Tops of My Pops for 12/24/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Dec. 24, 2006
1. Outkast
2. Coldcut
2. The Flaming Lips
4. Bonobo
4. Syntaks
4. Josh Rouse
7. Home Video
8. TV on the Radio
8. Public Enemy
10. Junior Boys

In the home stretch this week for catching up on 2006 releases...

FYI Dept:

1. Biggest news this week (if you're mrkvm) is that U2 has finally been pushed out of my Overall Top Ten Artists by none other than Spoon. w00t!
   

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Tops of My Pops for 12/17/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Dec. 17, 2006
1. Bonobo
2. Moloko
3. Sondre Lerche & The Faces Down Quartet
4. J Dilla
4. Dub Tractor
4. Jurassic 5
7. Syntaks
7. Peeping Tom
7. Roots Manuva
7. Mogwai

Continuing my efforts to listen through all my unrated 2006 tracks I'm realizing that Bonobo's latest, Days To Come, is a fine piece of work. His songwriting skills have really matured over the years, to the point where he now makes it all sound effortless. Don't let the smoothness fool you though – there's a magic touch behind it all.

Similarly, Dub Tractor's and Syntaks' releases this year (Hideout and Awakes, respectively) didn't click with me at all on the first few listens but as I've spent more time with each they've really grown on me. I think the lesson here is for me to not let the more subtle releases slip by unexamined.

FYI Dept:

1. Sondre Lerche's Duper Sessions is fun enough, but it's not the joy to hear that Two Way Monologue was.
2. I've tried and I've tried, and I just can't get into J Dilla's Donuts. I know I have shamed mrkvm by saying this.
3. Feedback, the new one from J5, isn't as bad as all that...but we've all come to expect a much higher level of game from these guys.
4. I actually kinda like Peeping Tom, one of this year's Mike Patton releases – I respect both Patton and his high profile guest stars for getting out there and getting weird. I know I have shamed mrkvm by saying this as well.
   

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

DJ Shadow's new video is Nintendo-riffic!

"This Time (I'm Gonna Try It My Way)", DJ Shadow's latest video off The Outsider was visualized by one of his fans as part of a competition. The winner is both cute and hilarious, using an animation style straight off an 8-bit Nintendo.

Watch it here.

Tops of My Pops for 12/10/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Dec. 10, 2006
1. Prince Paul
2. Burial
3. Harold Budd
4. Fat Jon & Styrofoam
5. Massive Attack
5. Harold Budd, Simon Raymonde, Robin Guthrie & Elizabeth Fraser
7. Trüby Trio
8. Kruder & Dorfmeister
9. Shriekback
9. The Stooges

As I mentioned last week, I'm trying to spend some serious time lately listening to unrated music in my library. The end result is my charts are looking more bizarre than usual. In that spirit I worked my way through Prince Paul's Psychoanalysis (What Is It?) and Itstrumental (the latter of which I think is the stronger album), as well as various unrated catalog tracks by Harold Budd, Trüby Trio, K&D, and Shriekback.

Listened to and enjoyed Fat Jon & Styrofoam's collaboration The Same Channel, finally got to hear the b-sides disc of Massive Attack's Collected (the DualDisc wouldn't fit in the drive slot of my PowerBook so I had to get a friend to rip it for me), and had a few minutes of nostalgia with The Stooges' first album. Burial is still sounding awesome.

FYI Dept:

1. The Moon And The Melodies is nearly my favorite Cocteau Twins album, even though it's technically a collaboration with Harold Budd.

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Tops of My Pops for 12/3/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Dec. 3, 2006
1. Outkast
2. Clark
2. Icebreaker International & Manual
4. Speedy J
4. Moloko
6. David Bowie
6. Marvin Gaye
6. Underworld
6. Tears for Fears
6. Sondre Lerche

The big news this week is Clark's fantastic new release, Body Riddle. I remember him from several years back when he still went by his full name, but the music was simply solid IDM -- breaking no new ground. On this one he's freed himself from most of the trappings of IDM altogether and has taken a huge leap forward into a unique new style, almost a strangely organic/electronic sound. Definitely worth seeking out!

FYI Dept:

1. This is the second time Outkast has topped my charts since I started posting them here. I wouldn't read too much into it though, as I'm making a concerted effort to rate my unrated tunes lately.
   
2. Icebreaker International & Manual's Into Forever remains, four years after it's release, one of my favorite ambient albums.

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Tops of My Pops for 11/26/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Nov. 26, 2006
1. Burial
2. Doubting Thomas
2. Aceyalone
4. Renegade Soundwave
5. Underworld
6. Imogen Heap
7. Tears for Fears
8. Public Image Ltd.
8. Steely Dan
10. My Bloody Valentine

Burial is a mystery. He's refused to reveal his identity, and has barely even spoken publicly (here's an interview from March 2006 – the only one I could find). To make matters worse, there's at least one death metal band of the same name. But this Burial is electronica (dubstep if you're keeping score) and like some of the very best albums, it's taken me awhile to really get into his self-titled debut and discover how great it is. My buddy mrkvm deserves all the credit for bringing it to my attention and pestering me to listen.

Going to have to miss seeing Imogen Heap live in Denver next week due to a very annoying work conflict, but rumor has it that her live shows are even better than her great DIY solo album, Speak For Yourself.

FYI Dept:

1. The only good thing happening on Tears For Fears' Saturnine Martial & Lunatic album is the spot-on cover of "Ashes To Ashes".
   
2. Steely Dan's The Royal Scam album does not hold up well at all thirty years later.

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Beta baby!

Google finally allowed me to switch this blog over to the Blogger Beta today -- awesome!

That is all.

Tops of My Pops for 11/19/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Nov. 19, 2006
1. The Meters
2. DJ Shadow
2. Rae & Christian
4. The Underwolves
5. Massive Attack
6. Beastie Boys
7. Radiohead
7. Meat Beat Manifesto
7. Kanye West
7. Iron & Wine

In the interest of catching up(!) I'm going to skip comments this time around. See you next week!

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Tops of My Pops for 11/12/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Nov. 12, 2006
1. Renegade Soundwave
2. K-OS
3. Underworld
4. Bonobo
5. Jamie Lidell
6. David Bowie
7. Squarepusher
7. Massive Attack
7. DJ Shadow
7. Primal Scream

Ah, the glory that was Renegade Soundwave...I just never get tired of those guys. Snagged a copy of RSW 1987-1995 and have been enjoying hearing all those old favorite remixes. Truly, they were far ahead of their time.

I went on an iTunes Store spree and picked up four Underworld EPs from the Beaucoup Fish era: Bruce Lee, Jumbo, Push Upstairs and King of Snake. There are some great reworkings in the batch like "King of Snake (Fatboy Slim Remix)", along with a few duds like "Bruce Lee (Buffalo Daughter Remix)" but I don't regret the convenience of being about to download these hard to find goodies with the click of a mouse.

Can't wait for the new k-os disc to drop in the states. In the meantime, I'm just rockin' the old stuff....

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Tops of My Pops for 11/5/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Nov. 5, 2006
1. Severed Heads
2. Mocean Worker
2. Squarepusher
4. Massive Attack
4. Leftfield
6. Cocteau Twins
6. Public Enemy
6. Outputmessage
9. TV On The Radio
9. The Meters

Spent most of the week checking out new (old) arrivals from la la....

Been enjoying a bit of Severed Heads nostalgia, especially the classic Come Visit The Big Bigot, and have also filled a gap in my collection with my recent acquisition of 1991's Cuisine (with Piscatorial). Good solid stuff from that period -- makes me sorry I didn't grab it fifteen years ago!

Got a copy of Mocean Worker's debut release, Home Movies From The Brainforest. The guy makes thoroughly enjoyable jazztronica, so if you're into that sort of thing and are looking for a good place to start with him, I strongly recommend grabbing Enter The Mowo!, his most recent and most accomplished.

Found someone willing to trade me their copy of Leftfield's Dusted single, which features the ubiquitous Roots Manuva. The original version appears on Rhythm And Stealth, but this EP includes remixes by Howie B, The X-Ecutioners and Si Begg. In case you were wondering, there's never been a track couldn't be improved by some RM vocals.

Continuing to obsess over Squarepusher's brilliant Hello Everything and am continuing to dig into TV On The Radio's Return To Cookie Mountain. No shortage of great new (new) music this year!

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Jamie Lidell – Live Goodness!

Saw Jamie Lidell in concert last night at the Larimer Lounge in Denver with pal Mark & wife Heather – what a great show!

Hadn't been to the Larimer Lounge before, but it was suitably fun indie hipster kinda dive bar. From the website and the posters on the walls, it looked like most of Denver's local bands have played there at one time or another.

The crowd was a little thin when the opening act, the incomparable Snax, came on stage. The place soon filled up as the crowd started bumpin' to Snax's one man disco-funk explosion. The guy had absolutely no fear and it showed. I can totally understand why Jamie decided to bring him out on tour.

After a short break Mr. Lidell jumped on the stage in his leopard-spotted velvet hoodie and black spectacles and just tore the house down. If you haven't seen him live just get your ass out there and find him, because he is an amazing performer. Sometimes he'll sing to a preprogrammed musical accompaniment, but more often than not he'll build the track from the ground up using only his voice and his rig to loop up a killer track right there live on stage. And besides the fact that he's a musical chameleon, he's got a fantastic voice like Sam Cooke would be proud of.

Great performers, great show, great night!

(Photo © clayhawkley. All rights reserved.)

Tops of My Pops for 10/29/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Oct. 29, 2006
1. DJ Cam
2. Squarepusher
2. Richard Cheese
4. Amon Tobin
5. David Bowie
6. Primal Scream
7. Depeche Mode
8. Moloko
8. Lamb
8. Greater Than One

Squarepusher's still holding his own with Hello Everything, being the only really new thing in my Top Ten this week. What a fantastic album – and it just gets better with every spin!

Looking at the oldies, I just got a new copy of DJ Cam's DJ-Kicks thanks to la la. I enjoyed this mix considerably more than I did back when it was first released in 1997. I liked downtempo and trip hop as much if not more back then as I do now, but for some reason his French take on the scene just didn't work for me back then.

Received Richard Cheese's 2002 opus Tuxicity as well. Nobody can kick a lounge version of "Baby Got Back" like Dick.

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Google Mobile

If you have a mobile phone with internet access, you really owe it to yourself to check out the new upgrades to Google Mobile. Our Google Masters have so elegantly packaged and streamlined their whole suite of mobile access functions that all you really have to do is enter your number and they'll send a link directly to your phone that does the rest.

If you ever use Google, Gmail, Google Maps, or Google News it's totally worth the 60 seconds to download and install. I can't tell you how many times having Google Maps on my Blackberry has saved me!

Tops of My Pops for 10/22/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Oct. 22, 2006
1. Four Tet
2. Squarepusher
3. Eagles Of Death Metal
4. Junior Boys
5. Pop Will Eat Itself
6. Kanye West
7. David Bowie
8. Public Enemy
8. The Infesticons
8. Underworld

On the new music front, Squarepusher's excellent new album Hello Everything is, well...excellent. Lots of tasters from all his many different styles and moods, but almost all of it injected with a little sunshine. Much has been made of the "lightness" of this release, but with an artist like Tom Jenkins it's never dumbed down for mass consumption. All in all amazing to see that he's nowhere near running out of ideas here at album number ten!

Got ahold of a copy of Four Tet's DJ-Kicks finally, and I have to say I find it to be a more satisfying mix than his Late Night Tales contribution. Received Death By Sexy by Eagles Of Death Metal a week or so ago, and I have to say I'm enjoying it at least as much as Peace Love Death Metal, which is to say a hell of a lot more than I expected in either case.

I also broke down and tried out the online store at la la, by buying a copy of the "Hero Theme" single by The Infesticons (aka Mike Ladd). A favorite track of mine already, this disc came with with some nice remixes as well, and proof that the la la retail option is pretty darned painless.

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Grant Morrison in rare form!

Here's a great Grant Morrison piece I found on Google Video (unfortunately I can't recall who tipped me to it). Witness the quaint description accompanying the upload:

A scottish man talks about magic, aliens and individualism. This is the shit. Everyone must watch.

This appears to be sometime circa the Invisibles era, as he doesn't much talk about this stuff lately – although he's still happily slipping it into his subversive mainstream superhero work. Enjoy!

Tops of My Pops for 10/15/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Oct. 15, 2006
1. Radiohead
1. Meat Beat Manifesto
1. Gorillaz
1. Eagles Of Death Metal
1. Matthew Dear
1. The Meters
7. Beck
7. Amon Tobin
7. Primal Scream
7. The The

This week's listening pretty well looks like a week of greatest hits listening due to the fact that I finally broke down and bought a new 80GB video iPod (black of course). And as the world knows by now, everything sounds better on a new iPod.

I did break away from my personal favorites long enough to spend a little time checking out Matthew Dear's Backstroke at the behest of my pal mrkvm. As he cautioned me, the vocals take a little getting used to. Can't give him an endorsement yet, but I'm willing to check out some of his other albums before I pass judgment.

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Get hip to the funk robot!

From our friends over at cliptip:

You may not love the song, but you absolutely must love the robot – Plastilina Mosh's "Millionaire" video features no less than a Godzilla-sized funky robot getting down on some unsuspecting city.

Better moves than Mecha Godzilla!

Blogger Beta Betta

Someday my Google masters will invite me to convert this blog over to the Blogger beta.

In the meantime I'll just be envious of my pals like phe that get to frolic in the new improved playground featuring things like vastly easier template management, tagging, and an oh-so subtle sense of...cool.

Tops of My Pops for 10/8/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Oct. 8, 2006
1. Beck
2. Vikter Duplaix
3. John Mayer
4. Andrew Weatherall
5. DJ Shadow
6. Section 25
7. David Bowie
8. Brian Eno
9. Wagon Christ
9. Harold Budd/Brian Eno

Still digesting the new releases from Beck, John Mayer and DJ Shadow, and I will not apologise for listening to any of them!

I'm enjoying all three (obviously for different reasons) but in particular spent the week playing The Information over and over again. This is the first time I've really felt like I was hearing producer Nigel Godrich's fingerprints on a Beck release – not that that's a bad thing. This one's a really hybrid of the silly quirky Beck with the introspective melodic Beck, all pretty perfectly balanced.

I'm enjoying The Outsider for what it is (Shadow's fuck-the-critics-I'm-gonna-have-fun album) and getting used to Mayer's new, more Clapton-esque stylings...not sure if it's made him better or worse in my book.

Also notably wedged in some time for listening to mixes by Duplaix (DJ-Kicks) and Weatherall (Fabric 19), and both ended up surprising me: Duplaix's was waaay better than I expected and Weatherall's was waaay worse.

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Tops of My Pops for 10/1/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Oct. 1, 2006
1. TV On The Radio
2. Fila Brazillia
3. Junior Boys
4. Ze Frank
5. Justin Timberlake
6. Scissorkick
7. Meat Beat Manifesto
8. Massive Attack
8. Primal Scream
8. The Meters

Last week's stats were lost to the iTunes 7/iScrobbler incompatibility, but Damaged did come through with a fix as predicted, so TOMP is back now!
,
Got a chance to give a first listen to TV On The Radio's latest, Return To Cookie Mountain. "Wolf Like Me" is the immediate grabber, which underscores its choice as the lead single. Fun video for that one too. (You can catch it right here – thanks cliptip!)

Also got to dig into the Junior Boys latest full-length, So This Is Goodbye, which is simply fantastic at bringing the sexy back to electronica. Not a misstep to be heard here, with a smooth as glass sound on every track that's retro and future all at once. I'm certain I'll be listening to this over and over again.

Speaking of "SexyBack".... Yes, that really is Justin Timberlake in my top ten. The Timbaland production is the star of the show though IMHO. There are about four tracks on FutureSex/LoveSounds that are so musically tight they can't be denied. As far as I know this is the first time Tim's done a full-fledged mainstream pop record; either way he definitely brought so much game I find myself having to defend listening to JT.

Last but not least, I finally nabbed both discs (from la la of course) of The Meters' fine, fine Funkify Your Life anthology. Timeless music for good times – I don't know why I waited so many years to pick this up.

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Tops of My Pops for 9/17/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Sept. 17, 2006
1. Mogwai
2. Ze Frank
3. Laraaji
3. Junior Boys
5. Speedy J
5. The The
5. Kanye West
5. Thom Yorke
9. DJ Krush
9. Massive Attack

My stats accuracy is in question this week, as Apple's iTunes 7 release seems to have broken iScrobbler's ability to report to Last.fm. I'm sure Damaged will have an update out soon to fix the issues, but in the meantime Tops of My Pops is gonna be kinda hosed. Inconvenience aside, I really like the enhancements that Apple's made to iTunes this time around -- particularly it's addition and enhancement of CoverFlow, the Little Indie App That Could.

Things that stand out for me in this week's list are the discovery of a (stale) Mogwai podcast from around the time of their full-length before last, Happy Songs For Happy People. Several live performances were included in it, as well as a few early rarities. Wish they were still updating it. Likewise, I caught up on the Thom Yorke video podcast eminating from XL Recordings. Had some interesting and suitably abstract stuff to tease the fans leading up to his excellent solo release.

Last and by no means least, I spent some quality time with the Junior Boys new In The Morning EP, showcasing their mighty musical leap forward coming up on their new album. Loved all the tracks here and can't wait to dive into the full-length.

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Tops of My Pops for 9/10/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Sept. 10, 2006
1. Boxcutter
2. Amon Tobin
3. David Bowie
3. Public Enemy
5. Massive Attack
5. Beck
5. Primal Scream
5. Jurassic 5
5. Josh Rouse
10. Autechre

Nothing too deep to report this week, just doing lots of background listening while working. Did give Boxcutter a solid listen and enjoyed it, but everything else was pretty much existing favorites.

Haven't picked up the latest Primal Scream yet because I'm afraid of it's "return to the honky tonk" nature – definitely not my preferred flavor of Bobby Gillespie madness. Also yet to grab the new releases from J5 and Josh Rouse, although I'm pretty excited about both. I should probably do something about that....

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

Gnarls Barkley: "Canon-making in action"

This entertaining and insightful piece by Jody Rosen in Slate looks at what exactly it is about Gnarls Barkley's “Crazy” that makes it the pop standard of 2006.

Crazy for “Crazy” – Highly recommended reading!

Tops of My Pops for 9/3/06

A weekly look at what I'm listening to, from my Last.fm user stats:

Top Artists for the week ending Sept. 3, 2006
1. OutKast
2. J Dilla
3. Shriekback
4. David Bowie
4. Public Enemy
4. Meat Beat Manifesto
4. Pop Will Eat Itself
4. Spoon
9. Foo Fighters
9. Burial

I'm going to try to start posting these weekly again (here for the first time). I used to do this on my old LiveJournal blog, but I haven't for more than a year.

This week was about checking out new/old discs I've picked up from la la. Haven't heard the new Outkast but I'm doing my best to catch up on ATLiens, Aquemini and Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik, all older albums I hadn't really heard before. I've also been checking out J Dilla with some encouragement from mrkvm. Donuts has been fun so far, but no individual track really seems to stand out for me. Also just snagged a copy of Public Enemy's New Whirl Odor and have been enjoying it, but not as much as the first album of their “indie era”, There's A Poison Goin' On.... Needless to say, they're never gonna release another one as good as It Takes A Nation Of Millions....

Burial is another one mrkvm turned me onto, and he's completely obsessed. They represent my first knowing foray into dubstep, and so far I'm liking it despite the minimal presence of anything I'd think of as dub technique. I wonder, is all dubstep dark or is that just Burial's particular take on it?

See also:
The 'Tops of My Pops' archives

BKV in NYT

Nice little feature in the New York Times today on Brian K. Vaughan, writer/creator of Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, Runaways and many more.

The piece focuses on the imminent release of Pride of Baghdad, his new original graphic novel beautifully illustrated by Niko Henrichon. In addition to Pride, it turns out he's just finished the screenplay adaptation of Y, and is about to begin working on the same for Ex Machina.

I suspect it's an interesting time to be BKV.

The new tv season is upon us...

I remember growing up (back when there were three networks plus public television, and we had to walk barefoot 10 miles uphill in a snowstorm – each way! – to get to school) that the new season started on the same September day on every channel, and by the end of that one week you had all the new series you were going to get until January at the earliest. Nowadays the new fall lineup takes at least two months to roll out, and you need a scorecard and the power of the internet just to keep track. Luckily, TiVo has been kind enough to put it all together for us in one comprehensive list. Behold!

Of course I'm fired up for the season premiere of Lost (October 4th?!?) and the return of My Name Is Earl and The Office. This might even be the season that I finally start watching Grey's Anatomy (I know, I know). But there are two new shows that I really have my eye on: Heroes and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip.

Heroes is constructed as an ensemble serial drama seemingly not unlike Lost meets M. Night Shyamalan's brilliant and underrated Unbreakable. There's an “official/unofficial” website for the series with a well done comic book feel to it, which is a nice counterpoint to the hyper-realistic feel of the series. Writer Jeph Loeb and artist Tim Sale are both directly involved in the show, so I'm expecting good things.

Studio 60 is Aaron Sorkin's first new show since leaving a magnificent four year run on The West Wing back in 2003. The man has had some well-publicized personal weaknesses, but he's a titan when it comes to writing. Combine that with the show's top-flight ensemble cast (Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet, Bradley Whitford, Steven Weber, and Timothy Busfield to name just a few) and you've got a strong formula for success. Personally I don't care much about the backstage happenings at Saturday Night Live, but if Sorkin's interested then it's gonna be the smartest show on television.

“Good evening godless Sodomites!”

Watch John Stewart and Stephen Cobert bring the funny at the 2006 Emmy Awards.

Who wants to be a Rockstar (Supernova)?

“I could make a transformation as a rock & roll star”
– David Bowie, “Star”

There's no explanation for my fascination with Rockstar: Supernova:

• I don't like reality shows (yet my wife's got me into watching several with her now).
• I don't like any of the bands that Tommy Lee, Gilby Clarke or Jason Newsted have been associated with (okay, I did used to have a thing for Voivod pre-Jason).
• I don't think the band is going to be any good once they actually find a lead singer (because Tommy, Gilby and Jason have already written all the songs for the first album ahead of time).

See? Here I am rationalizing about it. The truth is:

• I watch every episode.
• I have a favorite “rocker” (Lukas Rossi).
• I log onto MSN and vote for him every week.
• I laugh at Dave Navarro.
• I shudder at Brooke Burke's fashion sense.
• I marvel at Tommy's celebrity (I'm convinced he's the Jack Nicholson of Rock).

Sick, sick, sick. It's a sickness.

What's your power move?

Tired of the news? God knows I am -- I've even burned out on the fake news (as seen on The Daily Show and The Cobert Report). What to do?

Fear not, sports racers! Ze Frank is here to do the thinking for us! Every weekday, Ze posts a new episode of The Show, his video podcast (or “vodcast” or “vlog” or “whatever”) wherein you might get a smattering of news or politics. For certain you're gonna get some one-of-a-kind funky weirdness that may well make your cereal milk shoot out your nose.

Ze's been doing his unique flavor of humor/performance art online for some time now via his website and elsewhere, but luckily he decided to start giving us this regularly scheduled dose. Heck, you can even subscribe to The Show now via the iTunes Music Store -- what could be easier!

Give him a week, and he'll give you a reason to live.

Long Live Thee Infinite Beat

Q. What is music?

A. Any sound.

Q. What is beat?

A. A measurement between two points in SPACE.

Q. What is Infinite Beat?

A. Absolutely any pattern ov sounds that takes plane between two points in SPACE.

Genesis P-Orridge on BUZZ for MTV, February 1990.

Not enough records, too much time

All you serious music fanatics should make a point to check out the pretty nearly daily review blog A Look Inside My Record Collection. It belongs to d.n.l., both one of my oldest friends and one of my earliest musical mentors. He's been a music journalist of one stripe or another for close to thirty years now, which works out well since he loves music and and loves writing about it.

We met back when he was working at the local indie record store and I was a teenager eager to discover new sounds. At first I thought he liked everything, but I quickly realized he was actually a very discriminating listener...with the broadest and most diverse musical tastes of anyone on the planet.

The point of his blog is straight forward enough: to review records from his personal collection. To this day I've only met one other person with a larger record collection than d.n.l. and I still have yet to meet anyone with even a fraction as much musical knowledge. I can guarantee you that you'll be entertained, surprised and more educated than you were before you started reading it.

Do you like my la la?

la la just created this cool little flash doo-hicky to let people browse the CDs I have available for trading via this here blog:





Pretty cool!

(In case you missed my earlier post, I'm pretty well hopelessly addicted to la la.)

The dance hit that's filling tubes worldwide!

In case you somehow missed this, the DJ Ted Stevens Techno Remix:



Much love to Paul Holcomb for the music and 13tongimp for the video. Frightening to think that someone as out of touch with reality as Stevens can be a U.S. Senator, let alone Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.

Operation Depth Charge: Last.fm gets a makeover

The awesome social music networking site Last.fm has gone live with it's updates/upgrades for the summer, and things are looking pretty sexy.

I've been using Last.fm in one guise or another for the last three years. I love having charts and history of my listening habits, since music is one of the true loves of my life (taking a distant second to my incomparable wife of course). Given that the Internet is another of my loves, the chance to combine the two is irresistible – thinking about the number of music CDs and DVDs I've bought from Amazon over the years shows just how irresistible. A site that not only tracks my listening habits and allows me to share them with others, discover new music and fellow music lovers based on my personal tastes, and listen to my music from any internet-enabled computer anywhere? That's pure gold.

For some time now, Last.fm has had a quirky set of apps and plugins to do all this tracking and recommending, and a cool but cluttered interface for the website itself. This latest push, codenamed “Operation Depth Charge”, has made major improvements to the website's usability and given it a much more polished, fun and dare I say Web 2.0 look and feel. The Last.fm player has also gotten a major overhaul, improving it's usability and usefulness pretty dramatically.

Unfortunately the part that kind of got overlooked was the array of plugins and apps that allow you to report your offline mp3 player listening -- all but one of these, YamiPod, have been abandoned in the wake of the new upgrades and are no longer to be officially supported going forward. The jury's still out on whether I'm going to be as happy with that as I have been with the now-unsupported-by-Last.fm iScrobbler plugin, but I imagine I'll get inspired to let you all know when I've formed an opinion...

Ecto-riffic

The best blogging tool I've found so far is ecto, an editor for both Mac & Windows that supports multiple weblog formats. I fell in love with Fraser Speirs' excellent Xjournal back when I was active on LiveJournal, but that one won't help me here. (Don't miss his essential FlickrExport if you're an iPhoto user)

Ecto does a lot of the things I need it to, like keep an offline archive of my posts, allowing me to construct posts offline, and plugging in nicely to iPhoto, iTunes, Amazon, Technorati, etc. I used it for a few days and then happily paid the modest $17.95 fee to keep it. The only thing I wish it did better was image insertions from a URL. it just doesn't seem to offer as much flexibility as Blogger's own online composition tools in that regard.

I do certainly recommend it, but I'd be happy to hear from you, fellow bloggers, if you have another (Mac-compatible) tool you like better.

Sunshine on the horizon

Danny Boyle (director of Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Shallow Grave and more) has a new sci-fi psychological thriller in post-production called Sunshine.

As a fan of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Solaris (yes, Soderbergh's version) and other intellectually charged “space” movies, I'm pretty well convinced that I am gonna have to see this one. From checking out the story, the visual approach, the cast, and the teaser at the movie's impressive website, it looks like it's going to be much more than the sum of it's parts....

Oh yeah, did I mention that the soundtrack for the film is going to be handled by UNDERWORLD? Yeah baby! Hearing the stuff they've been working on in the RiverRun series, I'm completely stoked!

Green Lantern as metaphor for U.S. military policy

Got turned onto this via the Blog@Newsarama today:

In a recent post entitled “The Green Lantern Theory of Geopolitics”, political blogger Matthew Yglesias makes a dead-on comparison between the conservative view of U.S. national (read: global) security policy and the Green Lantern Corps.

Now I always knew Guy Gardner was a Republican, but now I have to consider the notion that all the best Green Lanterns are as well. Quite a blow to a liberal GL-lovin' fanboy like myself.

A year in the DCU, one week at a time

I just wanted to say a few words here about how much I'm enjoying DC Comics' fantastic experiment, 52.

The logistics alone of putting out a comic on a weekly schedule would be enough to crush the average creator, but this one is committed to unfolding it's epic, multi-threaded story line in real time -- when it's July 4th in the real world, that week's issue of 52 includes the fireworks. This series however, is the work of the very top creators in mainstream comics: Geoff Johns, Mark Waid, Greg Rucka, Grant Morrison, and Keith Giffen. Imagine them co-plotting, co-writing, collaborating together with a rotating roster of artists. Seriously, what are the chances (even if they did manage to push something out the door every week) that it wouldn't suck eventually?

Maybe impossibly, 52 is the best read on the stands. It's serial entertainment at its most rewarding, combining the very best of of the comics storytelling form with the complexities and pacing of great episodic television like LOST. They have the job of telling the story of what happened in the DC Universe when Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman all decided to take a year off and rethink their roles. So what emerges in that power vacuum?

The story follows some very interesting characters that have not often seen the spotlight in previous stories, and uses the developments in their lives to paint a grand, sweeping picture of the state of the DCU. The tale is told in the exquisite, riveting detail that you could only get from a 1144-page epic, with great pains taken by the creators to flesh out the minutiae of life in this new world. There's even a website devoted to that minutiae, 52thecomic.com, complete with weekly articles and editorials straight from The Daily Planet.

It's incredibly compelling reading, and it's got me more excited about comics than ever.

Hello Squarepusher!

Just received this in my inbox from Warp:



Enjoy the musical madness!

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.