Harper's Weekly Round-Up

Fuck-a-Conde-Nast the best magazine of all time is Harper's Monthly (est. 1850). Great complex, political writing, interesting avant-fiction and lots of good art, plus the most tersely ironic current events reviews in publishing. Here comes the funk....

Turkey shelled the village of Dashta Takh in Iraqi Kurdistan and declared plans to send its ground troops to attack outposts of the Kurdish separatist PKK in the north of Iraq; criticized for the announcement, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan pointed out that the United States invaded Iraq without anyone’s permission.

Grandmaster Flash – The Message (Datashat Remix)

Hugo Chavez broadcast his weekly television program, “Aló Presidente,” from Che Guevara’s mausoleum in Santa Clara, Cuba, to honor the fortieth anniversary of the guerilla leader’s death. “We are the Axis of Evil,” said Fidel Castro to Chavez via phone. “You will never die,” said Chavez to Castro. “You remain forever on this continent, and with these nations, and this revolution is more alive today than ever, and Fidel, you know it.”

LCD Soundsystem – North American Scum

Guru Sri Chinmoy, author of 1,500 books and organizer of the Self-Transcendence 3,100, the world’s longest footrace, died of a heart attack.

Alan Braxe and Fred Falke - Rubicon

The Colombian game show “Nothing but the Truth” was canceled after a woman won $25,000 for admitting to have hired a hit man to kill her husband.

The Arcade Fire – Rebellion (Lies) (Junior Sanchez Remix)

Bo Ward, the proprietor of a barbershop near the Army’s Fort Campbell, committed suicide at a town meeting in Clarksville, Tennessee. Ward had requested that his home be rezoned as a commercial property to increase its value and to offset the losses he suffered when most of his regular patrons, among them General David Petraeus, were deployed to Iraq; the City Council refused. “Y’all have put me under,” said the barber before inserting a pistol into his mouth. “I’m out of here.”

Gravediggaz – 1-800-Suicide

Vinyl Exclusives

Just posting up some high quality (320 Kbps) vinyl only shit i recording a while back. All of these are hard to find, but crucial for most parties.
First up two Rolling Stones classics with easy mixing 8-bar quantized intros, because despite all his stoicism in the face of performing Charlie Watts cannot be trusted when DJing. (he looks like a duck too, but that's niether here nor there.)

Rolling Stones - Satisfaction (w/ 8 bar intro)

Rolling Stones - Sympathy For The Devil (w/ 8 bar intro)

Next up is this fantastic "megamix" of New Order songs, including Blue Monday, Bizarre Love Triangle, and i think The Beach. Also has vocal samples thrown in throughout and the Twilight Zone theme for good measure. This track is surefire dancin' gold, and great bathroom break material, clocking in at just over 11 minutes. Suffice it to say, you need this track.

New Order - Megamix

That's all for now, but ill be posting up more vinyl only releases every Sunday from now on, so stay tuned.

Zach

Bumbershoot/Seattle-Havana Poster Show

(Eduardo Munoz Baches)

Every Labor Day, tens of thousands of people pay $35 a day to get together at the Seattle Center to hang out and listen to music. Bumbershoot has something for everyone; Music (the main focus), comedy, film, and visual arts. There has been lots of critisism over the past few years that the event is getting more and more 'corporate'. I agree the acts seem to be gradually more and more mainstream, (I watched Panic! at the Disco with my little brother). The fact still remains that it is a kickass way to spend the weekend, with hundreds of acts, boths, and exhibits, you can't really go wrong.

But I digress..

I want to talk about the visual arts aspect of the events. It seems that the visual shows get pushed more and more to the wayside, this year ending up in the far off Northwest Rooms of the Seattle Center. The visual events were a bit harder to look up then finding out when John Legend was playing, but they were definately worth it.
I spent a few hours volunteering at one of the exhibits, the Seattle-Havana Poster Show. The show was curated by Daniel Smith, a semi-recent graduate of the Division of Design (Visual Communication Design) at the University of Washington, same program I am currently in.
The content of the show was off the hook. A collection of juxtaposing silkscreened poster sets from Seattle and Havana. The quality of the posters selected was superb and the theme of unity definately made it a worthwhile event. Check out their website for more info, they have all the posters online aqui. The posters are currently showing at Verite Coffee houses around Seattle, and hopes are that it will move onto Havana in the near future.

Some photos from the actual exhibit here.

Black Lips in Williamsburg Brooklyn - NYC - Old Shit 9/26

There was no all-band makeout , there were no mustaches rides or masturbating girls, in fact there were no exposed body parts at all save for those jutting out of typically atypical hipster couture. So, what was there then? Simply one (non?) ironic grill piece, one ever so fluffy mustache and one of the best live bands in America, the Black Lips.



Atlanta natives and URB Next 1000 alums, the Black Lips, have made a name for themselves with their outlandish yet enjoyable performances, with all the aforementioned yet presently absent madness. That doesn’t mean that they don’t put on a great show anymore. This show, Wednesday September 19th at the Williamsburg Music Hall in Brooklyn was truly a superb musical performance by a band that has started to realize the power of its own music. While slightly subdued, the three lead singers (with Cole Alexander taking main vocal duties) led a charge of energy that had the whole building in a kind of hillbilly-garage rapture. The band performed lots of new tracks from their new full length Good Bad Not Evil. The crowd, which was slightly restrained overall, definitely went nuts for bonafied classic and rarest of rare hipster sing-along “Do You Wanna Hold My Dirty Hand”. It was clear throughout the night that the Black Lips have evolved into a band that has the crowd in the palm of its presumptively dirty hand, and they no longer need their past crazy antics to enthrall an audience, the music is simply enough.

XX CORNER

Kittens. Hair clips. Flowers. Makeup. Shopping. Get Your Nails Done. Gossip. Estrogen.

http://www.zshare.net/audio/43267340b7a0b2/
The Black Lips- Navajo
Their whole new album Good Bad Not Evil is really really good.


http://www.zshare.net/download/42830848ab7562/
Cornelius- Drop
Some of the most amazing visuals I've ever seen were at this show.

http://www.zshare.net/download/4283407b3b8179/
Bjork- Innocence
Magical Little Icelandic Queen.

http://www.zshare.net/download/42834305f6176b/
The Books- Enjoy Your Worries You May Never Have Them Again

http://www.zshare.net/download/42836658db9917/
Broken Social Scene- Cause Equals Time
Quite possibly one of my favorite songs of all time.

I was going to put up Radiohead then I realized that you can get it for less than 2 bucks and the whole album is so good I couldn't just choose one song so fuck that.

Chemical Brothers at McCarren Pool - NYC - Old Shit 9/25

This past Saturday (9/22) the legendary Chemical Brothers blessed Williamsburg with a live performance (their 2nd in NYC this weekend). The venue was at the other worldly McCarren Park Pool, a onetime Depression era feel-good vacation spot, and currently a hipster mega-Mecca in the heart of Brooklyn. The Chemical Brothers haven’t given the US a proper tour in nearly 5 years, and what better way to end off a summer of fantastic electronic performances (Daft Punk, Justice, Hollertronix, Simian Mobile Disco et. al) than with the godfathers of electronic live shows. The duo, long known for their innovative and engaging live performances, utilized visuals by noted director FLATNOSEGEORGE (aka Adam Smith) who formerly created the visuals for their “Push The Button” live tour. Opening for the group was the Liverpool based electro-pop outfit Ladytron, as well as The Rub DJs Ayres, Cosmo Baker and Eleven (who played house DJs for the night.)

The early show (5:30 doors) began with the funky break stylings of Ayres, who was merely warming up the growing crowd for the excellent performance of Ladytron. The bands style of melancholic vocals and haunting electro-noise was perfect in the shadow of the melting Brooklyn sunset. The band ended their packed set with the always great “Destroy Everything You Touch”, which left the crowd with a good indicator of the energy level for the Chemical Brothers’ set. Between sets again the Rub performed, this time a more crowd pleasing and energetic B-More workout, with exclusives and educated mixing that show why they are in the upper echelons of indie/hip-hop/”alternative” DJs these days.

The Chemical Brothers approached the stage with a true uproar from the waiting crowd, excited to see their stage set-up of future-retro electronic devices and of course 4 turntables. The duo opened with “Galvanize” as pop-art reminiscent of Todd McFarlane’s early comic work flashed across the huge outdoor screen in synchronization with the music and added to the already high energy of the show. The visuals would change the mood of the show throughout the night, as scenes of dancing silhouettes, marching gun-aficionados, prowling animals and truly creepy clowns dotted the screen. The set was mixed flawlessly, making it hard to ascertain where one song ended and one began, but this was clearly the point. In a dance world where the 12” is king, they have been able to successfully craft a 90 minute set as dense, complex and emotionally connected as the best modern symphonies.

By the end of the show the crowd was sapped of its abundant energy (mostly due to the large dancing circles created by the necessary ravers within the crowd.) Sensing this, the Brother’s ended with the truly slow burn of “The Sunshine Underground” as a cascade of snowflakes poured down throughout the screen. As the bass poured out of the pool into the surrounding neighborhood it was clear that electronic music has grown up, and in the hyper-media world of now two turntables is no longer enough to woo an audience. The Chemical Brothers are clearly poised to continue their reign atop the dance world as the shape and scope of performance changes and progresses beyond the discotheque.