WE'VE MOVED: aprilfish.net

I've moved over to Wordpress.

Go over to aprilfish.net and explore new, exciting fields of blogginess including:
--1000 Times Yes: my project where I will review 1000 records over Twitter by the end of 2009!
--Updates on my upcoming 33 1/3 book, It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back
--Notices on various DJ gigs I'll annoy people with around Brooklyn
--Some snarky meta-punditry, which is so very lacking on the internet
--Widgets!
--&c.

See you next summer!

Rss Test

Hi.

where you been?

Sorry for the post drought.

I've been trying to pull a Paul Wall over here and get the internet... well, you know.

So, look: www.paperthinwalls.com

why my life sucks in '06

Money raised by poorly attended stoop sale: $66
Cost of thai food delivery since I couldn't leave the stoop: -$16
Cost of NY Dept. Of Sanitation fine for putting up flyer for poorly attended stoop sale: $-75
--------------------------------------
Total: -$25

the land of rape and honey-mustard

1. Some of my friends don't watch MTV anymore. I want to let them know what they're missing. Here's two actual slices of the demoralizing-for-all-involved dating show Next. They're like haikus... but ones that uplift the spirit into a frenzy of praying for the rapture!:

Carpe Equus
I don't like girls that are cocky... unless it means they can't get enough of my c[bleep].
I hope this feline gets to see my tiger-like sex-u-al skills!
I don't just ride horses, I'm hung like one

O RLY factor
"Democrat?"
"Next!"
"Whatever... I don't even know the f[bleep]ing difference."

2. Speaking of dudes in cowboy hats, I got to interview Al Jourgensen of Ministry! You can read it in Revolver (spoiler alert!: "He wasn’t even sure if he ass-fucked it or pussy-fucked it!"). Here's my fave exchange that didn't make it in:

What was the last day job you held?
The last job I worked was at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. And the motherfuckers, man. I’m 18 or 17. I got the job 'cause i thought the chick behind the counter was hot and i wanted to work the cashier with her. So I get the job and think, “Man, oh, man, I’m gonna get laid!” Instead, they give me this stupid suit to wear and this paper hat. And they send me back to this walk-in cooler that’s a bout 30 yards long where there’s, I swear to god, like 10 thousand dead chickens. They were up to my knees. I had to wade through dead chicken carcasses. And they told me my job was to pluck the feathers off of them. And I was like, “Fuck you!”

I turned around and before I could do anything about it, the door slammed and they locked me in the cooler! And I had nothing but this stupid-ass Kentucky Fried Chicken uniform on, freezing my ass off, knee deep in chicken carcasses and my job was to pluck feathers. I pounded on the door, screamed my fucking head off, freaked out. About six hours later someone hears me pounding on the door and I quit. I went vegetarian for 17 years after that.

A new Ministry album is a terrible thing to sleep on: Ministry - "Rio Grande Blood" MP3

Plundertronix!

Girl Talk - "Friday Night"
from Night Ripper (Illegal Art)

The crippling immediacy of cueing iPod data turns me into a 10-year-old. I'm constantly trying to relive that neck-hair-raising euphoria of hearing my fave song over-n-over-n-over with no regard to the fact that making tape-edit remixes of "U Can't Touch This" (yes, I actually did this) was keeping me from doing my social studies homework. I haven't been eating my vegetables (Steve Reich, Cold Crush Brothers, Gong) 'cause I can just have ice cream all day (Fall Out Boy, D4L, Ying-Yang Twins)

That's why Girl Talk made the best album of the year: it's a scientific impossibility for there to be a better album! This Cleveland copyright-molester is a cross between Hollertronix and John Oswald, taking 164 of the most unfuckwithable songs ever--Missy, M.A.R.R.S, M.I.A., Madonna--and turning em into the empirically proven best party album in the history of humanity.

Throw away your record collection now. All the staples are here ("Wait," "1 Thing," "The Whisper Song," "Hypnotize," "Laffy Taffy," "Random," "Daft Punk Is Playing At My House," "Heartbeat"), so you won't need those MP3s anymore. All the best PARTS of songs are here (the rimclick solo in "Cannonball" and nothing else, the "ooh-ooh-hoo-hoo" from that Rentals song and nothing else), so you won't need those either (you should really lose that Rentals album anyway, though). Even the best parts of songs you don't like are here (Girl Talk exploits the listenable 8 seconds of "My Humps" to glorious results).

Matos puts it simply: Girl Talk takes a song you like and then mixes it with "Galang"... where can you go wrong? Personally, I like that it does the mash-up thing without the laptop-hunched sting of an oh-so-clever juxtaposion (WTF I KILLED MR. COLLIPARK WITH MY BIG FUCKING DICK!!!11). The word 'mash-up' doesn't do this album justice, since the songs don't lose their unique flavors to a pixel-pushing dormdork giving something a wacky title. It's more like a candy shop record, all your fave treats on view, and you're forced to shove them all in your mouth for pure Super-Squishy delerium.

It deserves to be more populist than it ultimately will be (linking Elastica and Ciara won't get as many news articles as something stupid like mixing Rubber Soul with "Rubberband Man"), so be sure to buy a copy and play it in mixed company. Offer to DJ a school dance and just play Night Ripper. Drive around the mall for an hour and blast Night Ripper. Air drop Night Ripper on your hometown like humanitarian aid. Get on my level. Feel my heartbeat. Pump up the volume.

Buy it here
Download it here
Hurry before over 164 lawyers descend on this thing!

---
Period - "Period" (excerpt)
from Period (Funhole)

The cuddly art-honkers from Braxtoncore squigglerband Zs have been putting on an exceptional series of shows at the Cake Shop called "From B To Z," showcasing lots of local outer-outer-limit talent.

Last night's show was a sweltering joy featuring terrifying aggro-jazzers Owl Xounds Exploding Galaxy, moan-wave sirens Imaginary People, sexy-retard hardcore smirk-offs The Fugue, and psych brooders Eystek

Since I just spent 20 minutes tracking down links for a half-dozen subterranean avant-wonks, I'll keep the rest mercifully brief. Period is the side-project of sproingly Zs keyboardist Charlie Lookner (here on guitar) and flurry-tantrum drummer Mike Pride of Dynamite Club. Together, they sound like Derek Bailey covering the Melvins--stiltedly jerking through washes of bent guitar drone and jazzpunk drumflutter for 26 neck-cracking minutes. Their album is on FuckingA (which is Zs' CD-R label) and is only, like, $6!

austin stories

Having spent four days at the greatest music festival in the world (whose name doesn’t appear on my 1040), I couldn’t wait to add to the perpetual cyber-stream of “OMG! I was there!!!”s. Here’s my SXSW 2006 wrap-up in convenient bullet-point format. Hopefully this will prove easy-to-read, as opposed to bogging down my hypothetical readers with a murky wading pool of pithy zeitgeist-surmising bullshittery and flighty internrrd-impressing prose. Except the last sentence. That stays.

The XX best things about SXSW XX!

I. Fuck By Fuck You
Hundreds of shows booked by SXSW’s crack staff, and the best spectacles are still the ones curated by badge-burning loose cannons and renegades. The eighth annual Fuck By Fuck You, hosted by chaos-corralling Austin party-monsters Gorch Fock, was a backyard blowout fueled by local energy, local talent, local brewskis and a complete drought of industry douchebags honking coke off business cards. The Gorch Fock performance itself was a Buttholes-rivaling circus freakoff initiated by a demented B-52’s from Hell: double drumming, triple guitaring, strobes, smoke, and a high-flying trombonist performing stunts of derring-do and fuck-you.

Meanwhile, a two minute walk away, housed on the tiny porch of a Hispanic dive bar, NYC loft-dweller Todd P had booked over 50 of the most eclectic, intense and gripping underground and under-underground bands around. With a second stage on the back of a van called the Rambler, it was probably the most important show going on anywhere the zip code. Flying V-strapped retro-metallers Night After Night did skateboard tricks, Erase Errata made tap-bass cool, Drums And Tuba honk-honked to oblivion, DMBQ threw chunks of limestone at the house kit and the Bats were the fucking Bats!

It was insanity from all angles. “Every band wanted their own fucking perfect time. Unfortunately, good for them is perfect for a lot of other bands, “ says his P-ness. “Stage management for over 50 bands over a four-day festival was just hell... in the rain. But fortunately, all turned out rad.”

Celebration, Big Bear, zZz, Knife Skills, Kalas, Wooden Wand, the Double, Measles Mumps Rubella—next year just spend money on a plane ticket, and use the badge money for a Brontosaurus-worth of ribs at Iron Works.

Measles Mumps Rubella play a... um... porch song trilogy? ... I got nothing.

II. P.O.S.
As recent as CMJ 2005, Minneapolis MC P.O.S. (“It takes a Nation Of Ulysses to hold me back!”) was a hulking high hope greeted with an underwhelming response and a Craig Finn guest ramble. One record later, he is a screaming typhoon of pure bloodletting fury (performing at, appropriately enough, Emo’s) that connected with each and every high-fiver, screeching “Yeah, right!” as both an offensive measure and defense mechanism. Here’s my personal treaty to any blog-perusing hip-hop fans: Easy with the with coke-rap, bunky. You go to basement shows, listen to Song Of Zarathrustra, are awkward around girls, hate Bush and have trouble multi-tasking. Welcome back for the first time.

Once he gets a couple in him, Craig Finn can't shut up about Predator.

III. Stepping it up
Who knew twangy Kansas City battle-rapper Mac Lethal would grow into a fiery crowd-killer? And could get the most applause of any MC I saw all weekend by ending a freestyle with the Konami Code? Who knew a great-on-paper band like New Order/Naked City grind-wonks Genghis Tron could grow beyond a novel gimmick into a heart-stopping Tubeway Terrorizer? Also, have you seen Man Man recently?

Great Redneck Hope: Two out of three? Discuss.

IV. Accidentally catching an Art Brut set while walking down the street towards an inferior show.
If they weren’t playing “Formed A Band” (and yelping “Art Brut!” like they were the Mike Jones fronting the Blues Explosion), I might’ve missed the pokey blokes. I especially enjoyed the revised bridge to “Emily Kane,” wherein lead Brut clarifies that he had, in fact, run into Emily seven months ago, and realized he wasn’t in love with Emily Kane, but “in love with being in love with Emily Kane... when I had no troubles... except homework.”

V. Spank Rock
Winner for most blog-worthy lyric of the festival: “Shake it ‘til my dick turns racist!”

VI. Text messaging
I don’t know how I watched bands, when was too busy poking around my phone, trying to figure out how to make a semicolon. Here’s some actual responses to a text sent by me that simply said: “Tell me something good”

Moose: I am hanging out with a friend I haven’t seen in 14 years. That’s good. No luck on the show front this hour.

ChrisWhite: Acoustic Drive X Truckers is the most punk Ive seen.

James: The plastic constellations just killed it

AmyP: Morrissey!

VII. Realizing Brooklyn Vegan won’t be enjoying himself as much as me.
You could fill an ark with the amount of dead things I ate. The sampler platter at Iron Works was better than any sampler used on stage. The pulled pork sandwich at Stubb’s can be eaten in the time it takes to walk a city block if you’re dedicated enough. Two bratwursts quarrelling in the basement of your stomach, agitated by the bowel-bursting bass of grimer Sway is the best worst feeling in the world.

VIII. Puerto Muerto
Desolate prairie funeral music as bleak as a shallow grave—performed by a scrawny ringer-teed guy and a high-soaring girl who both look like they could be Mad TV regulars.

Aw! They're so cute when they sing about the vultures picking at your bones!

IX. Hipster-free hipster parties
If we caught that quasi-ironic-metal Sword/Saviours double bill in Brooklyn, it would have been an insufferable clusterfuck of ironic haircuts, ironic band T-shirts and un-ironic alcohol problems. But in the middle of this industry geekfest, it was like Kiss’s Revenge meets Revenge Of The Nerds. Sadly, the frail, brittle frames of hipsters and geeks makes them both pretty poor candidates for moshing. I was totally king of the pit for the three seconds it existed.

X. The Annuals
These guys are so new to Ace Fu, you can still see their ass-prints on Eric Speck’s couch, these feral popsters are like Jane’s Addiction meets Extreme Sufjan. Plus they’re like 19 or something and paint their faces. Kind of krauty in that Secret Machines way, but not ruined by Alan Moulder production. Yet.

The mascot for the Ace Fu Underdogs!

XI. Badges
Seriously, why can’t people wear nametags all the time?

XII. The super-cute gals handing out hangover juice on Red River St.
Enough to contemplate alcohol abuse.

XIII. Having lunch with a bunch of bloggers
No need to remember what you said, since it’ll all end up on the internets anyway.

XIV. Belong
One big fuzzy note to wear like a blanket.

Belong can play soul-wrecking ambient fuzz, make bunny shadow puppets.

XVII. Putting faces to names
It was great meeting all the writers, editors, publicists and label-owners that I talk to every day. Can’t wait to experience the morbid embarrassment when I forget who you all are by CMJ in September.

Daedalus. I just thought this picture was nice.

XV. Mogwai’s light show
More fun than looking at a bunch of really serious-looking Scottish guys.

Mogwai was so loud and awesome that I lost the ability to see reds and yellows.

XV. TTC
Le crunk.

Freedom rappers, TTC

XVIII. Meeting Pitchfork's Ryan Schrieber.
Ten years in and still less jaded than you.

XIX. Weird Weeds
Double true.

Weird Weeds: was "Wacky Tobaccy" taken?

XX. Our friend having food poisoning and violently puking all over the yard repeatedly in the middle of the night, and making such inhuman noises in the process that our other friend thought he was having sex with someone.
Too bad I missed Whitehouse.