| thursday before thanksgiving |
[Nov. 20th, 2009|12:56 am] |
Today was tiring but good. Went to lunch with my family. We always end up at Kikuya. It was delicious! Dad was in a good mood and the day went by quickly. We fixed the fence and picked hundreds of avocados. Exhausted I did a quick check of my business e-mails and then it was already time to head to kailua. My sister and I went to the farmer's market to start getting items for thanksgiving. There really wasn't much there (that would keep until next week) so I just bought staples...herbs, sweet onions, red pepper, and cherry tomatoes. I went to look for records and a mirror for the album cover/photo shoot, but didn't find much of either. I found 2 copies of nohelani, one of which didn't have the actual record, and some okay rap. i found an mc luscious 12" that sounded a lot like kid sister. i actually kind of liked it. i played it for joe and he said "kid sisters on some miami bass shit" and walked out of the room. ha. i guess that's pretty true.
in goodwill it was a crazy scene! there was a down syndrome man with his grandma. grandma was cruising waiting for her friend to pay for her $2.30 worth of goods with a personal check! The boy was trying on a pink ladies sunning hat with a wide brim (which he bought) while the loud speakers were pumping gap band's "you drop a bomb on me." The cashier yelled to the back, braddah who's playin dis disco shit? To which whoever was playing the disco shit, responded to her outrage with dazz band's let it whip cranked to 10. it was pretty awesome.
joe went to the 2mex show with keoki. I was going to settle in to some episodes of californication but i feel exhausted. i may just read until i pass out. Gotta order the ice cube trays for the project soon. |
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| Oh Friday you seem so far away! |
[Oct. 14th, 2009|02:12 am] |
Ah, made it through another long day. Work has been stressful and I haven't been able to sleep. Random thoughts swim back and forth through my head like giant red moi fish. Calm and then flailing. I lay there motionless contemplating lines in the ceiling, until finally a lull of half awake/half asleep, washes over me. Exhaustion is the only cure at this point. It's 2:20 in the morning and I've just finished inputting about 100 new entries in to the work system. Whee.
Dropped by my secret "not a record store" spot today after picking up groceries this afternoon. Picked up this strange psych/meditation/new age LP that I love by Wilburn Burchette called Music of the Godhead. It may be kind of derivative of better artists in the genre, but anyway still great to my ears. At 25 cents a record you can't really beat it. Also picked up some weird gospel and electronic records. I am still hoping to one day find a copy of Barton Smith's Reelizations 2. Noticed the spot being blown up by a lot of older gentleman who I always encounter at garage sales, and at 2:30 in the afternoon it was surprising how many working age adults were looking around for deals. Going early next time.
The VH1 Hip-hop honors thing was on tonight. The little spots with Rick Ruben and Russell Simmons were great. The Public Enemy and Beastie Boys parts were fantastic and it was nice to see a Boots Riley appearance. I wish there would have been more talk of T LA Rock. and less inclusion of the shitty new artists, but of course, that's all about preference. Rick Ross, Ashanti, Ja Rule = terrible. As I remember saying to Joe as we were watching Chuck D rip it on stage," it's a shame rap isn't like this anymore, it's not dangerous!" And what I meant is that everything is compromised, groomed, and marketed. There aren't the type of sharp edges that used to be thrilling. As Russell Simmons quoted from the song:
"Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant shit to me you see
Straight up racist that sucker was
Simple and plain
Motherfuck him and John Wayne
Cause I'm Black and I'm proud"
That half-asleepness I was talking about earlier is taking over. But, I'm going to attempt to write at least a little bit everyday, in a quest for consistency.
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| where the wild things are |
[Oct. 12th, 2009|09:06 pm] |
We're supposed to go down in one big, awkward posse to watch the Where The Wild Things movie on opening night. Hopefully, I'll be able to pry myself from work by then.
For those who have managed to avoid the shameless media blitz, the adaptation is being overseen by video director extraordinaire Spike Jonze (John Malkovich / bjork videos). For those deprived as children, the story was originally a small, but richly illustrated book, of few words, written by the great Maurice Sendak.
When I first heard about the choice of Spike Jonze as director, I was hopeful, but not convinced.
However, my expectations were further bolstered in reading that the screenplay would be adapted by Dave Eggers.
Eggers, who recently dipped his toes in the water of movie making, with Away We Go, is best known for penning the semi-autobiographical A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.
It would be difficult to begin to explain how "in" to the story I was as a kid. I was intrigued by all of Sedak's books, but especially Wild Things and In The Night Kitchen.
I had an overactive imagination (I can vividly remember my "imaginary" friends to this day) and so this book appealed to me on many levels. I think it was the adventure, which made my head spin in all directions. That and the monsters. And the transforming room and the running away.
The universal draw, of course, is a shared longing for a simpler time. Rewinding the clock hands, we realize that childhood suspends us in a fragile pod of belief. This is a faith shed slowly as time marches on, a tiny light we keep sheltered from the wind.
Belief in humanity,belief in our parents, belief that bad things don't happen to good people. The certainty that people will do the right thing. These absolutes are a beautiful thing, for they provide the soft protection of a favorite blanket, casting away all that is wrong with the wicked world.
This picture was taken, circa the late 90's, at the entrance to the "Where the Wild Things Are" store in San Francisco. The theme store sat on the roof top of the Metreon, a huge futuristic mall, that occupied several city blocks downtown. It was a destination visit for me and a continuation of the obsession with the book I so loved as a child. I bought a bunch of shirts, dolls, gifts, and then we posed with "Max" and one of the monsters. It was a weird, campy, delirious dream come true!
Looking back, it was that trip that epitomized the high point, of some of the best times of my life. It was before I had many responsibilities. A time where it seemed the sun was always shining, illuminating the promises held in each unwritten page. The words spilled easily, the paths were not yet carved, we were on a trajectory towards greatness. "There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning. . . ."
That summer was spent, mostly, swimming around in a beautiful haze of self indulgence. In many ways this photograph marked the beginning of the end of my childhood. It seems somehow fitting that I spent those last days, right back where I started, amidst Max and the monsters.
Somethin’ filled up
my heart with nothin’,
someone told me not to cry.
But now that I’m older,
my heart’s colder,
and I can see that it’s a lie.
Children wake up,
hold your mistake up,
before they turn the summer into dust.
If the children don’t grow up,
our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We’re just a million little god’s causin rain storms turnin’ every good thing to rust.
I guess we’ll just have to adjust.
With my lighnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am goin’ to be
when the reaper he reaches and touches my hand.
With my lighnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am goin’
With my lighnin’ bolts a glowin’
I can see where I am go-goin’
You better look out below!
media hype machine please don't screw this one up.
**(Hunter Thompson's wave speech )"and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark — that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back."
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| this week's music rotation |
[Oct. 11th, 2009|12:56 pm] |
i just wasted the better part of my morning writing this. how was your weekend?
this week's rotation:
washed out - life of leisure ep
http://www.myspace.com/thebabeinthewoods
dreamy, drifting on an inner tube, whilst the sun goes down kind of music. lo-fi summer jams. only complaint is that this ep is too short. i'm curious if this "style" can be sustained over the course of a long player, while simultaneously kicking myself for missing the vinyl pre-order of the ep. just so you know, he is an indie darling, so he is as much loved as he is hated. not that it matters.
warpaint
http://www.myspace.com/worldwartour
all girl psychedelic rock group. i use the term psychedelic loosely. i guess "psych" is the new catch all term for not pop, slick, or synthesized. the back story to this group is kind of disappointing, but i still rather like the music. shannon sossamon was the one time drummer and her sister jenny lee is in the group. interestingly, they have played shows with anticon people in the past. shannon used to work with subtitle at a record store in hollywood.
the disappointing part to the story is that they took some smokey robinson lyrics and reinterpolated. i'd be more impressed with original lyrics, but that's just me. They remind me of a less powerful version of that *other* girl group with the vaguely racist indian motif.
dam funk-Hood
http://www.stonesthrow.com/news/2009/10/dam-funk-toeachizown-hood
this is (i think) the fourth installment in dam's epic 5 part Toeachizown series. The entire series comes out in a limited 5 piece vinyl set. The music is really great, Hood probably being my favorite thus far. Plus anyone who has the audacity to put out a boxset of vinyl gets major kudos in my book.
dj quik and kurupt-blaqout
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kI5zc9JDgg
probably the best straight ahead rap album this year and certainly my favorite. the lyrics are clever, creative, and surprising.
"i'm the keeper of the key to all creativity, and i will give you writers block if you abandon me!"
quik doesn't disappoint with the production. some of which he sampled from andrew zimmern's abomination bizarre foods. i could do without so many female rnb hooks that everyone loves so much, but otherwise it's a solid effort that defied all expectations.
thavius beck-dialogue
http://www.myspace.com/thavius
Dialogue is a fantastic album featuring as much thavius raps to production, which frankly, i think we all need more of. One half of lab waste, he provides the stable core, maintaining a sound that is both the future and the past. there are crunching sonic landscapes, made human by the layering of sampled drums, and the ironic subject matter of the lyrics. There are very few musicians who choose to focus any attention on topics of saving music from the clutches of cynicism, technology, i.e. itself. Personally, I believe the case for WHY music/art is so vitally important needs to be made. And soon. Because I don't think most people know what they are losing nor recognize that our lives are becoming sanitized pop lite versions of what they once were just a couple decades ago. pretty sad.
And whether it's because they deem it uncouth, disagreeable subject matter to fans, whiny, or unlikely to sell them more albums, it's nice to see that thavius dares to explore these thoughts on dialogue.
"reality is merely a manifestation of the activity in ones imagination, and the willingness to fight for its existence, in the absence of instant gratification, resistance is an active participant, this progress requires a true counterpart, the power to express the experience."
real talk! i'd rather listen to this over and over than consume some sing songy slickly produced shit by someone who really shouldn't be singing in the first place. yeah, subliminal s all over the place.
eddie k and brandon b - trunk dank
http://www.trunkdrank.com/
on the opposite side of the musical spectrum is the new gurp city release "trunk drank" here we experience the true meaning of "a song for every occasion." i haven't heard the whole cd but essentially this album features a bunch of party raps, elevated purely on the strength of the people involved. the single is catchy as hell! brandon b does rap about some of the "boring old men" stuff that everyone seems to hate (that i love) so much on his myspace page.
more soon...
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| Modern Soul |
[Sep. 19th, 2009|12:17 pm] |
Note: I thought that this post was lost forever. I tried restoring it for about a half an hour the other day, in futility. Now as I login to my journal, LJ asks me if I want to restore my post, and it's magically here. Well wonders never cease!
The other unintended benefit of blip.fm has been engaging with a visual representation of the stuff I've been listening to. The result is quite scizophrenic. The music is genre crossing, skipping from era to era, or from memory to memory. I guess this isn't too much of a surprise. In high school I mixed liberal doses of punk, with "alternative," grunge, hip-hop, and on the fringes a little bit of jazz, funk, and dub. My mix tapes were happy messes.
Anyway, nowadays I'll go through undeniable classics like Eddie Kendricks - Date With the Rain or the Funkadelic's Flashlight, before putting on new artists like Washed Out or Little Dragon. Sometimes I'll get on a roll with a string of songs from a certain time in my life. In other instances, my search choices are completely random. I like the fact that the songs create an unbreakable code that only I can make sense of.
In terms of digging and listening I've been on a "modern soul" kick for about the last two years. Long before that, I listened to and loved the staples like Prince, Aurra, Kleeer, Slave, etc, along with smoother stuff like the Gap Band and the Whispers. It was that sort of sleazy, electronic, sound that initially attracted me. If it had vocoder's even better. It reminded me of being kid and was a rawer counterbalance to all of the 80's modern rock rivival business going on. I just filed them away as "jams" and nothing more. This was around the time when everyone was chasing down Funk 45's. Those 45's didn't exist out here in any sort of quantity, so I just began picking up what I could find. Ooo...My wallet pines for the good old days!
Now with Dam Funk's "boogie/funk/electro" crusade going full steam ahead, it seems like you can't find anything with "that sound" for cheap or even decent prices anymore. The hunt has expanded to all kinds of private press/regional stuff with a high appreciation for synthfunky and homemade. Though I'm not exactly thrilled by these new developments, I can't fault his appreciation or passion for sharing music. The music he makes (not just the stuff he dj's) is also worth seeking out.
We have something related to our love for this music in the pipeline. It's pretty exciting news, but we'll wait until we get closer to releasing it! Reconnecting with people who believe in what you do related.
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| that blip.fm crack |
[Sep. 13th, 2009|07:36 pm] |
So blip.fm is my new addiction. The free service basically aggregates music from various sources, mainly blogs and You Tube, and allows you to search and post the songs to your profile. It provides instant gratification and boasts the most intuitive graphical interface of it's many competitors (imo). Muxtape is dead, imeem and last.fm, bleh and bleh.
I find it useful for storing a lot of music that I listen to repeatedly in one convenient place. It also allows me to share my newest musical discoveries or old favorites with many friends at once. It's fun and shocking to see what friends are listening to. Joe and I battle one another.
It's perfect for letting music play in background as you work.
I am broadcasting here: http://blip.fm/anasarca
What's your blip.fm address? |
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| Leica M9 |
[Sep. 13th, 2009|02:25 pm] |
The Leica M9 boasts 18 megapixels and costs as much as your first hoopty. The MRSP is $7,000.00. Now my questions is this -- when is enough enough? I have no doubt that the m9 is an amazing camera capable of things that fly right over my small mind, but when you are talking about high end DLSR's, isn't the real difference the human being who is shooting the picture?
For the record, this post was inspired by the ten or so people (literally) on Facebook who I would generously call hobbyists. All of whom felt compelled to mention how much they needed this expensive toy via status update. Really? I guess it's mildly better than me pretending to care about your fashion updates about how many new friends you just added.
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| The Garden DVD [south central farmers] |
[Sep. 5th, 2009|01:29 pm] |
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I've been meaning to see this movie ever since hearing about it on KCRW. "The Garden is the unflinching look at the struggle between urban farmers and the City of Los Angeles and a powerful developer who wants to evict them and build warehouses. Mostly immigrants from Latin American countries where they feared for their lives if they were to speak out, we watch them organize, fight back, and demand, "Where is our 'Justice for all'?"" "because without the land we are nothing" |
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| Hello World |
[Jul. 24th, 2009|01:00 am] |
It's been quite sometime since I've posted here. I'm seriously contemplating moving the show over to Wordpress which a wider/more robust set of features, but then again I doubt anyone even reads these words anymore. It would be nice for the sake of posterity, though, and to get some floating ideas down somewhere, anywhere.
I decided to take a day off even though a pile of new work has come materialized on my desk. We wandered to the pool, praying for sun under the dark sprawling monkey pod branches. Instead it was overcast and we watched the waterfalls spilling down the sides of the velvety green Ko'olau's instead. It was insanely muggy and I was in no mood to swim, so we just chatted pool side. This was the last time we would be seeing the kids before the big trip to Disneyland, and despite the heat and bugs,it was a good way to spend the afternoon.
We dipped out early to go to the Farmer's Market and bought some staples for the upcoming week. I found a bottle of the Kaiulani Curry spice that I read about on Tasty Island, and remember commenting on how invaluable unsolicited press is. We'll see how the fried rice turns out tomorrow.
We bought a bottle of Olena (tumeric)/Orange juice that was a "demo" flavor. Refreshing!
My favorite cluster of record stores/thrifts are right next to the market so I paid a visit to two of them, as P wrote thank you cards in the car. I found some decent things. Margie Joseph, William Hect (really nice acoustic guitar on Windham), and a variety of other dollar bin treats. Nothing crazy.
We bought a crazy stack of records from Jelly's the other day. It's not really a time to be spending so much money, but then again it seems like good records are cheaper and more abundant right now. No one's buying and everyone's selling. Lists and things soon.
Coffee beans and birthday presents have arrived and are accounted for. No more clients with outstanding bills. Now onward with the next step.. The sound track to my life has been a bunch of modern soul stuff, dam funk, kate bush, lindsay buckingham, hawaiian classics, and of course too short mentor freddy b. |
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| The Grinder Saga continued |
[Feb. 20th, 2009|03:18 pm] |
After much deliberation I decided to return my KyM grinder for something that could grind closer to turkish/powder fine. I kept the KyM for about a month hoping that tweaking other parts of the equation would mean I could keep it. But in the end my machine, lacking a 3 way solenoid valve, was not going to be powerful enough for the type of grind I was getting. I actually think if I had a La Pavoni or something more manual the KyM would have been fine.
The folks at Orphan were more than accommodating and tested no less than 4 other grinders in finding a suitable match for me. I'm now working with a newer Zassenhaus. This thing grinds insanely fine. I pushed the KyM to it's extreme and even then I was getting fairly fast shots. With the Zass, out of the box, I was getting talcum powder fine. It choked the Gaggia easily. Even a few turns coarser and I'm essentially choking the machine. I'll be experimenting over the next week with new beans. I got one close to suitable double shot and it's amazing how the smallest of adjustments on the grinder can affect a shot. I'm more than happy with the performance of the Zass.
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Valentine's Day was excellent. I really like how we both have no crazy expectations but just let the day unfold naturally. We got up really early and rolled down to a neighborhood right down the street. It was right on the Bay, next to the beach. We proceeded to look through a huge collection of records, mostly 45's. This guy had a crazy amount of girl band stuff and other 50's and 60's forty-fives. I really wish I knew more about the genre. I was looking for the Crystals-He Hit Me And It Felt Like a Kiss, because there were literally dozens and dozens of Phil Spector related 45's there. I posted a portion of the finds on my myspace page, under Finds. Got a nice Ronnie Spector 45 as the Korean Dolls. Along with these. Off the top of my head:
all 45's
Sweet Marie-Stuck in Paradise (2 copies, gave one to chad)
Copper Nickel-Run Away With Me (didn't know this came out on 45, this is on Flair)
Aretha-Rocksteady
ocean-put your hand in the hand
parliament-flash light w/ a live version of swing down sweet chariot on the b-side
electric indian-keem o sabe
dramatics-whatcha see is whatcha get
james brown-papas got a brand new bag 45
shirley ellis-clapping song 45
archie bell and the drells-tighten up 45
zombies-tell her no
the turtles-buzz saw 45 (my name is d-nice sample)
Plus Kapono let us look through a bunch of records from a house he was showing earlier in the day. We found a better copy of the Mackey Feary Band album. At the sale we found a bunch of earlier James Brown albums and the Tokyo Happy Coats. I'm kicking myself for not getting a Seeds record I saw. The guy also had a lot of Stones.
After that nice little haul we cooked breakfast together. Good times.
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Back to work..more soon. |
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