Chapstick Weekly v2

Chapstick Weekly (so what I’m a little late.)
For the prudent gentleman or gentlelady

Summer Sinsemilla Mix

Beck – Girl
Paul Simon – Late in the Evening
Badly Drawn Boy – Once Around the Block
The Little Ones – Cha Cha Cha
The Pinker Tones – Sonida Total
Ray Charles – Mess Around
The Rolling Stones – Can’t Always Get What You Want (Re-Mixed and Re-Edited by Soulwax)
Sweet Emotion – Leo Kottke & Mike Gordon
Mixel Pixel – Sinking Feeling
Radiohead – The Reckoner
Heavy Metal – Sammy Hagar

Albums in my Car

Ghostland Observatory, Robotique Majestique
Heavy Metal, Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack
The Koop, Koop Islands
Radiohead, In Rainbows
Does it Offend You, Yeah?, You Have No Idea What You’re Getting Into
Matt Pond PA, Last Light

There’s my Chippie. There you are Chippie.

First thing’s first, the live bake-off went great.

We arrived in Chicago at full speed, parking a few blocks away from the Vic. After unloading a few tickets, we made our way into the already over-crowded Vic just as Hot Chip opened up with their first track.

The Vic is the Old Victorian Theater – and it is an old Victorian theater. The layout includes downstairs and balcony seating areas, with a large dance floor up front. We didn’t really get an opportunity to explore through the venue, but we did pound our way up to the front area very quickly.

As the show was All Ages, there was a wide spattering of disrespectful, inconsiderate people of all ages throughout, all happy to spill your beer on your face then stare at you as you tried to move about in a danceable fashion.

This being said, after 10 minutes or so, I was well on my way to being a beer-smelling sweaty bastard, dancing precariously close to the drug-riddled, teenaged neighbors, and generally greatly enjoying some of the best live music able to be heard.

I love Hot Chip. I can’t tell you enough how much I love them. I am unphased by their recent boom in popularity. I was disappointed when the concert ended....but I was re-enlivened when they announced an after-party at the Metro.

So, to the Metro I went to enjoy hours more of dancing and drinks before I tumbled back to the Swissotel for the night to sleep and dream right through the biggest midwest earthquake in years.


What’s New to Me and Maybe New to You

Does It Offend You, Yeah?
Don’t let the poppy punctuation fool you, they are diverse and danceable. Their new CD inspires your ass to get moving, is innovative, expressive, and generally well put together. With tracks titled “Attack of the 60 ft. Lesbian Octopus” and “Being Bad Feels Pretty Good” how could you go wrong?

Ghostland Observatory
Solid. An all-around solid band who greatly deserve their recent attention. They are an amalgam of Japanese De-Ionizing Foot Pads and 3 a.m. Strong Coffee, ready to point your toes to the dance floor and scream at you if you start falling asleep. If you get a chance to see them this summer, take that chance and take a friend. I am feeling a wide range of appeal here.

Bonobo
With a little help from Bajka who also makes appearances with Radio Citizen, Bonobo has created a beautiful album. If you’re a tracks person, check out “Days to Come,” the title track of the album, it will get you a solid taste for the complex instrumentation, lyrics and playful harmonies of this group.


In Case You’re a Dummy
Buy the Mark Ronson, Version disk. You’ll laugh (When you hear ODB’s rendition on Toxic. Yes, the Brittany Spears song), you’ll cry (When you hear ODB’s rendition on Toxic), and you’ll burn a few calories as if you were on a spin master. His unique mixes and remixes combine influences from all around, but most noticeably from genres that include a large amount of horns, backbeats, singing soul girls, and getting in the mood to do something experimental. Sexually.


The Alamo: Air, Moon Safari

Remember Moon Safari? That album that so precariously combined influences from Serge Gainsbourgh, early Beegees, Van Morrison, and the Beach Boys? The album that started it all, changing the ever-present drumming beat of electronic music in popular listening to a more sublime, artistic and unmistakably French electronic wonderland.

Burn yourself a copy, dust off your old copy or buy the new re-release and pop it into your favorite stereo. You’ll be toe-tapping to Sexy Boy and Kelly Watch the Stars within minutes with a Nostalgic smile on your precious chapped or unchapped lips.

You’ll catch yourself saying things like, “I saw the Sexy Boy video late night on an MTV Amp. That was a cute little monkey.” or “The first time I got high, I listened to Moon Safari on repeat. It was soooooo French.”

This album is timeless, under-represented, and more than worthy of a daily listening.


Technology for Sounds: Muxtape.

Clay showed me this one www.muxtape.com. You can get on, make your own .mp3 mix or listen to others. Upon an hour’s perusal I listened to a few cool remixes and made a few notes on other bands to watch out for. This site looks to be in its infancy, but is worth checking out on the strength of its original idea. I can truly see this developing into something great, or influencing other sites to include similar functionality.


Some Things Are Funny

Like Heavy Metal the movie and Southpark. Here is a dirty confession: I downloaded Sammy Hagar from iTunes. I am consistently listening to it daily. There is something decadent to thinking about large breasts and head banging to my soul’s content.

There is a picture of Sammy in a boxing ring, red, oversized codpiece included, on the iTunes artwork. Is Sammy Hagar a sexy bastard? I’m assuming that its undeniably so. He is the current embodiment of the less extreme, more acceptable type of debauchery that people have come to accept as “Heavy Metal.”

Also on the soundtrack was music from Devo, and those bad-asses, The Blue Oyster Cult. We all know these guys know how to rock! Right? Can I get the pinky and first finger symbol and some head nodding?

Probably not until you are desperate enough to get yourself stoned off of cat urine (see Southpark episode “Major Boobage”) would you really think you could rock out to Devo. Even so, the super-straight, super-conservative heavy metal-ers out there would never get close to a cat’s genetalia. This is ironic, in the whole irony sense of the word.

The genre dilution that happened with Heavy Metal is embodied by this soundtrack. Commercial Capitalism at its finest! Thank you Southpark for introducing me!

ps. Portishead just released a new album, and that’s no joke, buster.

Next Week:
Portishead, Radiohead, Ghostland Observatory, Caribou, and more gloss for those puckering kissers.

v1

Chapstick Weekly
For the prudent gentleman or gentlelady

Top Tracks List

Crimewave – Crystal Castles vs. Health
Duke Dumont – When I Hear Mu’Sic
Tokyo Police Club – Your English is Good
Shine – Ashbury
Hot Chip – Boy From School (Erol Alkan’s Extended Re-Work)
The Koop – Koop Island Blues
The Kills – Cheap and Cheerful
Instituto Meicano del Sonido – Escribe Pronto
Ghostland Observatory – Dancing on My Grave
cLOUDDEAD – Dead Dogs Two (Boards of Canada Remix)
Neon Neon – I Lust You (feat. Cate Le Bon)

Albums in my Car

Flying Lotus, 1983
Crystal Castles, Crystal Castles (Bonus Track Version)
Tokyo Police Club, Elephant Shell
Justice, Cross
Hot Chip, Coming on Strong
Gnarls Barkley, The Odd Couple

Smooth Lips and Hot Chips

Here’s a hot tidbit. One of the current members of Hot Chip is also a current member of LCD Soundsystem. Here’s a hotter tidbit: I’m going to see them on Thursday in Chicago.

Clay, Taylor, me, and the elusive Katie Jones are travelling up to the windy city for some Hot Chip music. Guarunteed ridiculousness will ensue.

I am going to karate-chop a live panther. Right in the neck or square in the head.

I am also going to participate in a live bake-off on stage as a piece of performance art with inspiration provided by the music of Hot Chip.

Not really either of those, but I do expect to shake my legs to rubber and wear clear through the soles of my shoes by the end of the show. If you haven’t seen the surprise 70’s twist that Taylor can get himself locked in, or the Fashionable Flamingo demonstrated by Katie Jones, then you can’t imagine the amount of fun that this event will produce.

Packed in the imaginary suitcase: a 6 ft. rubber dinosaur, 4 tablets of Metamucil, one 60lb oxygen tank, 14 clean pairs of white underwear, a late-model defibrillator, one unisex bed pan, and 60 individual servings of salted cashews.

What’s New to Me and Maybe New to You

The Crystal Castles

Wowpants. There are some tracks on their Bonus Songs release that will literally make you grab onto your socks. Are you looking for something danceable with an extra helping of sprinkles? You’ll be picking small sugary crunches out of the cracks of your dance shoes for weeks.

Flying Lotus

Let’s not forget that there was once a strong genre of music called lounge which can also be called downtempo. Flying Lotus is the glorious return of sitting and sipping and listening to music. It is also recommended for mid-day back massages, late-night rendezvous, and two-person bathtubs.

Colin Meloy

The singer for the Decembrists, his live album just came out, and is very good. His voice is haunting, his lyrics penetrating, and his guitar-playing more than adequate. He’s one of those guys that a guitar player looks at and thinks, I wish I were him.

In Case You’re a Dummy

Buy the Calvin Harris, I Created Disco disk. Don’t think about it, just do it. You’ll be dancing before the end of the first song, and you won’t stop until you break something or someone. He created disco, and that says a lot.

The Alamo: Hot Chip, Coming on Strong

Chip. Chipchip.

Don’t forget Hot Chip, Coming on Strong. Their first proper (to use the British word) LP and a gem (ps. it’s probably the Hottest Chip), you can hear tantalizing lyrics such as “Even Stevie Wonder can see things,” “I was stunned by your revelations, then I forgot them,” and “Riding in my Pugeot, hey! 20-inch rims with the chrome, now, hey! Blaring that Yo La Tengo, hey hey. Hey hey.” You can’t go wrong on this album, and it’s like running into an old friend at the local produce section, then running into them again later on at the Hot Chip concert.

Where’s my Chippie?

I still can’t decide if all of their references are intentional, but I think even they would say it doesn’t matter. Let it play, put your windows down, go for a drive, and try not to dress like the lead man in Hot Chip, who seems to encourage wearing inappropriate outfits in appropriate situations.

There you are Chippie...There’s my Chippie.

Technology for Sounds: Pandora Radio

If you haven’t at least looked at Pandora Radio, go there and try it out for the day. www.pandora.com. You set up your music liking and it will really play some great tunes. Like any radio though, it has its drawbacks. You can, however, add friends, see what your friends are listening to, skip songs, view music profiles and offer reviews. Also a Plus: You can put it on your google home page. It’s worth a look and listen.

Some Things Are Funny

Like Bob Dylan and the Pulitzer Prize. You know, right now. At this very moment. That I am writing. “Bob Dylan – Mr. Tambourine Man” is the #3 YouTube rated video. How does stuff like that happen? It seems like news pushing news pushing pop culture is a swirling porcelain fiasco where nothing really advances.

I mean, I went and saw Bob Dylan play this summer. It was awful. If I hadn’t been with my family, I would have left. Him being awful now, doesn’t quite speak to his majesty during the great years, obviously. That sort of backwards logic doesn’t work on me, so don’t even think about giving me the Catholic guilt.

He was awful and that’s that.

Bob Dylan received a special citation for "his profound impact on popular music and American culture, marked by lyrical compositions of extraordinary poetic power." That impact has come and gone. The only impact he is having on young artists now is finding a second career before they turn 70.

What impact is he having now? The #3 Youtube download. In association with his Pulitzer mention, Bob Dylan rises to the top of Youtube with one of his most over-played, easily-interpreted lyrics.

Is anyone else finding this to be crazy? I am. I mean, the song was used in Dangerous Minds as an example. Hey Mr. Tambourine Man, bring me some drugs because that’s what the kids are into.

The true influence here: don’t make anything too hard to understand. If you do, you may get respect for it, and a mention in a Pulitzer Prize ceremony (although he didn’t win anything). But you will be most well known and remembered by your barely-masked drug references

Side note: On Youtube, #2 is “amazing guitar player” (I’m not even going to watch that, although I’m now very tempted to. Someone watch it and let me know if it’s worth my time).

Side note: Sark (European Island) abolished the last remaining feudal system in Europe. This is ironic, if you think about it.

Next Week:

Ghostland Observatory, AIR revisited, Mark Ronson, The Magic Numbers, the Hot Chip Recap, and more gloss for those puckering kissers.