Happy 'Weener

This video makes me want to re-watch "Phantasm", "Fright Night" and "Return of the Living Dead", which has one of my favorite monsters ever, Tar Man ("Braaaains!"). Fun fact about "Fright Night" costar Stephen Geoffreys, whose squeaky-voiced Evil Ed character I was obsessed with as a kid: He has since made the transition into an entirely different genre of film making. Please check out his oeuvre; do you think Netflix has "Latin Crotch Rockets" or "Halfway House Hunks"?

Discarded Halloween Costume Ideas

1. hobo
2. hobo ghost
3. sexy hobo ghost
4.












Monster Movie - Ooby

Friday Funtime

Thank you to all of my awesome, funny, devastatingly attractive friends for the best birthday I've had in a really long time. Yaaay us!

Hey, what ever happened to Nelly? I don't miss him or anything, I'm just curious.

Jagged Edge ft. Nelly - Where the Party At (remix)
Aaliyah ft. Timbaland - We Need a Resolution

Music fer broodin' to.

I love this first song, and Annie Clark's voice, despite her membership in stuff-of-my-nightmares Polyphonic Spree. This is the standout on her album for me, but fans of Feist-y preciousness and Kate-Bush-quirk should definitely check it out.
Put a sweater on, because it's fall, finally.

St. Vincent - Human Racing
Frank Black - Lone Child
Holopaw - Igloo Glass
The Damnwells - Sleepsinging
Pinback - From Nothing to Nowhere New Pinback is good. I'ma buy it. You should too.
The Epochs - Mouths to Feed
Blonde Redhead - Spring and By Summer Fall

California Uber Alles

"Fire may burn until it reaches ocean, fire chief says."
A Pepperdine professor sounded pretty flip on NPR this morning, stating that the only homes in real jeopardy so far are the millionaires in Malibu's. Wonder if that's still true as of 12:20 PDT.

Dead Kennedys - Forest Fire

"My heart is hardened. It's like one of those shellacked hearts at the Bodies Exhibit...except of course that it isn't from a Chinese vagrant. Hey — are you familiar with a type of glue called Liquid Nails? That's what my heart is like! Very very hard."

Goldenfiddle scanned Madonna's 1985 Playboy spread. More interesting (to me) than this photo documentation of an era with far less stringent pube-maintenance is that the best cover line they could come up with was "Unlike a Virgin...For the Very First Time." Yeeeikes.

Friday Funtime: Five Classic Dancehall Gems, Plus One

I dug in the (CD) crates for this one. Picking one Beenie Man song was too hard, you're getting two.
Beenie Man - Who Am I
Red Rat - Tight Up Skirt
I'm a sucker for Red Rat's borderline-irritating voice and trademark "ohhhhh nooooo"s. I almost posted "Big Man Little Yute" since I love how he sounds there sparring with the way deeper voiced Goofy, but we're doing classics today.
Beenie Man - Let Him Go
Murder She Wrote - Chaka Demus and Pliers
This song reminds me of a girl I used to know; I have a memory of driving with her while she sang along and me thinking about how she herself had a pretty face and bad charactah, as Chaka says.
Bounty Killa - Living Dangerously
Sister Nancy - Bam Bam
By far my favorite version of this standard. The barebones dubby production and the way her voice goes nearly off-key singing "This woman" gets me every time.

This one's for all the Jennies in the house

I'm pretty sure this remix is made in a JeNayNay factory that makes things J would like:

Scanners - Lowlife (LA Riots Remix)

Scanners
LA Riots

Bangers & Cash's Top 10

Spank Rock, Amanda Blank, and Benny Blanco name their Top 10 Songs to Do It To.

My favorite part is towards the end, where chameleonesque Amanda Blank does a flawless PhilaSouthJersia accent. I've long tried imitating the Philly-suburbs faction of my family myself, but I can only get the pronunciation right if I'm reciting the intro to Dead Milkmen's "Bitchin' Camaro" verbatim. Funny you should ask, I've got a car now.

Plastic Little - Crambodia (Pink Skull remix feat. Spank Rock, Amanda Blank, and Ghostface)

Amanda Blanks's other band, Sweatheart:
Sweatheart - Fingerbangin'

Everyday I'm puzzle'in

I think I just sprained my brain.
For the most part, very legitimate complaints aside, I like my job. It uses a lot of my native talents (like useless trivia knowledge) and hobbies (reading the dictionary, studying etymology). But every six weeks or so, I have to do something that is useless to explain here, but basically involves train A/train B word-algebra shit that completely drains my mainframe. I 75% hate it and 25% love it. The love part comes at the end when I've figured out the solution and feel like a genius for a second.

Now I'm running hot and cold and had to jump up and down a lot and listen to T.I. really loud just to remember who I am again (not a genius, not a super-computer). Arughghghhghmpf.

T.I. feat. David Banner - Rubberband Man
T.I. - Why You Wanna

Oh, Blackwater.

As everyone knows, I keep my identity secret so that I may freely express my incendiary political views. I'll just go out on limb here: This Blackwater business is fuuucked uuuuuuup. The one, possible, tiny pearl in this mess is the possibility that coverage of the massacre — and the subsequent civil suits — will shed light on the disturbing fact that "contractors operate in a legal netherworld outside of the military courts martial system and are also outside of Iraqi civil law."

The use of private security firms in places we've carpet-bombed is by no means new, but how many more incidents will it take before people realize the fact that they, more often than not, are completely undermining whatever pathetic shred of a hearts-and-minds effort we've still got going over there?? Given the Army's recruitment crunch among other factors, I realize that civilian contractors may be a necessary evil, but their freedom from the strictures of the law is not.

The Doobie Brothers - Black Water
Metric - The Police and the Private

Sampladelic relics

I mentioned Palms Out Sounds recently, as they make magic, but I'd been so busy loving Remix Sundays that I never even checked out Sample Wednesdays until Molly told me what she'd found on there. Get ready to have your mind freaked. Ew, not like that!

Within five minutes of searching their amazing collection I found three songs I've been looking for forever: Dr. Buzzard's "Sunshowers," Debarge's "I Like It" and Shannon's "Let the Music Play." A++. [Related: Fellow closet freestyle fans need to read RichFourFour's golden recap of last summer's 'Beatstock' in Long Island, for the pics alone]. Don't miss the Daft Punk post, especially.

Friday Funtime

If you don't remember this song I don't even know you anymore. It takes me back to a simpler time of ten years ago, when I weighed the same as I do now yet could somehow put away 80 ounces of malt liquor without falling over.
"Uptown Saturday Night" is one of those albums that didn't make it back in the cross country move, so if you have it, be a buddy and burn it for me?

Camp Lo - Luchini (buy)

Everybody Else Is Doing It

Since "In Rainbows" came out today, and this is the only sort of weather that makes me want to listen to Radiohead: Here's my two favorite songs off the album. Go git the whole thing here.

Radiohead - 15 Step
Radiohead - All I Need

If I could only listen to one Radiohead song ever again it would be:
Radiohead - Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2)

Busy, cloudy Tuesday

Trentemøller - Take Me Into Your Skin

Deeeeez Nuts.

If JuJu and Psycho Les knew I was working on a Sunday, I bet they'd come over and convince me to smoke a blunt and hit up a strip club instead. The Beatnuts are my favorite.

From "Take It Or Squeeze It":
The Beatnuts - No Escapin' This
The Beatnuts - Contact

From "A Musical Massacre":
The Beatnuts - Turn It Out
The Beatnuts - Story 2000

Friday Funtime

Pharoahe Monch just released his sophomore album "Desire," just 18 million years (ok 8 years) after "Internal Affairs" came out. To be honest I haven't heard it yet, but hearing about it made me remember how this song still gets me. every. time.

Pharoahe Monch - Simon Says

Since Molly and I were talking about how great PalmsOutSounds is last night, here's a link to couple ESTAW remixes of "Simon Says" they've got.

That Soulja Boy "Crank That" song is about two more plays away from crumbling all of my resolve, and I fear that soon I will actually like it. Don't let the terrible video quality deter you from watching this fantastic montage of people doing the Soulja Boy dance sensation that's sweeping the nation: Crank Dat Soulja Boy MIX!!!

Oh yes, there will be...sorry.

Apparently this goes on every time a "Saw" comes out? I didn't know. I've tuned out everything Saw-related since the first one, with that corny puppet and Danny Glover's weirdly apoplectic acting choices and the awful 'Did I just bee-low your myeeeend?' ending. But good for them, pairing their torture-porn promotion with a little altruism. Let's see if "Hatchet" throws some sort of 9th Ward fundraiser.

Gravediggaz - 2 Cups of Blood

Ian MacKaye Lives!

Posted on my Myspace bulletin board today:
>> Ian Mackaye, lead singer of influential hardcore band Minor Threat as well as Fugazi passed away today in a Baltimore hospital room. Outside a Fugazi show in New Jersey last night, the singer was struck by a car passing by the front of the Ventura Theatre. Brunswick police say that the driver allegedly stopped, but then fled the scene. There is now a police investigation underway.

Mackeye was rushed to St. Agnes Hospital in Baltimore, where he was pronounced dead this morning at 6am. This is a tragedy for the underground music as a whole and we need to stand together at this time of loss.<<
The 45-second period after I read this was a nightmarish emotional roller coaster, until I remembered that Google News exists. He still walks among us.
Like many East Coast suburban misfits, my friends and I were all huge Fugazi fans in high school. If I had a nickel for every terrible "Waiting Room" cover I heard at a Tune Inn show/VFW hall/backyard party, I would easily have fifty cents. When I lost my virginity, it was to the dulcet tones of Minor Threat. No disrespect to Guy Picciotto, but I can really take or leave his Fugazi vocals even when I love the songs. Ian's voice is pure skate-park white boy masculine aggression, and this— coupled with his always in the right self-righteous lyrics and political engagement— makes him my favorite white guy singer of all time. Today's scare just reminded me of his pure hotttness.

Minor Threat - Look Back and Laugh

Fugazi - Bad Mouth

I've recently rediscovered "The Argument" and it's back on heavy rotation at work. This song is one of my favorites because Ian could still scream his fucking head off at 40 and it sounds awesome.
Fugazi - Epic Problem

By the Powerus Grascol

GhostproofBlanket: Have you ever heard of Grayskul?
BoyleRoche: He-Man master of the universe grayskull?
GhostproofBlanket: When I was a kid I thought, the whole time, that he was saying "By the powerus grascol!" and always wondered what he was talking about. Even though he was standing right there, in front of the gray skull.
BoyleRoche: ...
GhostproofBlanket:I think the confusion came from the fact that that was Skeletor's house? Wasn't it? So I didn't put together why he would even be over there. But anyway no I meant this Grayskul
GhostproofBlanket: i think i mostly just like their production
BoyleRoche: I like that production as well, not just the same beat repeated over and over
GhostproofBlanket: From an itunes user review about them: "Music that has any lasting appeal has to relate to you on a personal level. No matter how cool it sounds initially, rapping about zombies, superheroes and ninjas has no bearing on real life."
GhostproofBlanket: You ain't from where I'M from, son!
BoyleRoche: keepin' it REAL we got some HEAVY shit out hizzah
Ghostproof Blanket: I'm bout to cut a zombie bitch

From 2005's "Deadlivers": (buy)
Grayskul - Prom Quiz

From "Bloody Radio": (buy)
Grayskul - Scarecrow

Two More From TTC

I've posted a few other tracks from TTC — the goofily awesome French group made up of Teki Latex, Cuizinier, Tido Berman, and DJ Orgasmic — but they're my new favorite so I'm sharing some more today. Check out the ridiculous video for "Telephone." Teki is delightfully jolly. Cuizinier wears a Swedish chef hat a lot. Yeah, I don't know. I love them.

They're playing The Knitting Factory on October 12...

TTC - Strip Pour Moi

TTC - (Pas La Peine D'appeler Je Ne Reponds Pas Au) Telephone

buy "3615" or their earlier, more Daft-Punk flavored "Bâtards Sensibles" here.