putting the j in jjosh

Are you familiar with the case? I know some of you are. The case shows up when you’ve had too much of a good time and haven’t given your brain a chance to catch up. Maybe it’s a massive weekend, maybe too many intoxicants, maybe too much mind-blowing good times. Come Monday morning, welcome to the case. It should probably have a capital C, welcome to the Case. Usage is like a noun: "I’ve got a huge Case." "My Case was evil and unstoppable" etc.

Well let me tell you about the epic Case I’ve got going on. We got back from our mind-buggling vacation yesterday morning after taking the red-eye back from San Francisco. Today I went back to work after a biggg break. And it’s evil hot, and the subway is disgusting, and after being West Coast for so long, everyone here seems so uptight.

Plus, how’m I meant to go back to regular life (bills, work, subway fares, taxes) after seeing what I’ve seen in the past 10 days (Shelagh in Portland, Roscoe’s Wedding, bonfire on the beach, the OR Country fair, the OR coast, a flock of feeding pelicans, sea lions, seals, elk, otter, the prehistoric Fern Canyon, the OR dunes, camping in the Redwoods, the CA coast, mud baths, Sonoma wine tasting, San Francisco partying with Z&G)?

My Case is epic. Nothing seems to matter. Nothing is good. Like Versus said, there’s tunnel at the end of the light.

The only things keeping me from bashing in my own head with a hammer are two tracks I got from the trip.

The first track we heard in a store in Portland, OR…just some random clothes place playing this dope track. It’s by Lateef and The Chief; Lateef from Latryx, and The Chief from Blackalicious. The bass is so solid, and the rap is so flowy in that Bay Area style (Lyrics Born, Latyrx, Blackalicious, Gift of gab, etc.)…

Ambush – Lateef and The Chief

The other track we heard right at the end of the trip, in San Francisco. Hanging with Z&G, and G telling us about how they go to all these parties where DJ’s are giving out free promo CD’s. They got this one from a DJ named Motion Potion (turns out he’s pretty well established and revered), and it was so good I ripped it from him on the spot. No clue what the track names are, but this one mashes up a vocal by Lyrics Born over some amazing, analog-sounding synths and beat. While we were walking around with Z&G, G kept saying "everybody move, nobody get hurt", and now I know why. This track is fantastic.

Motion Potion – Track 6

If I were in a normal frame of mind, these tracks would make me dance around the room. As it is, I’m lucky to be able to nod my head to the beat. There will be a bigger post about our trip coming, right now I’m in no mood.

Case.

In the summer of 2006, before I went out to Burning Man solo, JG & JW gave me this track that they promised would blow my mind. I put it on my mp3 player and took it out to the desert, not knowing a thing about it…oh, and it came with instructions. While digging though camping gear to get ready for the OR trip, I recently came across the print-out of the instructions…they read:

Suggestions from Jon and I

1. Don’t force it

2. HOWEVER, need to have a good place to listen, solid sound system needed, high volume needed, 13 minutes of focus needed, YOU MUST GO FROM START TO FINISH and music heads a must.

3. Don’t let losers in, you must prepare for a ride and people can’t be borrowing you or the others listening.

4. It is A LOT to wrap your head around so be ready to travel

5. Thank the lord for music

6. Be someone

Now let’s face it, these are powerful instructions. I obeyed them to the letter and ended up listening to it in the middle of the desert, sunrise after the man burned, headphones pumped, watching a giant flower-crane machine on wheels drive around the desert in the early morning sun. My mind was totally blown.

And here’s you chance to share in the joy. Normally I would put it on the blog so you could play it right here, but that would sort of fly in the face of the instructions, wouldn’t it? But here’s a link to download it. Obviously, I won’t be around to make sure you follow the instructions, and maybe you’ll just download it and play it right on your PC, or in your car on the way home from work, but I’m telling you, follow those instructions and a good time will be had by all.

Instructions number 1 and number 6 are the keys here…enjoy!

Ultimate 13 Min Track from Jo(h)ns

(right-click to download, then follow instructions above)

Oh, also if anyone knows what this track is, we’d love to know!

(photo from redteam’s Flikr)

Sometimes you hit a dry spell where you don’t find any good music for a while. And then sometimes you hit a vein of gold and for a little bit you find track after track after track. Coming right on the heels of that fantastic Flying Lotus track, check out this good summer vibe, courtesy of Motion Man, from Cocaineblunts‘ muxtape…

Motion Man – Mo Like Flows On (12" Remix)

Don’t worry everyone, I’ve been to the future, and everything’s fine. I recently returned from the year 2117, and I can tell you that you don’t need to worry, Li’l Wayne is still recording, only now his beats are all glitched up and shimmery. I don’t know how they make that future music, but it sure is grandiose…

Flying Lotus feat Li’l Wayne – Robo Tussin

Beautiful animation done to sync with a semi-legendary interview with John Lennon. According to the youtube post:

In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon’s hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it.

Hi-er-res so may take a moment to load. Good stuff. Time to piss for peace.

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Well the story is a little complicated, and I didn’t do too much internet research, but it seems that in the 80’s, this animatronic band called The Rock-afire Explosion was manufactured for use in a chain of pizza places called Showbiz Pizza Place. The band was life-sized and huge, and they would play popular songs of the day.

Wikipedia says the band’s merchandise is still popular and shows up on ebay…

Recently some guys have gotten ahold of one of the bands and have been re-programming it to play contemporary songs…they have a page where you can "bid" for what you want the next song to be, which is a little weird, but hey, it’s the internet…if you really care, there’s a little mini-doc about the band (and their battle with a certain Chuck E. Cheese) here…

The band’s performances range from so-so to super sweet. I can’t stand this Usher song but somehow when it’s performed by a bear, gorilla, dog and bird it really cooks…

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This is how the web works. Dana Desko — who has a pretty badass blog of his own — shoots me a link to the ultra-modern new site for design firm Modernista. It’s amazing, all meta and web 2.0 and so on, check it out, it’s really smart, if a little tough to figure out. From there I check their work on youtube. Turns out they did a music video, "Window in the Skies", for U2, which is pretty darn amazing. It came out in 2006, but I’ve never heard of the song, or seen this video. There’s something about that fluid feeling of clicking links, moving seamlessly from one idea to the next and then suddenly arriving at the sublime…it’s a feeling only made possible by the net…

I wonder if future artists will find a way to use that feeling to really move us, the way a book or a film or a poem or a painting can. Perhaps we’re still analagous to the era when films were just movies of plays.

Well, until then, at least we’ve got U2.

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I mean really, only a band like U2 could afford to license all that, right? It’s cool that they went ahead and did it though.

Why do I like musicals? Is it simply because my parents bombarded my sister and I with soundtracks to Cats, Les Miz and a dozen Gilbert & Sullivans? Is it something bigger, like my general love for old-timey things, or the nostalgia for an age before I was born? Does it have to do with the innocence that musicals have, the general tone of joy that fills acting when it has to break into song?

Whatever the reason, if it’s a good musical, I’m into it. When it was fleet week a little while back, every time I saw a sailor in manhattan, I thought he was gonna break into a tune from On the Town. Sometime i wanna go out in New York, and do like that On the Town poster says: "Paint the town with joy!"

Now don’t get me wrong, I won’t like a film JUST because it’s a musical, it has to be good as well. And just like there are relatively few good dramas, or comedies, or action films, there are relatively few good film musicals. But c’mon, you can’t knock Singin’ In the Rain, West Side Story, Les Miz, or Sweeney Todd (that Depp/Burton one was great!)…

Tonight in the park across from our house they’re going to be doing a sort of Screen on the Green thing where they will show 1776, a two and a half hour musical about the founding fathers. One of them is played by that guy who was in Magnum and is the voice of K.I.T.T. on Knight Rider. Maxine was all set to come see the film until she heard what it was going to be, and I have to say, I don’t blame her — if you’re not into musicals at all, this doesn’t sound like it would be a good time.

But I thought you should get a little taste of it to see what you think…I’ve never seen it, so I can’t wait…in case you hate musicals I’ve spared you the singing in this clip…and it’s short…

Maxine can’t believe that I’m posting this at all…wants to go on the record that she thinks it is "boring as hell."

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There’s a proliferation these days of music videos that fairly grab you by the lapels and scream "look how clever! forward on to all of your friends!! post it on your blog!! now!!!" And while it often comes off as a blatant marketing move, when it’s done with style, and actually is, you know, clever, I have to appreciate it. And then, you know (again), forward it on to all my friends. Or post it on my blog.

This video, Naive New Beaters "Live Good", comes from a metafilter post, and the comments on it hint at both sides of this equation — from "how neat!" to "I’m so tired of this kind of crap." Many metafilterites hate the song, and I will say watching it without the audio is just as effective (though maybe not for the band).

Much as our parents’ generation derided the effect that MTV had on editing (faster cuts, more eye candy, louder), I can imagine a future in which we deride the way artworks become more and more "look at me!!!" in an attempt to stand out on a crowded playing field. And the kids of today will all say "are you kidding? that’s what makes it awesome!" Or whatever they say instead of "awesome". Maybe the new word will be "grandiose".

"That’s what makes it grandiose, yo!"

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I recently saw the excellent film by Penelope Spheris, The Decline of Western Civilization Part II. Part I was a documentary about the early LA punk scene, and it was unbelievably good. Hunt it down, the performances are stunning and seeing burnt-up stars like Darby Crash at their zenith is so energizing. Great great film.

Part II takes a look at the 1988 metal scene in LA. It’s a lot funnier than Part I, because hair metal is just naturally more hilarious than raw punk. Poison have become big stars, Ace Frehley of KISS is interviewed on a bed full of girls, everyone talks about how intensely they’re into drinks, drugs and sex, Aerosmith talk like they’re the biggest thing ever. Guns n Roses get a random mention at one point, but it’s in the context of all the bands currently playing LA trying to make it big.

And that’s one of the most poignant aspects of this doc — that there are so many bands profiled or mentioned who are so determined to make it big, and now, with the hindsight of history, we know that they won’t. Where are these folks now? There’s a sadness, and an irony, but also a strange sense of maturity that comes from seeing so many bands play out variations on this conversation:

PENELOPE: So what if you don’t make it?

BAND: That’s not an option. I will make it. There’s no alternative.

Maturity because I think, well, they didn’t make it, so they must have had to change that dream, or realize that the exuberance of youth is sometimes not enough to make the dream come true. You also need a healthy amount of luck. Rock is for the young, as others have been noting.

I wanted to show one of the bands so you could get a sense of what I’m talking about. For a bunch of reasons I chose this band called Odin. They seem to have it all, poised to break big. They’ve got the look, the girls, the Budweisers in the hot tub, the awesome old-school manager in a suit, oh yeah, and the ASSLESS CHAPS. The only problem is that their music is terrible…

…but somehow it’s still fun to watch them.

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Penelope Spheeris would go on to direct Wayne’s World, Beverly Hillbillies, Black Sheep and many other weak films.

It is now summer. Let us celebrate in two ways:

First, by song,

(yo la tengo – the summer)

and then, by poem (this poem is amazing! the ending is so fierce!):

The Summer Day

by Mary Oliver   

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung

herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating

sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws

back and forth instead of up and down-

who is gazing around with

her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale

forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings

open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what

a prayer is.

I do know how to pay

attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to

kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and

blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been

doing all day.

Tell me, what else should

I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at

last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you

plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

Yes, I have had a job where I had to blur out the naughty bits. It is both more and less fun than you would think.

This is genius v. clever.

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The track is "Toe Jam" by The Brighton Port Authority (BPA) feat. David Byrne and Dizzy Rascal.

Wow, that’s quite a "featuring" section, huh? The BPA myspace has more songs on it, with witty titles like "Should I Stay or Should I Blow". Nice.

EDIT – my first sentence refers to a job in the past…I didn’t actually make this music vid, as much as I would love to lay claim to it…

As I move more and more out of the realm of various intoxicants (and into the realm of various antioxidants) I find the I have more respect for art that is able to transport me to that same, mind-blowing realm while I’m stone-cold sober. I tried to do it with the PhD mix and I feel like I was able to get pretty close. As much as I am a fan of the idea of "Taking Drugs to Make Music to Take Drugs To", these days it seems more badass to me if you can conjure up that feeling while straight-minded. In the daytime. Drinking water.

This song by "Milkshake" by Holy Fuck is doing a great job at that. Jack gave me the album when we visited NC in May and I’ve been giving it a thorough listen. This track sort of takes over my mind by force in the beginning, only to relax its grip once the vibes kick in. It’s fantastic.

(Holy Fuck – Milkshake)

In the same vein, I recently revisited the animated film "American Pop" by Ralph Bakshi. Bakshi gets (sort of) a bum rap in the world of animation, I guess mainly because his stories are pretty thin, his animation takes cheap short-cuts, and I’ve heard he’s kind of a jerk. (Plus he made "Fritz the Cat", which I haven’t seen but is notable for being the first X-rated animated film…) He also made the first "Lord of the Rings" film back in the 80’s. It’s not very good.

Be that as it may, when I first saw American Pop — a rotoscoped low-fi animation sort of history of popular American music — I was appropriately under the influence and was totally blown away. The rotoscoping looked amazing, the songs that appeared were unexpected and awesome ("People Are Strange", "I’m Waiting For My Man"?! "Pretty Vacant"?!), and the pizza I was eating was delicious.

Upon re-viewing, however, it didn’t hold up so well. The story was kind of a joke, the animation is still pretty neat, but the parts where he cheaped out are more obvious. The songs are still good, but when the story is that meaningless the songs are kind of beside the point. The look of it is pretty cool though, and it’s rotoscoping way before Linklater thought up A Scanner Darkly or Waking Life…

When I first saw it, the film’s final scene totally blew me away. I was so caught up in the psychedelic majesty of it all. Now? Well, parts of it still hold up, but wow the very end is kind of embarrassing…I do love the bit early on where he’s handing out the music and he says "Pass ’em out, turkey!" People should still call each other "turkey", it’s such an endearing put-down…

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It’s been a long time since I listened to one track on repeat over and over and over again. I think the first time was in college, pulling an all-nighter to finish a report for a speech I had to give in History 102, taking Vivarin (first and last time) and listening to David Bowie’s "Heroes" (the full version) over and over and over and over and over. What a night. Needless to say, my speech was really really weird.

All the speeches given up to that point had been really dry, and since the grade was half from the professor, and half from student evaluations, I figured I should make my speech kind of funny, you know? So I wrote in all these "jokes". Let me be the first to tell you that jokes written in the middle of an all-nighter on Vivarin are not going to be funny. At best they will be odd. So I gave my speech, red-eyed and fried, and babbling incoherently about how the German soldiers of World War One wore funny hats. I can remember thinking it was strange that no-one was laughing at the funny bits. My friend PatH who was in the class later told me that it wasn’t making any sense.

Sure enough, when I had slept and re-read my speech, it was a mess.

Lately, I’ve been listening to "The Low Murderer is Out at Night" on repeat 1 and it’s been great. The song is kind of a mini-suite, going through several movements, each of which adds on the previous one.

Initially it’s a bit like Air, with an acoustic guitar groove and bubbling electronics. Around 2 minutes in, a distorted guitar and funkier beat get added. At the 3 minute mark a sweet Floyd-esque solo comes sweeping in and I feel the presence of JWilmeth is hanging out with me. So good. I once read this description of a track by Country Joe and the Fish and it said something like "at the 2 minute mark, suddenly the walls begin to melt." That’s how it feels, the wall begin to melt. Then the vocal sample, and the dirrrty synth at 5:15 and we’re in it deep, you know?

Loving it.

(Low Motion Disco – The Low Murderer Is Out At Night)

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I think this is the best mix I’ve done. Started in October, this is officially 2007’s mix, but you can dig it in 2008! It leans heavily on mashups and hiphop, because that’s where I think the most interesting and innovative music is happening these days…

Enjoy! Lemme know whatcha think…

(right-click or ctrl-click to download zip file of audio mp3s and cover art jpg)

Psychedelic Hiphop Dubplate

UPDATE – it has been suggested that I should point out that I made a lot of the mashups myself…enjoy!