I love la la

For the past couple of weeks, I've been trying out a new CD service called la la. I'll leave it to them to explain how it all works, but needless to say it's a cool system that makes trading legal CDs easy, cheap, and still manages to give back twenty percent of the revenues to the artists. The more I use it and the more I think about it, I'm certain it's genius.

Imagine Netflix combined with peer to peer networking, except with CDs instead of DVDs or MP3s, and you're getting pretty close. Throw in an interface that's like a Flickr-ized version of Amazon and you're pretty much there.

I've put close to 400 discs on my have list and about 375 on my want list, and have already traded around 40 CDs. Very cool.

Membership is limited currently since they're still in beta, but if you want an invite I'm happy to share one of the few I have left. All I ask in return is that you be generous with your own invites when you get them.

Jamie in the basement

Super-technodelic one-man soul explosion Jamie Lidell will be the guest on the June 18th episode of MTV2's Subterranean. I encourage all of you to suffer through host Jim Shearer's painful presence in order to discover what a natural born entertainer Jamie is.

If you haven't discovered Jamie's addictive soul drenched debut disc Multiply, then you need to get with it immediately. I got to catch the second half of his set at Coachella a few months ago, and it was easily one of this year's highlights for me. I managed to snap a few pictures from the back of the tent, but there's no way to capture the fun and energy of his one-man show -- you just have to see it to believe it.

He's also just released an EP of remixes and new renditions called (cleverly enough) Multiply Additions. Haven't had a chance to hear it yet myself, but rumor has it the Luke Vibert remix of “A Little Bit More” is the show-stealer.

“...Cooler than cool”

Coldcut - True Skool

Speaking of Coldcut, here's the video for one of my favorite tracks off Sound Mirrors. Hard not to like anything with Roots Manuva...

Fear the Tobin!

Amon Tobin - Forthcoming album (trailer#1)



New ominous and wonderful sounds (and images!) from Amon Tobin. As always, I can't wait!

Festival madness

The other day I was sharing my pictures from this year's Coachella Festival with a friend in the UK, when he mentioned that he was going to “the Scottish version.” Sure enough, he is. I've never heard of T In The Park (living the sheltered American life that I do) but it looks like a hell of a lineup.

Wish I could be there...then maybe I could finally see Coldcut live (may you never be forced to choose between seeing Coldcut, Massive Attack or Mogwai). Their latest album was a terrific mish-mash of sounds and styles, with guest vocalists galore. Not that's a studio release would resemble one of their legendary live v/dj sets -- how do you possibly get the lawyers to let you release something like that? Come to think of it, I've got no idea how they were able to re-release Journeys By DJ: 70 Minutes Of Madness. It's wall-to-wall pop culture plundering musical nirvana!

Fame and its price

My pal Mike is famous today.

Blog@Newsarama picked up an item from the local paper on the imminent closure of our only comics shop. Mike has been working at Time Warp in Longmont for some time and managing the place for about a year now. There's no doubt the store has been suffering financially for some time, but Wayne the owner is finally throwing in the towel and concentrating on his other store in Boulder.

There's been a lot of discussion about the reasons for the failure of the shop, many of which are expressed in the article. I'll refrain from expressing my personal opinions on that topic for the time being, but let me just say that Mike is exceptionally good at his job and with his customers.

Aware of the coming closure, me and my friend Mark switched to ordering our comics online from MyComicShop.com a couple of months ago. I have to say that the service and customer experience is top notch, and I get a better discount there than I've ever gotten from a brick-and-mortar comics shop.

What's missing is the human interaction: that longstanding ritual of stopping by the shop to pick up that week's arrivals and chatting with your favorite staff members and fellow addicts about all the ins and outs of our various fictional worlds. So nowadays Mark and I geek when we can, and get together with Mike for beers and comics chat every month or so.

Not quite the same, but we also never got to drink beer in the shop.

What's going on here?

Welcome to Telephasic Workshop, lovingly christened after the Boards of Canada track of the same name (Brian Eno's “St. Elmo's Fire” had already been claimed by another enterprising blogger).

I've had a personal blog at LiveJournal for many years now, but about middle of last year I just stopped posting. The original idea was to use it as a means to stay in touch with friends and family, but over time I found that I wasn't so much interested in sharing the latest update on the wife, the cat or the job as I was about the latest CD, comic or movie I'd discovered. After a year of not blogging at all, I've got the craving to share my opinion again and it's gonna be all pop culture all the time, without the life stuff getting in the way.

What you can expect to see here are reviews and bits of news regarding music, comics, books, television, movies, the web, whatever. If it's interesting to me, I'm happy to share my opinion...because like, you know, mine's the best. Having said that, we're all going to have a lot more fun here if you chime in too. And if you find out about something that you like, I wouldn't mind if you bought it through one of my links so I get a tiny little kickback.

So anyway, that's that. On with the show!