putting the j in jjosh

Sf

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)

Well Maxine and I are off to OR for Roscoe’s wedding, and then spending a week driving down the coast to SF, where we hope to meet up with Zanna & Greg (still haven’t heard from them tho)…if we’re lucky, we’ll be able to camp in the Redwoods, and with a bit more luck any cam phone pix I take on the trip will make it onto the blog here…

see you on the other side…

Maxine in roses

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

Shelagh also has chickens in her backyard.

Shelagh has a functional bath outside!

Roscoe pointed out to me a while ago that the Rza has started Wuchess.com, where Wu-Tang chessheads can join up and play each other…now, here comes an NYT vid of a game between Rza and the New York Times chess editor, Dyan Loeb McCain…

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and here’s a link to the game they played…you can go through it in steps to see how it went…I’m not that good at chess, but it looks like Rza holds his own pretty well…

On the door locks of a cadillac coupe de ville

With 4.5 million youtube views since it was posted on June 20th, a New York Times piece, and links on every link blog, it’s possible that Matt Harding’s dance vid needs no help from me to get itself passed around the internet…

And yet, like the NYT says:

However you interpret it, you can’t watch “Dancing” for very long without feeling a little happier.

In case you’ve missed this slice of happiness, here it is.

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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 on vimeo, via kottke…the effect is pleasing on the eyes, though a bit difficult to describe to people…the maker of the video describes it like this:

The image is digitally manipulated by fragmenting it into horizontal lines and then combining lines from different frames in the display. The result is a distorsion of the figures caused by their motion in time, or, as Brazilian researcher Arlindo Machado calls it: chronotopic anamorphosis.

It’s not long, doesn’t have any audio, and totally worth it for the door trick at the end…

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