Music

Music is a necessity. Though I focus mostly on alternative/industrial/EBM/electronic styles, my tastes are eclectic and wide-ranging.

Laurie Anderson: Mach 20

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SpermLadies and gentlemen, what you are observing here are magnified examples, or facsimiles, of human sperm. Generation after generation of these tiny creatures have sacrificed themselves in the persistent, often futile attempt to transport the basic male genetic code. But where’s this information coming from?

They have no eyes. No ears. Yet some of them already know that they will be bald. Some of them know that they will have small, crooked teeth. Over half of them will end up as women. Four hundred million living creatures, all knowing precisely the same thing. Carbon copies of each other, in a kamikaze race against the clock.

Now some of you may be surprised to learn that if a sperm were the size of a salmon, it would be swimming its seven inch journey at five hundred miles per hour.

If a sperm were the size of a whale, however, it would be traveling at fifteen thousand miles per hour, or mach 20.

Now imagine, if you will, four hundred million blind and desperate sperm whales departing from the Pacific coast of North America, swimming at fifteen thousand miles per hour, and arriving in Japanese coastal waters in just under forty-five minutes.

How would they be received?

Would they realize that they were carrying information? A message?

Would there be room for so many millions?

Would they know that they had been sent for a purpose?

— Laurie Andersen, ‘Mach 20’, off of United States Live

iTunes “Mach 20” by Anderson, Laurie from the album United States Live (1984, 2:47).

Pigface, Sheep on Drugs, and MY BIRTHDAY

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This is too damn cool.

The Pigface Free For All Tour is going to be coming through Seattle.

Pigface Free for All tour

Pigface and Sheep on Drugs (and Nocturne, and possibly The Damage Manual and The Countdown) in concert — and they’re performing at the Fenix Underground on Tuesday, May 3rd.

My birthday.

I’m so there.

(many thanks to Syren666 for mentioning this!)

iTunes “15 Minutes of Fame” by Sheep on Drugs from the album Sheep on Drugs Greatest Hits (1993, 5:06).

You just can’t sing in the supermarket…

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A couple of days ago, I got this somewhat cryptic e-mail…

Hello…

Something is happening in the produce section of your local Supermarket this weekend:

Jan 29 – 12:30 pm – Ballard Safeway – 8340 15th Ave NW
Jan 29 – 7 pm – University Safeway – 4732 Brooklyn Ave NE
Jan 30 – 12:30 pm – Capital Hill QFC – 523 Broadway E
Jan 30 – 7 pm – Everett QFC – 2615 Broadway

Still,
-jason webley

So, today Prairie and I wandered our way up to the Capital Hill QFC to see what would happen.

Broadway QFC, Jason Webley Grocery Invasion, Seattle, WAAs 12:30pm rolled around, there were quite a few people wandering around the produce section. Some made a pretense at shopping, some greeted friends, some just stood off to the side, and some continued on with their normal Sunday shopping. Occasionally a QFC employee would wander through to see if anyone needed any help, but we were all quite content to keep puttering around and investigating the fruits and vegetables.

Eventually, in strolled Jason, guitar case in hand, looking much younger now that he’s clean-shaven and still growing his hair out after his last deathday concert. A few nods, hugs, and friendly hellos passed between Jason and some of the gathered friends and fans, and then he joined us in our purported produce procurement. A few minutes later, Jason raised whatever vegetable he was holding up above his head, as if to get a better look at it in the light from the window. The person next to him raised their veggie in the air. Another went up, then another, then another.

One girl who’d been strolling around listening to a portable CD player started humming to herself, then swaying back and forth, and then singing. First softly, then more and more loudly, she sang along to The Clash‘s ‘Lost in the Supermarket‘: “I’m all lost in the supermarket! I can no longer shop happily!”

Broadway QFC, Jason Webley Grocery Invasion, Seattle, WAMoments later, a guy in white shirt, tie, and a tag reading “MANAGER” strolled over to her and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Miss? Miss? Excuse me, miss, but could you take your headphones off, please? Look, I’m very glad you enjoy shopping here, but you just can’t sing in the grocery store. I’m sure everyone else here would much rather shop in peace. You just can’t sing in the supermarket!”

And then he turned to the people standing around, drew a deep breath — and sang out, “You just can’t sing in the supermarket!”

A girl in a white shirt and white kerchief tied over her hair joined in — “Anyone will tell you so!”

Broadway QFC, Jason Webley Grocery Invasion, Seattle, WAJason started playing his guitar. Another guy pulled a clarinet out of his jacket. Three girls nearby joined the song, complete with chorus-line high kicks. Eventually, about half the people that had been hanging around in the produce section were involved in the lineup, waving their hands in the air for the grand finale: “Because if you sing in the supermarket, you will have to go!”

And with the clash of a small pair of hand cymbals, it was over. Jason’s guitar went back in its case, the clarinet disappeared back into the jacket, and, accompanied by much laugher and scattered applause from other shoppers, everyone quickly made their way back outside to the sidewalk.

Jason Webley Grocery Invasion, Seattle, WA“Off to the next one!” Jason cried, and up we all went to the QFC on 15th Avenue.

All told, we hit five grocery stores before Prairie and I had to break off from the group in order to get her back on the road to Ellensburg before it got too late in the day. When we left, the group was heading up to a Trader Joe’s, and we’d heard mention of the QFC at Pike and Broadway — we’re assuming they made it there as we saw them a bit later walking by Dick’s on Broadway as we were heading back from a detour by Twice Sold Tales on our way down the hill to the apartment.

What a blast. This world needs more random silliness in it from time to time, and we had a lot of fun being part of this particular bit of randomness. Much giggling and many smiles from everyone in the group and from whatever customers happened to be around in each store — just the thing for a grey winter day in Seattle.

More pictures of the event are, as usual, in a Flickr photoset.

Update: M. Whybark witnessed Saturday’s revelries.

Update: Accompanying M. Whybark were the not-entirely-mythical Danelope and Jim, who contributes this photo set (which, as he points out, is smaller but more focused than mine — hey, it was my first day with a new camera…[grin]).

Update: Steve Konscek, the “manager” of the troupe (more commonly known as Brandon) has posted his account of the weekend’s fun.

iTunes “Quite Contrary” by Webley, Jason from the album Counterpoint (2002, 3:08).

Gallimaufry 6

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Just a quick run-through tonight — I’ve got dinner and movies waiting for me — I’ll come back and babble more about these later on (maybe). Same deal as always, ten songs at random…

And the bonus track…

iTunes “Angels” by Amos, Tori from the album A Tori Amos Collection – Tales of a Librarian (2003, 4:26).

Gallimaufry 5

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The weekly music meme: ten songs at random from my music collection, plus assorted rambling.

  • The Shamen, ‘Phorever People (Shamen Dub)’, off of Phorever People: The Shamen were one of the early-90’s techno groups that I liked a lot. Not quite as good as Utah Saints, but definitely further towards the top of the heap than many other acts, able to produce entire albums that were listenable, rather than just the odd single here or there. This is a fairly trancy ‘dub’ mix (no vocals) of one of their singles that didn’t quite break as big on the scene. Sounds like something that’d make a good background piece for the soundtrack of a tech-heavy film.

  • The Prodigy, ‘Diesel Power (Snake Break)’, off of The Fat Mixes: I’m pretty sure that The Fat Mixes isn’t an official album — at least, I’ve never found any official word about it. I downloaded it a long time ago, when I was first exploring the world of Napster (back when the world of Napster was worth exploring). It’s a collection of various remixes of tracks off of The Fat of the Land, some mediocre and some that are very impressive. The one downside is that as I’ve never found a real copy of it, all I have are mid-bitrate .mp3s that don’t sound nearly as good as I wish they did.

  • Sunscreem, ‘Love U More (A Version)’, off of Love U More: One of my favorite songs of all time. Bright, bouncy, and happy (tempered with some occasionally somewhat disturbing lyrics), saying that no matter what happens, “you know you could never make me love you more.” This one never fails to put a smile on my face when I hear it. While this version’s off of the single, it’s nearly (if not entirely) identical to the version on their album O3 — the various remixes on the single were rather boring.

  • Tag Team, ‘Whoomp! (There It Is)‘, off of DJ Bass Mix: Aaah, the joys of having been a DJ…and a DJ who every so often had to cater to popular tastes, even when they weren’t exactly up my alley. Still, as far as 90’s one-hit-wonder hip-hop songs go, this one really isn’t that bad. Best, though, was ending up with an acapella version, which allowed me to run the vocals on top of My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult‘s’A Girl Doesn’t Get Killed By A Make-Believe Lover (‘Cuz It’s Hot)‘ — and that worked a lot better than it really should have.

  • The Art of Noise, ‘Dragnet ’88’, off of Best of the Art of Noise: Experimental art-techno group The Art of Noise’s take on the Dragnet theme, done for the 1988 movie starring Tom Hanks and Dan Aykroyd. I have no memory of whether or not the movie is any good, but I really like Art of Noise, and the samples they’ve sprinkled throughout the song are fun (“You’ve got a lot of repressed feelings, don’t you Friday? Must be what keeps your hair up.”)

  • Mickey Hart and Planet Drum, ‘Indoscrub’, off of Supralingua: Planet Drum is ex-Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart‘s world music project, focusing primarily on various forms of ~~sitar~~ drumming and percussion. Good percussion has a tendency to catch my ear, so I picked this one up on a whim one day when I ran across it browsing at random. Good stuff, though it all sounds similar enough that I’d be hard pressed to tell one track from another by ear.

  • Bedhead, ‘Crushing‘, off of WhatFunLifeWas: A long time ago, I came across a review of this album on the ‘net that was so well-written and so complimentary of the album that I went out and picked it up based solely on the strength of that review. Lucklily, I wasn’t disappointed in the least — while it’s not my normal style of music (strictly guitar, bass, and drums, rather than the electronic-heavy music I tend to gravitate towards), it actually often reminds me of a lot of ambient music: lots of flowing themes, vocals that don’t overpower and often blend right in with the instruments, and very relaxing. A little hard to describe, but highly recommended.

  • VNV Nation, ‘Arclight’, off of Empires: Due to my DJing in Anchorage taking me away from the goth/industrial music that got me started and into more standard dance/techno/pop stuff, I ended up losing track of what was going on in the goth/industrial world for a good few years. Because of this, I’ve only recently been coming across artists that I’m finding I like a lot: Beborn Beton, Covenant, Wumpscut, Velvet Acid Christ…and VNV Nation. Time after time, I’d hear a song at The Vogue, ask the DJ what it was, and it would be VNV Nation. Eventually, I picked up two of their albums (Empires and Futureperfect), and they’re both excellent. This is very much where my tastes lie these days (and as I’m still working on discovering much of this stuff, recommendations are always appreciated!).

  • Pigface, ‘Lost Track’, off of Preaching to the Perverted: The Best of Pigface: I’ve mentioned before that Pigface is one of my favorite groups. This is a short, but very fun little track, one of the many “B-sides” on their recent “Best of” compilation two-disc album. Not much more than percussion here, just a couple minutes of heavy drumming with some odd little electronic bleeps and bloops to spice it up a bit. Sounds like the beginning of a work in progress that never made it much further than what it is.

  • Liam Howlett, ‘Section 7‘, off of Prodigy Presents the Dirtchamber Sessions, Vol. 1: Technically, the stores list this as a Prodigy album — which, since The Prodigy basically is Liam Howlett, isn’t strictly wrong — but as this album is all mixwork and no strictly original compositions, I keep it filed under Liam’s name. It’s an incredible disc, too, letting Liam show off both his DJ skills and his insanely comprehensive record collection, both of which he does handily. This track alone samples LL Cool J, Digital Underground, Uptown, and Cold Cut, and most of the other tracks on the album sample two to three times as many individual cuts over the course of each mix. Good stuff.

And this week’s bonus track…

iTunes “Sir Psycho Sexy” by Red Hot Chili Peppers from the album Blood Sugar Sex Magik (1991, 8:16).

Gallimaufry 4

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Same deal: ten songs at random…

  • Amii Stewart, ‘Knock on Wood’, off of the Hot Tracks 15th Anniversary Collection: Gotta love the 80’s, and it’s fairly obvious that I do, given how many 80’s-era one-hit-wonders pop up in these lists. Another promotional dj-only remix from Hot Tracks. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any appropriate links on the iTMS.

  • Eurythmics, ‘I Need A Man‘, off of Eurythmics Greatest Hits: I’m a big Eurythmics fan, but this is one of my all-time favorites of their songs. I’m not quite sure if I’d definitively call it my favorite, but it’s definitely in the top three (along with Love Is A Stranger and Missionary Man).

  • Front 242, ‘Headhunter (Xingu Hill)’, off of Headhunter 2000: Headhunter 2000 is a two-disc collection of remixes of the classic Front 242 track. Some of the mixes are really good — this one, while not unlistenable, isn’t one of my favorites. It strips away too much of the melody, leaving little more than a series of distorted bleeps and bloops over chopped up samples of the original vocal track.

  • Random, ‘Rock Me’, off of Technorave 3: Technomania: I’ve got to admit, I’ve still got a fondness for early-90’s techno — back when techno was techno, and it hadn’t split up into the many different styles of electronic dance music that collectively fall under the ‘electronica’ label these days. Very simple and very repetitive, but somehow much of this stuff still works quite well for me (though, admittely, this one goes on a bit longer than it really needs to).

  • Lo-Fidelity Allstars feat. Pigeonhed, ‘Battle Flag (Radio Edit)’, off of How to Operate With A Blown Mind: The Lo-Fidelity Allstars team up with Pigeonhed to udpate Pigeonhed’s single. This is one of my all-time favorite dance tracks — and, in an unusual situation, is one of the few songs where I like the radio edit better than the album edit. Where the album track says “motherfucker”, the radio edit, rather than backmasking or just dropping the volume levels of the vocals for that word, electronically stretches out the first letter of the next word in the song. It makes for a really cool effect, and a radio edit that for once doesn’t sound emasculated when compared to the unedited album track.

  • L.A. Style, ‘L.A. Style Theme’, off of L.A. Style: More early-90’s techno. L.A. Style’s one big hit was James Brown Is Dead (which at one point could be found on nearly every single techno compilation ever), though they did have a couple more minor hits with Baloony and I’m Raving. I’ve got a very fond place in my heart for this album, as James Brown Is Dead is actually the first real techno track I can remember hearing, and it started getting me into the techno rave scene.

  • Marmion, ‘Schöneberg (John Acquaviva)‘, off of The Sound of Superstition Vol. 5: Modern European techno from the Superstition label. I picked this compilation up solely because I’ve found over the years that for some reason, Europe (especially Germany) seems to be the only region where “old-school” techno is still in vogue, and much of their electronic music still has strong roots in the early-90’s techno styles. This track isn’t anything special, but isn’t bad background, either.

  • ‘I Love Cats’: I have no idea who does this or where it came from. I do know that it’s sick, wrong, and very funny. Lyrics and download are available on this post from last March.

  • Sonia Dada, ‘Paradise‘, off of Sonia Dada: I first heard Sonia Dada on one of Seattle’s local rock stations, 103.7 The Mountain, where they were giving ‘You Don’t Treat Me No Good‘ heavy play. I really enjoyed that song, so went searching out some more of Sonia Dada’s work. This is a band I really need to pick up some albums by, rather than just the few tracks I have downloaded so far — musically they’re definitely good, but it’s the strong singing and harmonies that really catch my ear.

  • Jason Webley, ‘Pilgrim II (Live)’, off of The Halloween Special 2001: Regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of local Seattle artist Jason Webley. This is a live recording from his 2001 ‘Deathday’ show of a song which became ‘Counterpart‘ on the album Counterpoint. While Jason hasn’t officialy released any live albums, he doesn’t seem to mind the distribution of the bootlegs that have been recorded so far — you can find the ones I’ve collected so far ~~on my server here~~.

And this week’s bonus track:

iTunes “Haunted When the Minutes Drag” by Collide from the album Vortex (2004, 7:43).

This is Ponderous

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This is ponderous, man. Really ponderous.

I had this dream the other night. I went to work one day, and nobody remembered who I was. So, I decided to take the day off. On my way out, I run into my boss, and he says, “Hey…you look familiar.”

I said, “Thanks — people say that a lot in these dreams.”

Then the horns kicked in.

And my shoes started to squeak.

Then all of a sudden, I’m standing on a beach in some tropical part of the world. And there’s this sign that says, “Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” It sort of screamed out at me. Then I remembered — I’ve been here in other dreams. But usually there’s a water polo game, and a girl who could talk with her eyes. And she’d say, “Can you see what I’m saying?”

Then the horns kicked in.

And my shoes started to squeak.

Before I knew it, I was walking near a lake, when the phone rings. And the operator speaks to me in a language I don’t understand.

“Boom bappa-chugga makko-nahwo sing kow, ding kabba-lawa wally gumbo ching pow, heddy gabba-looah kabbah chennesing tee, oom mamma-chugga mannawon is now three.”

Then the horns kicked in.

And my shoes started to squeak.

Before long, I was coming up on this really weird part of my dream. You know — the part where I know how to tap dance, but I can only do it while wearing golf shoes?

Now I’m back on the beach, walking with this girl who talks with her eyes. This time she says, “I think you see what I’m saying.”

Then, just before I woke up, it started to rain, and I’m suddenly on the phone.

“Boom bappa-chugga makko-nahwo sing kow, ding kabba-lawa wally gumbo ching pow, heddy gabba-looah kabbah chennesing tee, oom mamma-chugga mannawon is now three.”

(The girl, who could talk with her eyes.)

(“Can you see, what I’m saying?”)

(“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?”)

This is ponderous, man.

Really ponderous.

— 2Nu, ‘This is Ponderous‘

I love this song. Too bad it’s so hard to find these days. I was lucky enough to track down a copy on some filesharing network or another some time back. Since Amazon’s got the single (used, but hey), I think I need to go spend a few dollars…

iTunes “This is Ponderous” by 2Nu from the album Ponderous (1991, 3:39).

Gallimaufry 3

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Third verse, same as the first…

Ten random tracks from my iTunes library:

  • Violent Femmes, ‘Fat‘, off of 3: The Femmes are a long-time favorite of mine, and ‘Fat’ is one of my favorite tracks off of this album. Very tongue-in-cheek, it’s a rather bouncy little lament about a man hoping a girl will gain a little weight. “‘Cause if you got really fat, fat, fat, / You just might want to see me come back, / I hope / you got / fat.”

  • Hole, ‘Drown Soda’, off of Tank Girl: I have to admit, I’ve never been much of a fan of Hole. They’re not really bad, but most of what I’ve heard from them just doesn’t grab my ear (though I will say that I do like ‘Malibu‘). This track pretty much follows the formula: droning guitars and Courtney Love screeching.

  • Romeo Void, ‘Never Say Never (Hot Tracks)’, off of The Edge Level 1: I’m such an 80’s child sometime. Not necessarily the best 80’s one hit wonder out there, but it’s definitely a fun one — “I might like you better if we slept together, / never say never!” This is a remix off of one of the DJ-only promo CDs I got through the Hot Tracks service.

  • Leftfield, ‘Storm 3000‘, off of Leftism: I first heard of Leftfield through the single ‘Open Up‘, with John Lydon (a.k.a. Johnny Rotten of the Sex Pistols) guesting on vocals. That one track was enough to get me to pick up the full album, and I wasn’t disappointed. While this isn’t one of the strongest tracks on the album, it’s not bad filler, and works quite well as background music.

  • Concrete Blonde, ‘Darkening of the Light‘, off of Bloodletting: This is such, such, such a good album. Most people if they know it at all will only know of it through ‘Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)‘, but there’s not a single bad track on this disc. I’ve been lucky enough to see Concrete Blonde live a few times since I moved to Seattle, and they’re firmly cemented in their place as one of my favorite bands. Besides, Jhonette’s voice is just so good….

  • Sarah McLachlan, ‘I Will Not Forget You‘, off of Solace: Not one of Sarah’s more well-known tracks, and probably for good reason. Not bad, but nothing to make it stand out, either, very much standard Sarah McLachlan. Of course, she’s an artist whose standard pieces are still very worth listening to, so that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

  • Children of No Return, ‘White Horses’, off of German Mystic Sound Sampler Vol. IV: This song isn’t great, but I love the series it’s from. I’ve got four of the GMSS discs — I picked the first two up while I was in Germany in 1991, and got the second two off of a friend who found them online and then decided that he didn’t like them as much as I would. Great stuff, as far as I’m concerned, with a lot of German industrial and gothic music that’s nearly impossible to find in the states. Amusingly, some of the artists on these albums (like Das Ich, Girls Under Glass and Project Pitchfork) have since gained popularity in the goth/industrial scene here in the States…but I was listening to them first! :)

  • Tori Amos, ‘Professional Widow‘, off of Professional Widow: The original mix of ‘Professional Widow’, from the single of the same name. Here Tori’s somewhere in her middle stage, between songs with lyrics that make sense and songs that still sound incredibly good but are so obtuse as to be nearly nonsensical. Doesn’t mean I don’t like listening to her stuff at all, but there are times I really am clueless as to what she’s talking about.

  • Front 242, ‘Rhythm of Time (Messengers of Neptune)’, off of Mut\@age Mix\@age: A trancy remix of one of Front 242’s earlier tracks, very Orb-ish. In fact, now that I check, the mix was done by the Orb, imagine that. Front 242’s long been one of my favorite industrial groups, and this remix album is worth picking up — not all of it’s really danceable, but it’s a strong collection of mixes that can be pretty difficult to track down otherwise.

  • Jane’s Addiction, ‘So What!’, off of So What!: Jane’s Addiction’s later stuff never really got me as much as Nothing’s Shocking, Ritual de lo Habitual and their self-titled live album did, but ‘So What!’ isn’t too bad. The remixes on this single are rather forgettable, though. Not much else to say, really…not bad for Jane’s Addiction, but not their best, either.

All in all, not a bad set of songs this week. And now, the weekly bonus track:

iTunes “Dream On” by Chemical Brothers, The from the album Surrender (1999, 6:46).

13 Free Songs from iTunes

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Have an iPod? Want some free music from iTunes?

iPod, meet iTunes.

  1. Back up any data on your iPod you don’t want to lose.
  2. Use the iPod Updater application (usually in /Applications/Utilities/iPod Software Updater, or it can be downloaded from Apple) to do a ‘restore’ on the iPod, resetting it to factory defaults.
  3. Launch iTunes.

And that’s all there is to it — upon launch, iTunes will flip over to the iTMS and offer you thirteen free songs. Here’s what you get:

  1. Blow It Out – Features
  2. All At Sea – Jamie Cullum
  3. Sunshine to the Rain – Miri Ben-Ari
  4. Lonely – Akon
  5. Golden Touch – Razorlight
  6. Every Time You Go Away – Brian McKnight
  7. Bigtime – The Soundtrack of Our Lives
  8. Laura – Scissor Sisters
  9. She Said – Brie Larson
  10. Just Anotha Shorty – O’Ryan
  11. Sleeping With the Lights On – Teitur
  12. Reach Out, I’ll Be There – Michael McDonald
  13. TKO – Le Tigre

No idea on how long this offer is good for, whether the selections might change at some point, or whether you’ll like the selections enough to make it worth your time. I figured, hey, free music, why not?

(via Accelerate Your Macintosh!)

iTunes “Laura” by Scissor Sisters from the album iTunes New Music Sampler (Universal Motown Edition) (2004, 3:38).