year’s Eve party is tough. As you should have already realised the whole night is usually a total let down anyway so the least you can do is party to some good songs. The selection is a always a total pain though. How do you satisfy a room full of people who all think they know more about music than one another? Simple: Plain out-geek them. Luckily, just in case you don’t have the crate-digging, blog-addicted nous to rustle up a mix of obscurer than super obscure tracks, our buddies Jiro and Rodaidh are here to rescue your good time. They have put together a little compilation of what Jiro described as “sort of Kraut, Prog, Synth, Disco, Italo, Balaeric, Cosmic-y stuff. But all mixed up.” Riiiiiiight. Anyway, you can download their “Touching Mix” here and there is tracklisting on Bevis’s never-less-than-amazing Voodoo Village blog here.
TOP TEN - BOOKMARKED VIDEOS OF 2008
As we near the end of this ol’ dusty road called 2008, we’re giving you a couple Top Ten lists to help you look back fondly on the journey of the last 364 days. Prop your chin on your fist and let out a deep, melancholy sigh as you click through Maggie Lee’s favorite videos she’s bookmarked over the last year. First up, "My Daughter, the Slut," Parts 1 and 2 and 3. Click below for the rest of this roundup of amazingness.
NEW YORK - A VERY PLEASANT MESSAGE
You know when you try to be polite and invite the biggest of your spaz friends to something you’re going to and you email them location and other pertinent details in advance, only to see at the peak of the good times, when it’s very loud and you’re making headway with someone pursuable, they’re trying to call? So of course you don’t answer, and instead of just texting you whatever the issue is like a smart monkey they leave a slurring, irate, insulting voice message that you don’t listen to until a week later? That’s what happened here, courtesy of my friend Nondor Nevai. Click on the thingy to listen.
TEEN LAQUEEFA
NEW YORK - STUPID ENOUGH TO GO TO CHAD, SMART ENOUGH TO MAKE A MOVIE ABOUT IT
We thought our friend Jason Mojica had a fairly good head on his shoulders until he and a couple friends ordered matching bullet-proof vests and decided to go to the Chad-Sudan border to make a film about the crisis in Darfur. None of them is a swashbuckling activist, reporter, medic, or filmmaker. We’re talking waiter and office guys with too much curiosity and not enough common sense. The feature-length film is done. Far from the foibles and capers of bumbling dudes with no experience, it’s a "hey, time out everyone" kind of viewing experience. Because aren’t you wondering why the hell it doesn’t seem to matter how many pro movies get made, elementary schools hang up a banner of awareness outside the building, bags of rice an NGO throws at the problem, or politicians acknowledge the genocide, and still it continues? We are, so we watched Jason’s movie here, and we recommend you do the same. Below you’ll find some photo outtakes from the experience.
NEW YORK - HAVING THE RIGHT KIND OF A BAD TIME ON NEW YEAR’S EVE
As you scramble to formulate a last-minute plan for tomorrow night that doesn’t involve spending lots of money, depending on a cab or car service, bouncing around aimlessly, or simply staying in, why not try this simple rule: Go do the least cool, weirdest, dumbest, most outrageous and possibly frightening thing available. Who cares about friends and boy-/girlfriends—you can see and kiss them at midnight any day. But an invite in Las Vegas to act like some trashy hooker onstage with Kid Rock as he sniffles through a DJ set at the beginning of his divorce with Pamela Anderson, while she parties at a “cooler” club across the street? Would you seriously pass up such a heinous opportunity? I didn’t, and I don’t regret a thing, especially not the thousand-dollar magnum of champagne I had ordered to his table.
LONDON - AKIKO GOES HOME PART 3
Keex is still knocking around Japan, writing a blog for us. This week she’s been playing naked gigs as Sperm Javelin and visiting her sick uncle.
NEW YORK - ZITS IN A GAY BAR
When someone asks me where all the cool spots are in West Virginia, where I grew up, I always tell them to visit as many gay bars as they can fit into their travel itinerary. The gay bar is your best bet for meeting all and every low/high art, intellectual/drug addict, avant-gard/nerd, beauty/spazzoid, freak-star in town. As you walk through that often hidden door you will behold the vortex/apex, concentrated, boiling, sexy epicenter of PUNK! This goes for all towns, small or big anywhere, including right here in New York City.
LONDON - AND LIKE JESUS, WOOLWORTHS DIED
Yeah, we all know we’re heading towards a complete socio-economic collapse, yadda yadda yadda, crunching credit, blah blah blah, fighting for horsemeat in the streets, etc. etc. etc. But while Americans are boiling orphans down into gasoline substitutes, things here in England are looking up. After all, Woolworths, the shittiest of hell-shops has shut down. Huzzah! OK, so lots of people have lost their jobs, but if I were given the choice of selling myself to Gangmasters or working in consumerism’s dribbling arsehole I’d take cockle picking any day, so don’t feel too bad for them. Woolworths became so nasty that even though I lived five minutes away from the Kentish Town branch for 25 years, bought my Super Nintendo from there when I was ten, and still have a photo of me and my first girlfriend’s first kiss taken in the passport photo-booth, I still can’t think about the place without wishing I’d been able to blow a couple of branches up before they shut them down. They were truly horrible. Every store was a huge and sad white box, under-populated by stock, piping in Basshunter and staffed by manic-depressives. Yesterday we went to gawp at the death of this miserable old bastard of the high street. Amazingly, it didn’t look any more depressing than it had last time I went in to buy a light bulb and only found a hundred Lee Evans DVDs.
NEW YORK - HANG IN THERE BABY/IES
Whoa, we’re not sure why our beloved website decided to barf its coded entrails all over the inside of your monitor this morning, but we’ve got a couple people looking into it (suggestions welcome). In the meantime, if you don’t want to read about an Australian “lo-fi” band who put out an album a year ago, today’s short story is right here for you to dive on into. All problems aside, it’s a good one. Oh also, when we asked Nick Gazin to doodle us up a little technical difficulty intertitle we forgot to specify that we wanted it horizontal/hamburger style, so we had to split the thing in two to make it fit. Click below for the bottom half…
NEW YORK - LAST BEST SHOW OF THE YEAR
Why forfeit the envelope money you earned by hanging out with your family over the holidays just to go see some insanely expensive show on New Year’s Eve when you know damn well whether due to drunkenness of the self or others you’re not going to pay attention to any of the bands? The night before the night before the new year is the best time to go see the last best show of the year. Follow that? No? OK, here, we’ll make it very easy: go see Martial Canterel, Hive Mind, Damion Romero, Mike Shiflet, Telecult Powers & Bob Bellerue, Chaos Majik, and DJ Pieter Schoolwerth at Vanishing Point tomorrow.
IT HAPPENED - MY FAMILY GOT A ROOSTER
Oh hello there. How was your holiday? Wonderful, glad to hear it. Mine was swell, except for being jarred awake at 5:30 four mornings in a row by a FUCKING ROOSTER CROWING ON MY PARENTS’ PATIO! Just to be clear: My folks do not live on a farm or practice voodoo. Their house is in a pleasant, middle-class neighborhood and is situated on less than an acre of land. So how did they end up with a year-old domesticated fowl? I’ll tell you…
