The Ecstatic

I downloaded another hip-hop album, Mos Def's The Ecstatic because Sara told me to. "Workers Comp" is my jam now. You go get a copy and then it's like a chain letter; a fiery, imaginative chain letter full of spiritually searching lyrics, globally-sourced beats and conviction. It's got dimensions and dynamics. I haven't heard one like that in awhile. Maybe it'll bring you good luck in the new year. Nevermind that it came out in the middle of the summer.

The Pirates of Penance

I slept on some good bands this year. But they are mostly new so by "slept on" I mean haven't had a chance to see them or get my hands on a recording. I will amend this in the New Year. The most shameful of my omissions is Surfer Blood. Because they are from West Palm and I sorta grew up around there and West Palm doesn't give me too many reasons to puff up my chest while inserting my thumbs under my suspenders with my palms facing out. Here is a live video:



I almost got to see Davila 666, but me and Sean, I shit you not, forgot about Gonerfest. We had a lot going on, okay? Anyway, I feel that particular loss keenly. The self-titled album is pretty great and they're from Puerto Rico so I worry about how many chances I'll get to see them. But, gosh, garage punk sounds good in Spanish. (Am I nuts or do they remind anyone else of The Hives?) Here is an honest-to-goodness video:



I also would have gotten to see the Shitty Beach Boys in Memphis. The name is perfect and they deliver somehow something more and and yet something less than punk covers of Beach Boys songs. And, well, here, this is what I missed:




Then my friend Sara told me I would probably like Dum Dum Girls but I took my sweet time in verifying this. Who's sorry now? I think it's me:




Really, I just wish I'd been at that there Woodsist Fest.

Tales of Terrible Ideas

Bad Idea Potluck wants you to start the new year off right (How could you not? It'll be a full moon.) with this inspirational story of methodically executed yet patently inadvisable actions. I met a guy last night who told me how he grew up in the Valley in Los Angeles. In high school he had long hair but a lot of his friends had mohawks. He's 24 and still has long hair.

One day he was eating lunch with his friends in the "punk section" of his high school (the quotation marks are his, conveyed with crooked fingers, if I remember correctly.) and this Asian girl he knew walked into their midst. She always dressed very conservatively, got good grades, and played the role of an honor student in every way. But on that day she pulled out some hair clippers and demanded that someone shave her head. This must have been a well calculated move because one girl took her up on it right there. After that, he said, she started dressing and acting like a boy. He guesses she had something to prove. I would not presume to guess what that something might have been.

I don't even know her name but I'd like to meet her. I can't stress enough that when we say "bad idea" here, we often mean "transformative experience that is hard to explain or justify to other people later." She is absolutely a Bad Idea Potluck Icon and the first I've chosen in some time. I wasn't there. But I believe his story. He still knows this girl. She's marrying one of his best friends. I'd apologize to The Breakfast Club but this one is on reality and not me.

Queens of Noise

I saw it first at Bust.com. Of course, I'm going to see it the second it comes out but that's not at all because I think it's going to be the greatest film ever made.

The End!

 

Now that Christmas is over and everyone else in the world has sent out their end of the year lists and I have successfully avoided reading the ones most likely to annoy the hell out of me, here is the Bad Idea Potluck Year in Quality Music Recordings. Bands and musicians will be in bold on first reference in homage to Joe Carducci. (If you want the condensed version you'll have to wait until it comes out in Stomp and Stammer in January.) I've arranged it into categories because it's a long list. First, I'd like to draw your attention to/remind you of the many feminine divinities who tossed us a perfumed flower this year just when we were sure we'd never hear from them again.

Among them is Hope Sandoval and the Warm Inventions, whom Momar liked so much. And I could include The 5.6.7.8's because of the rad double LP of their singles that came out.

After years of absence from the music scene, the legendary 

Buffy Sainte-Marie's Running For The Drum appeared with an odd mixture of rhinestone-cowgirl adult contemporary songs to puzzle over and tracks featuring native American drumming so sick that M.I.A. or Diplo should hurry up and see if she wants to do lunch sometime.

Almost as surprising, Exene Cervenka's somewhere gone is a great soundtrack for whatever you plan to do to revisit the '90s now that it's time, and I mean that in the best way possible. It's a poetic statement from Exene the wandering troubadour that reminds one of punk's roots in beatnickery. 

Then, even though their newer dub-reggae-gypsy-punk side is comparatively more orthodox than the

primitive stylings they’re known for, The Slits are in many ways more bizarre than they’ve ever been on Trapped Animal and, in fact, more bizarre than anyone else currently making music.

The year was better for all of them, but the strange and beautiful and only briefly absent Antony may have bested them all with the strange and beautiful Crying Light. That is, he might have were it not for Is It Love Or Desire, recorded by the even stranger and equally beautiful Betty Davis and only released this year thanks to Light in the Attic.

The ladies had a good, good year and as did rock music. Those two lines converged for me in Screaming Females' Power Move, which was absolutely the best rock album this year. I have no idea why Screaming Females isn't selling out stadiums where people buy expensive tickets so they can go inside and cry and cut themselves in abject worship.

Mika Miko put out a fun-to-the-point-of-being-meatheaded album and then split up, leaving a void that was quickly filled (at least in my little world) by any number of exciting all-girl messes.

Though nothing for me can top the rush of C.Y.S.L.A.B.F, Pens in particular seems to reach for the Pony Thrash Crown with Hey Friend, What You Doing? I include Vivian Girls in this category easily, because the band's sophomore album Everything Goes Wrong shows off a capacity for wild energy formerly concealed by the cool perfection of the eponymous debut. And then there was Brilliant Colors' Introducing and Finally Punk's Casual Goths. Get them all and make a mix and then jump around on the bed. 

(But if you really want to dance put on Kid Sister's debut Ultraviolet. I'm listening to it right now and it's making me feel like taking crazy risks, like, I don't know, buying another hip-hop album again someday. Plus, I want nails like she has on the album cover. I want them badly.) 

It all takes the sting out of letting go of Mika Miko. And Vivian Girls are coming close to filling the gaping hole that Sleater-Kinney left in my life. It works out see: Sleater-Kinney has a song called "I Wanna Be Yr Joey Ramone" and Vivian Girls has a guitar player named Cassie Ramone and they are both badass trios. Okay, it's working out for me.

The second best rock album of 2009 was In the Valley of Sickness by Thomas Function. Other favorites that didn't disappoint include Reigning Sound with the gently heartbreaking Love and Curses, Hunx and His Punx with the Gay Singles collection, The Dutchess and the Duke teaming up with Greg Ashley on Sunset / Sunrise, Pissed Jeans' King of Jeans, The Ettes with Do You Want Power, King Khan and BBQ Show with Invisible Girl, and especially The Mountain Goats with The Life of the World to Come.

And my beloved Stuart Murdoch went off on quite a tangent with God Help the Girl. It's a lovely, but not incredibly memorable album. It makes my list because it tells a memorable story that I plan to revisit. Still hoping the movie comes out.

I discovered new music this year too. Check out: Bloody Panda, Summon. I saw them live and the singer/screamer genuinely frightened me. They're some kind of art/death metal and I'm in love. 

But most of the stuff I got into this year is a lot easier on the ears. Pick up on: The Beets, Spit in the Face of People Who Don't Want to Be Cool; Thee Oh Sees, Dog Poison; Nite Jewel, Good Evening; Those Darlins, Those Darlins (Like Patsy Cline, Holly Golightly and a hot toddy. Extra points for random drunk driving PSA.); Music Go Music, Expressions; Madeline, White Flag; and Paramore, Brand New Eyes, because Jessica Hopper made me do it.

The best of all of these that I heard only this year were Thao with the Get Down Stay Down with the stunning, stinging Know Better Learn Faster; the ridiculously catchy and deliciously dark Blank Dogs, Under & Under; and The Rural Alberta Advantage,  Hometowns. This last one has love songs on it that give maturity a good name. The kind that make you want to go home and hug your old man. I hadn't heard anything like that in a long time. 

One last phenomenon that I really appreciated was the smattering of wide releases of previously obscure gems. Light in the Attic released, not just Is it Love or Desire, but gave Serge Gainsbourg's 1971 Histoire de Melody Nelson to Americans on CD this year. Then Drag City gave us Death, ... For the Whole World to See. The Numero Group gave us the amazing double LP of '70s soul that pairs with the photography book Light: On the South Side. Putting things like this in CD stores where the feckless likes of me can find them is the lord's work, I tell you. Special thanks to these great and wise record labels. So, that's it. Or at least that's how I remember it.

Editor's Note: I don't know what to tell you about what's going on with all the fonts and typefaces here. Sorry.

We are big cheeseballs

Best Xmas song I've heard since I heard Holly Golightly sing "Christmas Tree on Fire".

Momar's End of the Year List

I will post my own in a minute but my cat Momar's is so short that I thought I'd just post it quickly here. He only liked two albums this year, which stands in stark contrast to the omnibus list I plan on posting if I ever get around to it. This was a rad year for my ears, but Momar turned his little nose up at everything except for Hope Sandoval and the Warm Invention's Through the Devil Softy and No Age's Losing Feeling

I should explain. Momar has had several previous owners, all of them known to me, who are pretty dedicated music fans. I can't say for sure but that may be why he is more responsive to music than any cat I've ever met. He grew up competing with the record player for attention. He hates The Clash and he loves Coco Rosie. (I may have explained this all before.) He was a big help when I was putting together a year end list for Empty-Headsmind last year and I tried to get him to listen to some Japanese hardcore and some Screaming Females for this blog earlier in the year and I guess maybe he started to feel kind of exploited and just went on strike until I put on these two albums. So these endorsements should count for a lot.

It should be noted that Through the Devil Softly is pretty high on my own list.It's a deadly pretty album; soft and velvety enough to sooth an upset stomach, but soulful and sharp enough that you won’t feel like you’re going soft: a little bit chamomile and a little bit chai spice. This is how psych-pop is too be done, unless you want to put one part of that phrase or the other in quotes. Somehow it pairs very nicely with the Mountain Goats’ release this year, The Life of the World to Come. Momar favors soft focus soundscapes, poppy touches, and I think he prefers female vocals. He curled up very near the laptop, apparently in blissful repose, but with ears just slightly cocked, listening to Sandoval's demonically delicate songs hovering somewhere between madrigal and country ballad. This after almost a year of leaving the room if there was music playing.

Losing Feeling gets more of an honorable mention on my list but it was nice to hear from some masters of the fuzzy and the poppy in a year when so many people tested those waters. And Momar did stay close to the record player while it was on, absenting himself as usual when I changed the record. I might have put on the 5.6.7.8s. He likes female vocals, just not those.

If you don't believe my cat reviews albums, well, you can come over. He might do it right in front of you. Maybe.

But this is what I want

www.japrocksampler.com

Video at the Myspace.

More gift guide

Smoking mittens.

My New Home

 

We live right next to Pass Out Record Shop and a fake Banksy. At least, quite a few commentators believe it is a fake. The folks at Pass Out are the nicest people in any record store ever and my building has Catholic figures painted on each landing in the stairwell. We couldn't have picked a better spot in Brooklyn if we had actually seen it before moving in. Sort of.

Santa's Secret

Until we get a few questions about whether or not we are living in a legitimate apartment straightened out, my contact with the Internet is limited to brief, furtive trysts here at the cafe. (Welcome to Brooklyn.) But I fear to let more time go by without officially declaring the beer of the month. Behold Santa's Private Reserve from Rogue Ales. Because, as Sean would say, "The elves are drunks." They say they make it with "free range coastal water," and the sound of that would skeev me the fuck out except that the beer is so hearty and spry (like Saint Nick, y'know) that it has just got to be some good water.

Rhymes with Tease ...

If I were in Atlanta this weekend, I would definitely hit Eyedrum for this event. The holiday extravaganza is a sorely neglected art form and I'll take the festive machinations of Vagina Jenkins and Johnny Drago over the Rockettes any day.

For more information:
www.facebook.com/THEBIGFREEZEATL

More people should be obsessed with Slant 6

People obsess over plenty of other bands that broke up in the '90s. And, if the '90s must come back, can it please be the part of the '90s that looked and sounded like this? Not that these videos do them justice. Everything Christina Billotte and the other members of Slant 6 did before and afterward was hugely significant, but I have a particular soft spot for "What Kind of Monster Are You?" and the album Soda Pop-Rip Off.

Back to the '90s, I worry that the version of the decade that is bearing down on us will be a total (and highly sanitary) bum out. Maybe I'm being negative again. I can definitely deal with Lilith Fair 2010. And I guess I'm up for some more baby-doll dresses, if it means no more rompers.

A Guide

I fell through a hole in the Internet and landed here. This is what I found there.

Whipahol

Whipped Lightning, made with love in several flavors by these people. Whipped cream with a lot of alcohol in it isn't necessarily a bad idea on its own, but I'm sharing it with you here because I think it could be an excellent starting point for any number of spectacularly bad ideas. We're here to inspire after all. I'll get you started; If I'm not mistaken, "grain neutral spirits," as it says on the label, is another way of saying pure grain alcohol. May your days be merry and bright.

Dudecake Double Feature!

I am posting the wonder above with apologies to Rad-Dudes.com to welcome you to what you know is on its way. First, I found this TV show on the web called "Dudes in Bed" and I don't understand why it isn't on prime time on Comedy Central instead of that awful man with the sad YouTube videos. There are a few episodes of "Dudes in Bed" on the web and I'm not sure if it is an abandoned project or not.

I felt this episode was most appropriate to our forum here:

Dudes In Bed - Bad Tattoos, Bad Decisions

dot comedy | MySpace Video

And, since this is sort of the holiday edition, I am also informing you of this amazing Lifetime drama, 12 Men of Christmas, which I would sincerely like to watch. It's on tomorrow at 9 p.m., but, with any luck, we will have sold the TV by then.

Here is the trailer:

 

Wacky News

I don't normally post these things but this bad elf story hits close to home. Page works at that mall.

Atlanta is a painted lady

And full of surprises. For instance, this is not a suggestion box.

You can find it at the corner of Ponce and North Highland. 

Pierced Arrows Watch

And, just because I have had way too much coffee, here is a new Pierced Arrows video for "Paranoia".

Vivian Girls Watch

I'm just going to get post happy and not care today. It's raining. If you go over to the Vivian Girls Myspace page, you can hear their poignant new cover of The Chantels' "He's Gone".

They have also announced new tour dates. Atlanta is not yet on the list. They haven't been back here in awhile. Was someone mean to them? Don't they like us? They have been making it down to South Florida and they will be playing The Ice Palace with Exene Cervenka and The Blow as part of Art Basel Miami on Thursday. It's really a good thing that I can't go. My head would explode.


Check out the love they get in my home-ish state:

Maluca

Those red fringe stockings she's wearing in the beginning are on my Hanukah list.

Cut with Care

 

 

I usually tell people that outfits and scenery are the only thing I care about in movies. I'm lying. Beautiful surfaces are the bare minimum, after which I start to make other demands, or perhaps only in the case of  a carefully cropped biopic like Coco Before Chanel. It's an uncomplicated movie about the early life of the very complicated Coco Chanel. I was taken in by the beauty of the film, and the engaging acting, and all the dresses (even the ones Coco hated) but it was hard not to feel uncomfortable with a movie that focused so heavily on the men in her life.

The movie is a bit of a fairytale romance where rich men fight (politely) over a plucky orphan. She has her millionaire lover Etienne Balsan, and her other lover Boy Capel, English friend and business associate of Balsan, who gives Chanel the money she needs to go into the garment business. Capel is presented as the love of her life, and I don't know if he was or not, but Chanel was famous for being a ruthless hard ass, so seeing her portrayed as a quivering romantic heroine is weird, though I can almost buy it. Doesn't everyone have a heart? Audrey Tautou plays her with real emotional layering, but I was looking for moral layers.

And more clothes. My friend Carrie and I both definitely wanted to see more of the designer's celebrated fashions. You really only catch a glimpse of them at the end. It is Coco Before Chanel, but they could have thrown us a scrap or two. In the end, this an airbrushed image best suited for people who are already familiar with Chanel's life of fraternizing with Nazis and paying her employees starvation wages, but willing to forget the details for a couple of hours. This picture of a life of disappointment and bittersweet triumph does make it easier to understand her well-known bad behavior. In fact, it succeeds in making me want to read more about her and see all her other biopics.

But I have written more than I meant to. It would have been better just to post a bunch of pictures of Audrey Tautou (So many outfits!) along with this Village Voice review by Melissa Anderson, which mentions Judith Thurman's great writing about Chanel.

Light: On The South Side

We're moving on to "end of the year" lists and gift ideas, because, well, everyone else gets to do them. This post about Light: On the South Side is a little bit of both. And this release from Numero Group is itself hard to classify. You could look at it as a photography book that comes with a great compilation album or, maybe, as an amazing compilation that comes with a book of beautiful pictures. Either way, it seems to be causing a bit of a stir on the Internerd. At $60 for a hardcover book and two LPs of previously buried soul and blues tracks, it's hardly overpriced, but that does make it a gift for someone extra special, who is, y'know, expecting something like that.

Compilations and re-releases of material by under-appreciated or little-known artists are among the best things that happened to the album-buying public this year and I'm starting to illustrate that thesis with this multimedia peek into a small world of South Side Chicago soul and blues clubs in the '70s. Between 1975 and 1977, photographer Michael Abramson started  making friends and documenting life in this unique place and time in black and white. I didn't know much about that time before I saw the photos and I still don't, but now I have a slightly deeper idea of all the rich things I don't know and will never know about American music.

And the two records? Don't kid yourself, you'd have to dig for a lifetime to collect so many crunchy soul singles on your own. (I still won't admit the Internet exists, but, truthfully, you can check out a lot of these artists on YouTube.) Betty Davis was different alright, but Arelean Brown's "I'm a Streaker" is plain special.

Check out the trailer: