WFMU's Beware of the Blog

KONICHIWA, STUNTKUNT CLAIREBARE NAIR FOR I-CAN'T-BELIEVE-IT'S-KNOTTED-BUTT-HAIR OVERTANNED UNDERMANNED B9ITCHES WITH STITCHES IN THEY HOT BRITCHES: AN ED SHEPP NEW YEAR FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY TALKING RECTAL WART

You know that time when you were all wanting to make your friend Xtina's Sunday really, really special, and you were like, "I'm going to make her a ten-tiered layer cake with columns and Ed-ible glitter and rhinestones, and it's gonna have color-changing LED lights and rotate 360 degrees and each layer is going to have its own unique theme, and when I present it, a mini-Fergie is going to pop out the middle and perform nose piercings? And it's gonna be like that Lexus commercial that plays every Christmas, only without that algal bloom schmaltz? Remember that?

And how you kept trying to make it, but this wasn't really coming out right and you didn't really plan that out and every time you tried to correct it, new obstacles appeared and then you started to think like, "Shit, we're in a Depression — maybe I oughtta stop metaphorically flicking off SoHo store owners by balking at their 80%-off prices and, like, SERIOUSLY focus on my job?" So that when Sunday finally rolled around, all you had for Xteenerz was a plate of half-underdone, half-burnt cookies that you put too little sugar and too much salt (and banana flavor!) in, but mixed it wrong, so that one bite was like a Matterhorn-size circus peanut and the next was all brackish seawater but mostly it was just charred flour? Remember that? Remember? You do??

Well, um... OK, then. [deep cleansing breath] Happy Sunday, X-teenzlers! [best :/ face here]

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Vol. 1

The variety and quality of free music available on the Internet is simply staggering. The motherlode of music blogs out there donating MP3 freebies of rare, out-of-print and previously unissued recordings make this historical moment the goldenest age ever for music obsessives. As anyone who's done a bit of online audio prospecting knows, the problem isn't just finding the stuff, it's finding the time to excavate the many armloads of albums you absolutely, desperately, ravenously must have.

And that's where this new venture comes in. Since I'm already spending practically every waking moment trawling for tunes (just ask my wife and kid), I thought I'd offer—on a regular basis—a dynamite list of the best of what I'm unearthing. So stash the fancy helmet with the headlight, settle into a comfy armchair, and feast your ears on this first installment of:

Give the Drummer Some's
10 Favorite Downloads from the MP3 Blogosphere
(see Comments, below, for helpful info about downloading)

Iconic Old-Timey Brother Act
Complete Allen Brothers 1927-1934
(From: Lonesome Lefty's Scratchy Attic)

 
Afrobeat Unheard Since '65
Unreleased Fela Ransome-Kuti
(From: Voice of America)

'70s Funk from the Islands
Rare Afro & Caribbean Funk,  Vol. 1 & Vol. 2
(From: Music Is So Special and Hasta Luego Baby!!!)

Is Jay Z the new Humpty?

Nicked from delete yourself

I just had to...

Someone's done the math, wikipedia listing...
http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Cat-Toast_Device

I'm Not Pudding That In My Mouth (NSFW)

   

Unbelievably NSFW.  Straight outta the Risin' Sun is Sweet Breast Pudding, gelatinous milk-flavored pudding with a vanilla or cherry "nipple" packaged as the mammary glands of anime girls of indeterminate age.  Wonders never cease.

New Netspeak

Don't you just love Netspeak?  IFHI!

When driving became boring, just downright tedious, we invented mobile phones and in-dash DVD systems to keep it exciting.  When communication by writing and speaking human language suddenly became frightfully dull, it became necessary to invent email and IMing to give it back its zing.  This too, unfortunately, quickly took on the breadth of a Tarkovsky film and our patience was again sorely tried.  How to give language back its cocaine-infused immediacy, so that the teenage mating ritual (which once ate up hours of phone time) could neatly be reduced to a couple of high-impact acronyms?  A further reduction was clearly necessary, and Netspeak was born.

The first few times I saw LOL, I naturally assumed that it was shorthand for "lots o' luck."  Where had I been?  Under a rock in a Sam Fuller movie?  Now that written communication had achieved light speed (Texting Championship anyone?) the need arose to constantly describe our personal state (and a great many other things) in byte-size intervals.  (If you're really laughing out loud, if something is truly that funny, you shouldn't even be able to type three letters, thus "LOL" quickly becomes a benign expression of moderate, mediocre amusement.  Of the group of people that still employ LOL, what percentage do you believe are actually "laughing out loud"?  Any of them?)

Here now are my suggestions for the New Netspeak—more jazzy, snazzy, time-saving language-reductions for the upcoming generation of idiots:

FAKTN - Fantasizing about killing the neighbors
MHOINSH - My humble opinion is not so humble
ASMB - Absentmindedly scratching my balls
IFHI - I fucking hate it
MDT - Millions of disinherited taxpayers
DBMBT - Devendra Banhart, Marc Bolan's Testicle
MRAYF - My religion ate your freedom
LMAOOAML - Laughing my ass off over at Merrill Lynch
WAAD - Wearing an adult diaper
FMUBP - From my uneducated, biased perspective
FITTM - Farting in time to music
IMHOOHMI - I'm mighty horny over old, hairy, male indigents
LFSPOF - Looking for strokable pictures on Flickr
YSPISTP - Your stupid profile is set to private
IYRAADSAMM - If you're really an activist, don't send a mass mail
TSMIAC - To Serve Man—it's a cookbook!
IHUWA - I'll hook up with anything
LSHIPM - Laughed so hard I pissed myself
LOLLOL - Little old ladies lapping on Lucifer
TBPS - This blog post sucks

Feel free to contribute some of your own.

Coming up:  I create a time-teleportation device, go back and eliminate all emoticons, even the notion of them, from our world.  ;{>

Gordon Keith and Mike Lupica, I Hope You Guys Don't Mind

In a nod of comraderie to my two favorite bizarre linkage homies--Gordon Keith, link pimp who co-hosts a Dallas/Fort Worth sports radio show and writes a newspaper column on the side (wink, wink) and His Illinest, Mike Lupica, whose Sites For Sore Eyes is on temporary hiatus (AHEM!)--allow me to sling my own mix into the pot.  Slinging my own pot into the mix would have been nice, too, but I don't have any right now.  Sorry.

She's pretty hollow.  Except to her dad, apparently.

Yule be sorry!!!

Bring us some jiggy pudding.  Oh, so THAT'S what they use instead of silicone over there...

I hear the secrets that you keep...

California real estate agent by day...Holocaust revisionist by night

You missed a Beat

What is wrong with this picture?

Hey, thanks for spoiling the fucking plot. You might as well give away "Sleeper" while you're at it.

Bodies of Christ

Cult members sing to their "Dad" (NSFW)

People are into it

Politics and Music

(2nd pic via globalpundit.org)

LOLBush... at the Olympics.

More here...

Thanks to Brian for the link...

One Day, Three Boadrums

Friday was 8/8/8, a day I and many other slaves to the freakish rhythm had been waiting for for a year and a month - the sequel to Boredoms' 77BOADRUM, 88BOADRUM.  88 drummers performing in a spiral around a psychedelic center stage: this year, Boredoms held court at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles while Brooklyn's Gang Gang Dance did their own version on the Williamsburg waterfront.

Nothing surprising to report, really: while the whole Brooklyn production was predictably spectacular, it would have been otherworldly mindblowing with an insane dreadlocked visionary from another planet leading the spiral by screaming in tongues and smacking a seven-necked guitar with a trident in front of a full-size diorama of baby mammoths sinking into lakes of oil in the middle of Los Angeles, instead of a regular ol' Williamsburg dude hitting electronic drum pads in front of the regular ol' East River.

The biggest story of the day, though, was that both versions of 88BOADRUM got they asses boadrummed hard on a very large scale by these mofos in Beijing.  Turns out China can pour more money into production than Boadrum sponsor Nike Sportswear can.

Here's hoping Boredoms can get their hands on some galaxy-sized money for 9/9/9.

Seriously, if you didn't see the opening ceremonies, you owe it to yourself to check them out.  I know you'll like it.  To watch a highlight reel, go here and install Microsoft's annoying but gorgeous new video player, Silverlight.  (All the Youtube clips have been pulled)

For photos and video of the Williamsburg version of 88BOADRUM, go here.  For photos and video of the LAX version, go here (thanks Fogindex).

Jerry's Anthem

Jerry Murphy and I only share one thing in common: We both work in the housing industry.  From there, it's all pretty much downhill.  Well, for one thing, the guy doesn't like Young Widows or Sicbay.  Steeerike one.

Murphy (a realtor with Windemere West Valley Real Estate in Phoenix) writes a real estate blog--high and outside, steeerike two--from his hometown in Anthem, Arizona.  The irony of that city name is most definitely not lost on his Anthem, Phoenix, Scottsdale Real Estate Blog; It's the only real estate blog in existence with a sub-blog tackling Murphy's sincere and cerebral appreciation of rock music.  So sincere and cerebral he double linked it.  In Arizona Premiere Music Blog's June 12th post Murphy, with all the expertise and circumspection of Fuji Hakayito from The Super Dave Osborne Show, postulates that 1975-1985 was the most underappreciated and influential period in rock/pop history.  Surprise, surprise.  Somebody's been reading the Publicity Wire section of Billboard on a few too many business flights. 

Granted, big Murph is right about the diversity in genres and the influences that came before that drove and inspired the bands and solo artists of that period.  But his last "musical assessment" (aside from being completely gomer) is merely a symptom of how much so many people I know in the real estate field like Murphy whom I've met at compulsory office parties held at golf courses so orgiastically quarantine themselves to terrestrial FM classic rock they still think CD's just came out.  Ey, Murph, there's a great new band out I think you should hear.  They're called Fugazi.

And Peavy retires the sides.

WFMU's Ed Shepp Gets Gawk'd

< Here's a photo of our friend and WFMU associate, Ed Shepp in actual time as his reality begins to fold in on itself and create ripples into the fourth dimension. You see, this brilliant and perpetually excited young man (and by young, I mean younger than me) innocently placed this innocuous ad for a roommate on craigslistnyc. Who'da thunk the postiest-post mawdernz at Gawker would finally pick up the hotline on this guy (can you say HELLO??) years after his radio listeners, Time Out NY and Vice mag have, creating what Ed would surely term "gwakloads of melisma"!? I''ll simply disregard the faint essence of attitude-doody and rightfully bitter New York renter's comments on the Gawker blurb and push my way to the front to proclaim that Mr. Shepp is absolutely genuine in his pursuit of a reasonable rent-share and was even willing to learn about *gasp* New Jersey pricing!  I swear if I thought he wouldn't mind my regular drunken caftan'd and turbaned tirades ala Ruth Roman/Susan Hayward I'd move Ed into my spare room in Jersey in a Beep! Maybe this Other Ed Shepp can help our boy find his dream digs.

The Whitburn Project: Hacking Billboard Charts

Ever heard of Usenet? Usenet was, and is, basically an unimaginably vast network of crude message boards that predated the web as we know it. And it is there, and not on Wikipedia, where the world's most anal musical research project EVER was produced: The Whitburn Project.

One fruit of the Whitburn Project's labor exists today in the form of a 21.8 megabyte spreadsheet. Which is huge. And that's what it takes to record, organize, and catalog every single "popular" song since the 1890's.

The Whitburn project is named for Joel Whitburn, a legendary researcher of popular music and author of several kinda ugly books on the Billboard charts. But the collective wisdom of hundreds of obsessive records collectors diverged from Joel's work several years ago (resulting from some wonky dispute about his column data) and now the project has a mind of its own.

This multi-terabyte collection of high quality audio files is an immense service to the public good, regardless of their illegality. But even the work done on the spreadsheet alone is bearing strange fruit. For instance, some bright kids in Portland just used it to make an interactive database of the top music videos for every week from 1980-1988.

I can't really post anything from this project to this blog without breaking the law. But if you want to look into all of this for yourself, you'll find the group's work spread over these tribes:

alt.binaries.sounds.whitburn.pop, alt.binaries.sounds.whitburn.pop.d, alt.binaries.sounds.whitburn.country, and alt.binaries.sounds.whitburn.country.d, alt.binaries.sounds.whitburn.lossless and alt.binaries.sounds.whitburn.repost

Read more about the project on Waxy; get started with Usenet here (if you're using a mac).

A Brief History of Computing

The first computers (a 25 min overview):

The first internet:

Early computer gaming:

The history continues as we enter the heydays of home computing after the jump...

WFMU's Myspace Band Buddies - vote for your favorites, FINAL ROUND!

Good morning people! 

This is it!  The last round of voting for your favorite randomly selected bands from WFMU's hefty list o' buddies at a certain social networking site of which you may have heard.  Thanks to everyone who's listened and voted so far.

Here's the deal, in case you missed earlier installments:  the band or bands who get the most "Pump it" votes each week will be forever exalted on my FIRST EVER MARATHON PREMIUM called "In MySpace, No One Can Hear You Scream" (you can still pledge to this year's marathon here). Last round's favorites were Satanicpornocultshop, Porest, Paid in Puke, For Esme, and Bonbomb! Congratulations, band buddies!! 

Who will be next? It's up to you!!!

The Feelies and the Hoboken Sound

In addition to the WFMU supported 4th of July concert (link) the Feelies are playing two shows at Maxwell's on July 1st and 2nd. Thanks to the time sensitive email from Brian Turner I was able to buy a pair of tickets before they sold out, in I think an hour. In anticipation of all this fantasticness I post an edited excerpt of something I found on the internets a few months back: A 1985 documentary on 'The Hoboken Sound.' (link)

WFMU's Myspace Band Friends, Vote for yer faves, Round 7!!!

Good morning people! Got some more music goodies this week for you to vote yay or nay to, courtesy of WFMU's hefty list o' buddies at a certain social networking site of which you may have heard. We've got Japanese collagists recycling Missy Eliot, The Ramones recycled by Christians, North American musicians named after recycled French Existentialism 101 exam terms, a track from the guy who put together the Sublime Frequencies "Choubi Choubi" compilation of folk and pop from Iraq, a song named after the capital of Iran, a New Jersey collagist named after a line from one of the greatest teen comedies ever, an atmospheric piece from Germany, and a straight out rocker, just for good measure. Consider it the Earth Day Special... or not....!!!

The band or bands who get the most "Pump it" votes each week will be forever exalted on my FIRST EVER MARATHON PREMIUM called "In MySpace, No One Can Hear You Scream" (you can still pledge to this year's marathon here). Last round's favorites were The Bran Flakes, Slasher Risk, and The Little League! Congratulations, band buddies!!

Who will be next? It's up to you!!!

The Married...With Children Theme Music is Wrong on Hulu

There I was just cruising Hulu to see how my dad's favorite television show holds up 15 years down the line.  Kelly is still hot, Bud is still a dick, Al is still stuck in the shoe store etc etc but THE FUCKING THEME MUSIC IS DIFFERENT!  It's supposed to be the VOCAL VERSION of "LOVE AND MARRIAGE" but now it's some goddamn terrible royalty-free bullshit MIDI instrumental impression of a song that might sound like "Love and Marriage" if you are Tiny James and had been stuck inside a Regular Size Vodka Peach for four days.

What the HELL??

When Mom Calls 911

Thanks to my simple gmail address I get a lot of mail sent to me on accident. My favorite unintentional correspondent is a juvenile correction officer from down south. He mistakenly sends me lots of pictures of juvenile young women posing in hotel rooms, with captions like "Buddy, isn't she hot!" Last night he fwded me an office thread containing an mp3 clip of a distraught mother calling 911. Of course the clip is totally amazing (mom is ready to kill her 15 year old son who is being disrespectful), but it is a bit surprising that the people in charge have no problem using their work email accounts to fwd this stuff around:

listen: (mp3)

update: turns out this mp3 is old, who knows who leaked it - sorry for insinuating that my email pal and his buddies were responsible

Danger! Canadians Ahead!

WARNING: These Canadian "Prevent It" Public Service Announcements are not for the squeamish: