snap, crackle and hiss

Tweet I'm normally shite at winning stuff but managed to net two tickets for German minimal techno and microhouse genius Michael Mayer's forthcoming night in Spy over on on the record. Sweet. I was going to buy tickets for this event anyway as I was fortunate enough to experience his stonker of a set in the same venue back in March. That night was absolutely apeshit. At one point it may as well have been pissing rain inside Spy with all the sweat and whatnot. I stupidly wore a woolly jumper. It literally shrank. Mayer's sets are extraordinary for their fluidity and the perfectly tempered rising and falling sense of release that he sustains over hours. Best of all, he's a humourous dude and not afraid to throw in the odd corny German drinking song, or indeed the big requests that might be old news in the big barns in Cologne but don't get spun as much in this neck of the woods. For an idea of the man's ability check out his Fabric 13 mix, which is possibly my favourite mixtape, more soulful and outgoing than the epochal yet somewhat introspective Immer. I'd recommend it as home-listening for dancefloor aversive electronic music fans. Fabric 13 is as rewarding at home on headphones as any indie or rock album. It's the mix that just keeps on giving. Mayer's Kompakt label-mate Jennifer Cardini is also DJing. Cardini is a French techno producer who was the first female signing on boy's club Kompakt. I've never seen her play, and am not the biggest fan of her recent mixtape 'Feeling strange' but I'm told she's a bit of a force to be reckoned with at these things. This track is class though...Tuesday Paranoia... These club types eh? They take it for granted that they are going to be trembling paranoid husks on a Tuesday, their drug ravaged cerebral cortexes desperately trying to accelerate the clock forward to Saturday, which according to Cardini is "shanky". Righto Jennifer.

It's only teenage wasteland

Tweet In an earlier, goofy post about this year's Eurovision song contest, I went on about gallic pop enigma Sebastien Tellier singing a surprisingly nice song for France. Lolo was watching with me and (having better ears for new music than my jaded head-protrusions) decided it was not just good but "unfuckingbelievable." She was right too. Mr Tellier probably knew this too, considering he did not let eurovision failure destroy this gloriously cheesey piece of "le fluff". Nope, he appears to have sold it to Renault for their latest ad. You know the one? Ah ye do. Its the one that makes your bum start to wiggle a bit in the kitchen when you are trying to rip open a packet of jaffa cakes halfways through Home and Away. It goes "bup-bup-ber-bup-be-bup" and once the vocals start, it sounds like Brian Wilson on an exchange trip to Lyon. MP3: Sebastien Tellier-Divine (Link Removed) I bought my first ever album off itunes. It's called 'songs for the broken hearted' and it's the new one from Windy and Carl, a husband and wife noise rock duo from Chicago who've been around since I was watching teenage mutant hero turtles. Over their career they've managed to make music that is both intimate and expansive; evocative of everything from the depths of the Arctic Sea to how they felt when their pet dog died. Unfortunately, because itunes codes MP3s in its own sneaky way I can't yet put up my favourite song from this record which-I-bought-honestly-yet-is-less-useful-than-if-i-downloaded-it-illegally. Most songs are constructed around huge billowing fronts of guitar and analogue organ drones that shimmer like spiritualized at their glassy prime. However, Windy (the wife) sings more on this record than on previous releases. Apparently the record signifies a reconciliation after a difficult patch within her and Carl's relationship. She communicates her love for him over his pre-recorded, heart-wrecked guitar drones before she can tell him in person. It makes for an odd, tricksy album that paints love in an alien light to me, and even though Windy and Carl are usually very much instrumental noise rock, this reminds me a lot of Low, or later Yo La Tengo stuff (another two cerebral, aging yank indie couples. Hmmm maybe they get given a guide on how to sound like Thurston, Kim, Lou and Nico on their wedding days). Actually no, I am only making that comparison because I think that Windy and the others sing so badly like Nico. This really is stand alone stuff. I really like it. This is the only track I can share right now 'cos it is from a recent pitchfork forecast. The rest of the release leans toward the instrumental end of their sound. MP3: Windy and Carl-My Love

Lolomix 11: Lolo's Communication Mix

Tweet UPDATE: Lolomix 11 link is now working! It's good to talk! Lolo's 11th mix is all about communicating. The Lolomix series is always madly varied but this groovy collection about communication is about as mixed-up as it gets and the only place you will ever see Cliff Richard cozying up in such close proximity to Fuck Buttons. I just hope they don't molest him. Download Lolomix 11: Lolo's Communication Cheap Time- People Talk Vivian Girls- Tell the World Wolf Parade- Language City Gang Gang Dance- First Communication A Flock of Seagulls- Telecommunication Neon Neon- I Told her on Alderaan Talking Heads- Warning Sign Cliff Richard- We don't Talk Anymore Eels- Birdgirl on the Cell Phone Arthur Russell- I couldn't say it to your Face Misophone- The Sea has Spoken Fuck Buttons- Okay, Lets talk about Magic If ya find yourself at a loose end on Thursday, I recommend you go to the Analogue night in the Twisted Pepper. Dublin Duck Dispensary is a sort of one-man satanic carnival out to corrupt our ear drums with his sloppy garage-rock. He does a neato line in music blogging an' all! Finally. A two word review of Built to Spill in Dublin last week. Fuckin' Magic.

A million trillion flash bars? Yes Francie a million trillion flash bars

Tweet Before Spar and Centra spewed their cold, suffocating euro-spunk all over our indigenous retail scene, Ireland was the land of funny little shops with weird names. I was reminded of this over the weekend while in Ballina. While walking on the main street I noticed an old skool shop called 'Wide Variety'. Talk about functional, I thought. Like 'Nic Nax' in Kells, which I mentioned here before, it must just sell a bunch of random stuff, and is therefore called 'Wide Variety'. Then I got closer and nearly choked on my rancheros. It was a shop for plus-sized women. Jesus. I'm not a plus sized woman. But if I was, I'd feel about as comfortable shopping in 'Wide Variety' as in 'Fatso-plex: Clothes for Wide-Loads'. The brave women of Ballina mustn't give a shit, though. By the weathered look of 'Wide Variety', it's been keeping the west in mumus since 1970. Follow the yellow brick road And then there was Joyce's. Joyce's is a turbo charged Nic Nax. A cavernous, infinitely receding barn of baffling crap. It's about as big as the Ilac centre and twice as high. If you step inside and look up, the walls slant dizzily upwards towards a distant vanishing point of two euro cap guns and multipacks of plastic door hooks. Every single square inch of wall space is filled with some piece of gloriously horrendous 99 cent made-in-Taiwan shit. Even better, it's divided into sections. The colouring book section alone is as big as your regular Spar. There is a ceramic cottage section. A feather duster section. There is a bit, near the back, that seems like that mad Tokyo arcade in 'Lost in Translation' except all the arcade machines are replaced by LED hula hoops and fibre optic snowmen on Ecstasy singing 'Jingle Bell Rock'. Right at the very back of Joyce's (which is really like going through the proverbial wardrobe) I half expected to see a weeping, half-starved American tourist crawling around among the fake pokemon toys, begging for his wife and a map. SOME MUSIC: Hello my name is Jay, you might not know me from such gigs as Whelans, November 16th, 2008. When I am not missing planes, or more interestingly (allegedly) tied up smoking crack, hoodwinking obsequious Pitchfork DJs or masturbating passed out members of support bands I promise to play a brilliant gig in Dublin at some point. In the meantime, my incendiary Matador singles collection pretty much exonerates any of my antisocial proclivities. Enjoy...you fucks. MP3: Jay Reatard-See Saw Sonic Brilliance. I'm watching the news. We're going to be living in a rat-bitten, post three-piece-suite financial apocalypse in a few months time according to George Lee's bleakly descending monotone. There is a depressing furniture man sitting among his unsold suites and he is blaming...get this...the news for his woes. That's right, it was the RTE News, (not the American subprime crisis) wot caused the global financial crisis, by spreading those pessimistic stories. Get real furniture man. It's not the news's fault. It is the bank's fault. It's the fault of people not unlike you too. People who got drunk and giddy on their rancid, boastful Saturday pipe dreams in the local pub (ah sure just bough' anudder pile o' bricks in Navan, got a few Latvians living in it). Their fault for deliberately refusing to question the whole shoddy teetering, grubby, September-1913 pile of shit the property boom always was. Many ignorant, now prematurely-aged fuckers with whom I went to school were only a year or two ago buying stupid cultureless shit like jet skis, wedding photos (4 grand for a set no less), Nissan Pajeros and extra houses in semi-built shit heaps on parts of Meath that probably sit on top of every page of history these grimacing turds missed out on when they were dreaming of their honeymoons in Bali during Business class. Fuck them. Money grubbing fuckwittery ruined our economy. Not the fucking nine o'clock news. Update: there is a smugly narrated programme on RTE 2 about pampered young Irish abroad on the J1, soundtracked by Vampire Weekend and Clap Your Hands Say Yeah (even though they prefer the Killers presumably?). I'm swallowing back wave after wave of sick. I cannot believe that 160 quid was deducted out of my annual wage to document these little second generation Coronas shits. I SOUND LIKE A GRUMPY OLD MAN, AND I AM ONLY 27! I hope their parents are watching. Double update: I like the fey young lad from Dundalk who's into comics. There's hope for us yet.

Compost-ition

Tweet Question: Why did Jay Reatard miss his flight to Dublin and consequently his upstairs gig in Whelans? Send your answers to Gardenhead's comment section, c/o The compost heap, behind the garden shed. The best answer wins a banana peel and some fruit flies. Normal service will hopefully resume here tomorrow. Lately I've been working full-time and doing my research. Which sucks.

I'm a goddamn marvel of modern science (Soundtracks part 4)

Tweet Woah, I just looked back over the last bunch of posts I put up here. Things got a bit a-creep on 'the heap in October. I probably indulged my weird inner-rabbit-at-the-controls a bit too much. It's time to put him back into hibernation until next October and let all the other animals take over again. Ribbit. Miaow. Oink. Me-eh-eh-eh. Whinny. Good to have yis back lads. Since I started writing here over year ago, I've spawned a bunch of abortive 'number-so-and-so-in-a-series' blogs. I'm not the only one. Lots of other music blogs do it too, and do it quite successfully. After thinking about it a bit, I think I know why bloggers love to write series blogs. I used to think that it was some sort of autistic music shit, an extension of the worship of the holy grail that is 'The List'. But now I reckon it's because lists and series often bring forth a nugget of creativity in a medium where (due to such self-imposed constraints as trying post regularly) the fruits of inspiration might not be hanging there all the time. So we bloggers often write a pile of meandering brain-chunder that we are half pleased with, and then hedge our bets by saying it is number 1 in a series. This, then, provides us with the blind hope that it will give birth to all the other numbers in the series. That's in an ideal world though. Like I said, most of my lists are abortive. I'm surprised I got past number two on this soundtrack list. I never sat down before and gave much thought to how much of my favourite music comes attached to moving images. Now that I have started this series I realise that there are a whole bunch of soundtracks I'd rate with some of my favourite albums. I've also realised that classic soundtracks are mostly a thing of the past. While the odd Hollywood movie still throws up a gem (i.e. the discordant menace of 'There will be Blood'), most cinema fodder these days consists of a completely unrelated tie-in pop track with a video consisting of distorted gooey clips from the movie playing through a phony waterfall or projected across an empty director's chair as Ronan Keating or one of his ilk do their gruesome thing in the foreground. Worse still, the original instrumental music in modern movies, which was once John Williams' famous BUH-DUM BUH-DUM in Jaws or Bernard Hermann's musical shower screeches in Psycho, is now replaced by a sorta generic quickly-repeating low end cello and rolling drums to signify tension. Or a twirly-whirly OTT excited bit involving all the people at the front of the orchestra, signifing the emotional climax. Modern soundtracks are also a very fertile breeding ground for rap-rock crossovers, which is as good a reason to hate something as I can think of right now. Anyway, the point. I found out that I love a lot of soundtracks. More than I thought. I'll be posting a few more fo' sho' and might have a think about what extent my love of this music is influenced by the respective films and vice versa. Today's soundtrack is Jack Nitzche's score to Milos Foreman's film of Ken Kesey's great novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a wonderful film adaptation in that the novel and the movie both stand on their separate and considerable artistic merits. The soundtrack does too. We're talkin' a veritable confluence of three different types of artistic achievement, and I hear the stage show is also good. Without wanting to blather on too much, or indeed spoil the plot, in OFOTCN Kesey (quite the character himself-read Tom Wolfe's 'Electric Kool Aid Acid Test') creates a modern parable set in a mental asylum where the playful idiosyncrasy of the human spirit has to face down authority in all its forms, both aggressive and, most pertinently, passive yet relentless. The wilder end of human nature is represented by Jack Nicholson, playing the free-spirited chancer Randall P. McMurphy in one of the most stirring turns in cinema. Authority is nurse Ratched. A bad act. Phil Spector's protege and multi-talented composer/producer Jack Nitzche scored this movie. He creates such a curious and haunting soundtrack. For a start, it is full of saw. Wibbledeewibbledeewoooooooooo.....like Mercury Rev's 'Deserters Songs'. Indeed, bits of the 'Rev's 'All is Dream' were the last tracks Nitzche produced before he died. The saw is such an American instrument. An everyday work tool turned into a mournful ghost. It is also a sort of proto-theremin; both instruments sound like they communicate a message from somewhere unearthly. The film is soaked through with the music, an elegiac, perfectly judged soundtrack that colours key scenes and adds to the sad, woody ambience of the institution where the characters live their lives (apparently somewhere real in Oregon). MP3: Jack Nitzsche-One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest-Closing Theme Here is the closing theme. Coupled with the ending of the movie it leaves a powerful impression. It expresses sadness, warmth, then finally hope over the course of its four keening minutes. The final scene of this film is burnt onto my retina. I wonder what images this music evokes for people who never saw the movie? I'll never know. Coming soon: Lolomix 11

Shut up! It's daddy you shithead (Soundtracks part 3)

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"Shut up! It's Daddy you shithead!" Yup, it's Dennis Hopper playing 'Frank', the most outstandingly repugnant character he ever played in cinema. This is no mean feat in a career built entirely from portraying nasty, spouting, dicks. Sorry if the above the quote overlaps with domestic issues at home, there will be a helpline at the end of this blog. Anyway, Hopper acts as the nightmarish entity Frank in 'Blue Velvet', which, for those who never saw it, is an original yarn spun by my favourite director, David Lynch. It is one of those films that seems to regularly make those cheesy satellite channel (E4) top tens, but that people never seem to watch through. Top ten weirdest films. Top ten spookiest films. Top ten artiest films. Top ten hee-larious films starring Adam Sandler as a person with a disability. But who truly knows this film? I don't really. I don't think many others do either. If they do, they are probably lying. Most people say they want Nelson Mandela at their fantasy dinner party (lying pricks, I bet they really want Seth Rogen). Me? I want David Lynch. Why? Just so he can talk in cryptic riddles about aspects of his films (OK, and Seth Rogen too). I've seen Blue Velvet at least five times and it still mystifies me. Like many of Lynch's movies, it is a film to watch, to admire, but not to completely understand. It evokes moods and sometimes tweaks dark corners of the brain that exist outside of common language. I'm suspicious when certain types try to completely understand David Lynch's films. They are like nerds or Lost (the TV show) fans. Explanation junkies. The entire point of David Lynch's oeuvre is to evoke rather than to explain. In my limited understanding, Blue Velvet is, among whatever else it might be, a sort of nebulous, quasi-moral tale. The quasi-moral being that if you are curious about strange corruptive stuff, drink carefully, 'cos you might never be right again. Even though the best of us are curious about weird shit, innocence gets lost very easily. So look out. But then again, if you watch Blue Velvet, you will never be right again either. As with many of Lynch's films, in Blue Velvet the soundtrack is a major key to the entire goosebump-inducing affair. He first worked with Angelo Badalementi (the man who would become his long time musical composer and write the shivery theme to Twin Peaks) on this movie. Where Badalementi ends and Lynch begins I'm never sure. David Lynch wrote a bunch of solo music for Mulholland Drive, and both of them are sometimes credited on far-out tracks, which tend to be creepily warped appropriations of the 1950s sound, on other films. Badalementi/Lynch also composed with a singer called Julie Cruise who ended up in many Lynch soundtracks (including music from Twin Peaks). Because we are focusing on Blue Velvet, this is the one to hear... MP3: Angelo Badalementi feat. Julie Cruise-Mysteries of love This haunting song is a cadbury's flake ad on bad drugs. It's a prime example of the sorta 1950s kitsch meets 1980s technology that knocked people on their weird-hole when David Lynch's unusual visions leaked into the Hollywood mainstream. MP3: Roy Orbison-In Dreams Like so many '50s songs in Lynch, the Roy Orbison song 'In Dreams' is deliberately mimed in Blue Velvet. By a proper clown-cum-elvis-cum-psychopath, too. Miming is fucking weird at the best of times. In this scene, it is not only weird, it is enough to make your bum bum whimper like a child. ENJOY!!! :)

Lolomix 10: Lolo's spooky mix

Tweet Gah. First my apologies to Lolo who had this mix all ripped and good to go for Hallowe'en. I've been away from the heap since, and neglected to put it up. But hey, November is still a spooky time of year. It's cold. It's dark. People look undead and shadowy... Plus, regardless of how spooky you might feel, it's just a great mix of music as usual. So hooray to that and thanks to Lolo!!! Lets hope there will be more coming soon. Download Lolomix 10-Lolo's Spooks Jan Davis- Watusi Zomie The Specials- Ghost Town The Cramps- I was a Teenage Werewolf Pinback- Devil You Know Deerhunter- Moon Witch Cartridge Mum- Draw Ghosts you draw on my Back Burial- Ghost Hardware Dan Friel- Ghost Town Part 1 Cut Copy- So Haunted Minotaur Shock- Bats Oingo Boingo- Dead Man's Party The Melvins- Skeleton Key The Mummies- Die! Jerry Vile- The Attack of the Blood Sucking Poodles from Hell In other news keep your eyeballs open later this week 'cos the new issue of Analogue will be hitting the shelves. I interview one of my heroes, Doug from Built to Spill. He says a few promising things about new Halo Benders stuff and describes 'Perfect From Now On' as "just a bunch of fucking music". Yah right Doug, just like Shakespeare's Hamlet is just a bunch of fucking words. I've got a big ol' gig boner for the Built to Spill gig in Whelans. Finally, gigs I saw this weekend reviewed haiku style Why? Acoustic set Free gig it was nice jumpers bland songs sung Poor man's neutral milk hotel The Walkmen Squalling guitars astonishing voice throaty emotive bliss forgot how good these walkmen were