hey you guys know that story about GZA being at SxSW and showing up really late for his set and being completely drunk and forgetting lyrics and just generally giving an awful show? did you know it was because he had been partying it up big style with Bill Murray getting wasted in the middle of the day? true!
check the relationship below from JJ's Coffee and Cigarettes, which you don't need to see really…bu this scene is so amazing. The way he cuts to the close-up when BM says "Wu Tang Clan!" And the little augmented "ting" when the tea cups clink…so much fun…"I wouldn't hold my breath on Ghost"…
and yes, we're in the Bahamas. hopefully it's pretty sweet…I'm setting this up beforehand…it's a charming animation about first crushes…really well done…got it from ze frank, who is awesome…
this is so entertaining…there's definitely a "hey I didn't know this was going on" vibe to it…the music is so hard…and I can't really tell what makes one kid better than the other, but somehow, I can kind of tell…check what the kidz is into:
it's gonna be slim pickens for a little bit yet folks, we're off to the Adairondacks and PA and DC for shooting for the doc, back on Sunday, will resume posting then, don't panic…I will try to keep the pics and good vibes flowing…
meantime, to tide you over here's a picture I made of Tupac's body and Steve Jobs's face.
"If you walk around with the idea that there are some people who are so gifted – they have these wonderful things in their head but you’re not one of them, you’re just a normal sort of person, you could never do anything like that – then you live a different kind of life. You could have another kind of life, where you say, well, I know that things come from nothing very much and start from unpromising beginnings. And I’m an unpromising beginning, and I could start something."
So I'm heading out to the UK for a couple of weeks — if the snowwicaine doesn't spoil my plans, which it probably will — so things may be a little more quiet than usual…I've got a couple of posts scheduled in the queue for next week, and I'm taking my phone, so if I can get the international picture send working, I'll post some pics…
So last night tuesday I went to see Four Tet at Le Poisson Rouge and it was a pretty interesting show. For one thing, it started at 11pm and I'm slowly realizing that I'm not sure I want to do late night shows if I have to go into work in the morning. The crowd was geek-chic, which was cool. The opening guy was really good, I did an iphone film to kind of give you an idea…it's pretty loud on the vid, but you have to imagine it so loud it hurts your ears:
Then Four Tet was good. His stuff was more subtle, more in sync, better produced. Sometimes this had the unfortunate effect of kind of sounding exactly like he sounds on CD, which tends to bore me at live events. But people were dancing, it got hot, the sound system was killer. After a while, I'd had enough. I thought to myself "I've seen enough of this show now to know that no matter how amazing he gets, it's not going to blow me away." I started to head out, got to the stairs, and then he dropped this track:
It stopped me. The bass sample was do deep and great. The sound system there is amazing, and this track came to life in a big way. Amazing.
It also reminded me of this conversation I had with Wall Matthews last June. Wall is one of the owners and the main music writer for Clean Cuts, this audio house we work with a bunch. Great people, and Wall is a totally nice guy, talented. (Plus his kids are these hip hop beat makers who've done beats for 2Pac, Bone Thugs, etc. Legit.)
Anyway, in the 70's, Wall was in this band called The Ensemble or something, with a bunch of other folks. One of the women he was in the band with is now a teacher, and for one of her classes, she did this music appreciation thing where she had her students come in and play a song they liked for the class. Then they'd discuss, etc.
So this one kid comes in and plays a Four Tet track, and she recognizes the guitar part as being sampled from this song that The Ensemble did! She's blown away! Can you imagine? It's so random. You hear this modern electronic track and it has a part from your old band from the 70's. Amazing.
(When Wall told me this story I was well on my way to being drunk (Promax) and I'm pretty sure I over-reacted to it in a completely over-the-top manner. But it is pretty wild.)
She tells Wall, they hunt down the album, and it's confirmed. Then the story takes a old school vs. new school flavor. They get a lawyer and contact Four Tet and basically make him pay some royalties to them for sampling the track. Boooo. When telling me the story Wall was old school adamant "C'mon Josh, he lifted like the entire part! He didn't play anything!" I did my best to make the argument that part of the talent of the sampler (the person who samples) is the ability to dig into a crate of old obscure records and find some great bit and then re-contextualize it. This didn't go down as well as I hoped, but we kind of left it with a "agree to disagree" kind of thing.
This is the track that has the sample, it's a pretty good one:
And then I did a search for Wall and The Ensemble and came up with this gem. The part Four Tet sampled starts around 1:30ish I think. this clip has such a solid freak-out vibe…it's classic. If you know Wall, this is going to blow your mind…if you don't, well, I'm not sure what you'll think…
Anyway, it was a pretty good show, amazing sound, and too late. By the time I got out of there I was so beat…next time I'm gonna look at the show time before buying the tix…
KFan's post on knowing random songs makes me remember…
Lisa and Lars had their wedding out in the middle of rural Maryland, near where Lars's parents had a summer house. It was the middle of nowhere, in a forest by a river. Everyone who attended camped out, the ceremony was held in the forest, and afterwords the reception was held in a clearing in the forest around a giant bonfire. Drinking and much hilarity ensued. I remember at one point we were trying to roast marshmallows but the fire was so huge and fierce that we had to get branches that were like 15 feet long to put the marshmallows on. Otherwise it would scorch your face off.
I was talking for a while to Damien G, who I didn't really know that well. We were well on the way to being drunk, and somehow got to talking about how awesome Danny Kaye is (I would love to read a transcript as to how we got to that point!)…this led to me bringing up the best DK film, The Court Jester. When my family lived in the UK and had just gotten our first VCR, one of the first things we taped was a Channel 4 airing of The Court Jester, and my sister and I would watch that thing over and over. We got to the point where we could do most of the dialogue, and pretty much all of the songs. When we came back to the US, my dad got a special VCR and TV so we could still watch PAL VHS tapes, and KT and I would have a viewing every now and then.
When I brought it up to Damien he exclaimed how much HE loved the film too. And then we were off, singing the songs and stumbling around. It was amazing, our knowledge was so solid, we were rocking the songs so hard. Everyone else was looking at us like, what the hell? It was like a moment out of a musical brought to life. You know? Like those moments where everything was moving like normal life and then suddenly 2 characters burst into song and somehow they know all the words. It was amazing.
(the last time I saw The Court Jester was fantastic, Maxine put together a whole surprise birthday for me at a Diner and everyone at the party watched it while we ate onion rings and drank milkshakes…)
Even now I sometimes find myself singing the main Jester song to myself. I mean, check the rhyme scheme, it's so sweet…say it out loud, feel how well constructed it is:
when I was a lad, I was gloomy and sad as I was from the day I was born
when other babes gurgled and giggled and wiggled, I loudly was proudly forlorn
this slice of nostalgia and niceness and decency and good old-fashioned humor should make up for the creepiness of the previous post, right?
When I was 13 the pinncle of my life so far was walking downtown with Amber Stein on Wednesdays after school. She was blonde, pretty and in with the popular kids. We were only pals because I sat next to her in biology and I could make her laugh by cracking jokes about Mr. Loy’s armpit stains.
I had a huge crush on Amber and it was exciting to spend that half hour with her every week. I was heading downtown anyway because Wednesday was when the new comics came out at the Twilite Zone. After seeing Amber to her door, I would go get that week’s comics and then head over to the Market House where you could get a paper bowl full of thick-cut potato fries for a couple of bucks. The Market House didn’t have seats, but you could stand by one of the big windows overlooking Main Street, and that’s what I’d do, standing there eating potatoes and reading comics and basking in the afterglow of Amber Stein’s presence.
One walk home in particular I remember because she had really bad menstrual cramps and she told me about them. This was weirdly thrilling to the 13 year old me. She asked if I wanted to know what they felt like and I said yes. She took her fist and slowly pushed it into my stomach. It kind of hurt, but I couldn’t believe it! Touching!
Nothing ever came of the crush. I was too nervous, and 13, and really actually more into the comics and the potatoes, both of which seemed a lot safer and less nerve-wracking than Amber Stein.
Later, at our 15 year High School reunion I felt the need to go all sitcom cliché and tell her that I had had a huge crush on her. I told my friend Dave M that this is what I was going to do and he said it was a bad idea. I went over to her. I was wearing a sandy brown turtleneck sweater.
“Hey Amber.”
“Oh, hey Josh.”
“Hey Amber, you know, I just wanted to let you know, I mean, back in junior high when we used to hang out, I had the biggest crush on you.”
“Wow, what do you do now, you look dressed like you’re a writer. You wanna know what I do? I’m a personal care assistant. I go to old people’s homes and wipe their asses basically. It fucking sucks. I get paid to clean up old people’s shit. Can you believe it?”
I got out of there.
When I told Dave M how it all went down he burst out laughing. Thinking about it now it seems weird to me that these two heavily weighted memories of Amber Stein both have to do with bodily functions. Something primal there, fluids and all that.
So after spending all day yesterday in the airport, we finally got on a plane. And after spending a while sitting on that plane, we finally took off. We waited hours and hours, just to fly for approx 1 hour flight time. We landed in Philly and it was a weird ghost town. The rest of the US Air flights to NYC were canceled, and after a showdown with a rep to try and get us on a Continental flight we finally admitted defeat, rented a car and spent the rest of the longest night of the year driving home.
Where we arrived late last night. Nice. Dropped the rental back at JFK today, and picked up our bags, which had made it to New York even though we couldn’t. When I saw those bags I was so amazed…
Well nature, it’s been fun, thanks for playing, we’ll see you next time…
