continues

Faith Akin's latest painful, beautiful human study regarding German/Turkish relations. Sorry, it's already gone from most theaters...

and why not, another very different trip to the edge of heaven

I can't get enough of this song. The Paid in Full loop, Lloyd's greasy falsetto and greasier hair in the video. Hype Williams space age visuals for the tune. I thought this would be a huge hit! I think it may just be a little too funky!

Finally, some pure gay disco funk! A lot of the mumbling about this group, or collective, is that its simply a late 80s early 90s pop house revival band, which is true, but they're better than that. Listening to the full record you can hear the horns and bass of mid to late 70s disco before the funk got stripped completely away, something I've wanted to come back around for a long time..

You Belong

i've been making brilliant pieces of video for a long, long time. i'm putting up all of high school classics at kdogtv.com (which is just a youtube channel) but for some reason people have posted this here and there and it has been viewed over five hundred times. just weird. but, but if nothing else, it may make someone discover the genius of todd rundgren!!!!

beyonce's funkier little sister is coming out swinging and dancin' in a weirdo video by her and the fore mentioned melina directing. pharrell and chad stomp out the beat...

i sent this email to my friend stretch a month or so ago. but apparently, they've given pete wentz (who had them on and debuted the video) a show on regular mtv (regular mtv still exists) and they've made an incredible, gives me the chills, mind blowingly great video for the song eraser. so i could/hopefully be wrong at the chances of their level of popularity. also. go buy a physical record of this album. the packaging and photo booklet is the best album art that i've ever purchased! no age is the first band i truly feel represents l.a. right now!

the email:

people in the blog/internet/critically acclaimed music world build such a hub bub around each other that it starts to feel like a very, very underground band like no age is becoming some huge sensation. they're not. they don't make music that will ever be popular in the mainstream (elements of it will) but bloggers like the link you gave me feel like "everybody's talking about it" because they're surrounded only by people that talk about such things. no age and the smell get profiled in the new yorker, so what, what percentage of the population reads the new yorker! and the white rock music critic-sphere is obsessed, obsessed with comparisons to other bands and eras. i've never listened to any sonic youth, don't care to, what i've heard and what i've seen of them doesn't interest me at all. no age on the other hand interests me greatly. the point being, as this person only mentions in the form of marketing, that its always, always more than music. this
is something that the hip hop, electronic and the entire post rock era movements in music completely understand, but rock only people still, sadly, don't really have a grasp on. just to listen to a no age album stand alone is completely missing the point. you have to know about the smell, the aura and reasons for its existense, the part of the world its in. you have to know about ooga booga the chinatown store that designs and makes all of their movements designs, shrits and graphics. you have to know how involved no age is in the central l.a. arts and environmental scenes. you have to, have to, see them live, preferably with mika miko and abe vigoda playing before them to ever really know that its a collection of like minded noise artists with a definitive sound and place that has nothing to do with all the lame 'early 90s pre-grunge new punk' comparisons that are so easy to dole out and make the writer appear knowledgeable. only after you have all the
information and experience will a song like 'everybodys down' feel like an anthem and a mantra (thats what it is and meant to be) not just studying it for its "catchiness" or "musical qualities". those things are often in all forms of post jazz/bop music utterly secondary to their impact and importance in that place in time. and there is no one in all of l.a. making music that is more important than no age and their entire crew right now. if someone asks me what does l.a. sound and look like right now. i say no age and mika miko.
my rant
jim

the video:

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

Elizabeth Taylor is utterly amazing and destructive. Language so real and so brutal its mesmerizing.

An incredible video. The kids are not alright in the suburbs of Paris.

Errol Morris makes yet another extremely visual, bold, upsetting documentary. A story of the trickle down of blame. Depressing and necessary.

Jeezy and Kanye with an amazing new single. Kanye's sad tortured robot verse is one to keep forever...

It could be twenty minutes shorter, it could find more of a point, but its still original and amazing just the same...mister lonely

This is another hit by The Dream and Tricky Stewart. The 'just leave me' repetition in this song just kills me.

my god, sometimes people put out a song that convinces me to buy their next record in about three seconds. mr. ne yo does it again. and this video is great. melina is impressing me more and more and more....

I have literally listened to this album non-stop for a week. There is something just perfect about their particular version of electro disco punk. Its not that different from a lot of stuff out right now, but something I can't necessarily put my finger on. Timbaland already stole one of these songs to make 50 Cents Ayo Technology last year, the song is Courtship Dating, listen to the synths at the beginning. The weird Locomotion vocal check on Good Times. the album just hits so many pleasure spots its unbelievable!

http://www.myspace.com/crystalcastles

ever since she told entertainment weekly last year before her record came out that she had studied Brandy's Afrodisiac (one of the greatest records of the past five years that few bought) to try to make sure she brought everything she could to the table, my interest has continued to peak and peak. she didn't do this cover at the LA show i was at...disappointing...

So I sat alone in the top row for the four and half hour long glow in the dark spectacular. Lupe Fiasco handled the stage well, his song intros were clunky at best, but once he got going he was pure, great energy. plus bonus points for coming out rapping over a justice beat to start the set! NERD, with a pissy pharrell complaining most of the time, rushing and forgetting the old songs and becoming distracted by every set of boobs in the crowd, in addition to their new stuff being a little questionable..i mean i'm still going to buy the new record and all. Rhianna nearly stole the show coming on before kanye. her soundsystem was thunderous, the bass was just disgusting and it was a revelation that she can actually sing! i'm a life long janet jackson fan, so my expectations of anything but adequate live singing are firmly in place. but rhianna is definitely ready for the big stage once she has a couple more hits. kanye's one man, lonely space boy show was an oddity to be for sure. i can't wait to watch a dvd of the set to soak it in. up above, you could see the sides of the stage, so any submersion in the show was kinda impossible. as always the joy of kanye is seeing his big ideas never quite working out as grand as he envisioned, but god bless him, god bless kanye west.

the album i anticipate most this calendar year is this one. i count the days.

its a nice filthy little robo jam i say, despite the critics saying its just a shot for some mainstream success. well whatever, it looks like its working on the itunes chart...

I don't know how much radio play its going to get though...