Pomrad is a synth-funk electro freak from Antwerp, Belgium (which right there…those sonic elements are not what you expect to find in Antwerp, Belgium), and he’s bloody good.  A bit cheeky with the keytar fetish -something I have a hard time forgiving hipsters for, because if you aren’t Herbie Hancock or the late Roger Troutman, you really don’t have the swerve to wield such an instrument casually- he nonetheless drives a funky, bubbling, hook laden course.  I first discovered his sound via the ever awesome Beyondjazz program, and now I’m pretty much sold on the whole audio package.

Caught Thomas Dolby at the Red Devil Lounge last month.  First time in several years (since I got to have my artwork used during intermission between Dolby and BT at the House of Blues in Anaheim some 5-6 years ago, a personal high for me), and while there were some elements I missed from that show (the steampunk stage visuals and the more acerbic arrangements) this was a fun gig in an intimate setting.  Extra thanks to Meg and Squeedle for letting the Missus and I hang with them.  I wish he would have played Windpower, but he gave the best consolation prize of I Love You Goodbye.

Dolby has retained an edge conceptually in much of what he does (he released an entire RPG to go along with his new album, A Map of the Floating City), while also aging gracefully in that he doesn’t feel like he has to hew a trendy line.

Kudos.

I didn’t see the big deal at the time inasmuch as I didn’t know all the big guests on it that well, but I watched it all the way through once.  Most of it didn’t quite gel with me at the time, but one part did; a single song called The Night The Drove Old Dixie Down, and it was sung not by Robbie Robertson, but by drummer Levon Helm.  His voice hit me almost the same way Johnny Cash did.  Earthen, somber, but with glints of hope and defiance.

Over the years I would grow to love The Band and the work of Helm and Robertson in their solo work.  Those two men, along with their cohorts really helped establish what would musically be called alt-country or Americana, and their body of work is as solid as anything ever set to wax.

Levon Helm died last week. He was 71. He was a national treasure.

Bravo!

All stupid patents (which is most of them) should be destroyed.

I’m not a hardcore devotee (and she does enjoy a certain amount of underground fanaticism in nu/neo soul/blacktronic circles) but this latest drop is pretty listenable, with a solid mix of classic soul and retro sci-fi synth funk thrown in; the overal sound I attribute to the Pastor of Church in LA, Mark de Clive-Lowe.

The mix by Goju (from Migrations radio) itself is impeccable: Ray Lugo, United Future Organization, Renegades of Jazz and Neko Neko are in the setlist. Spacey, cosmic, spartan funk and groove for a Thursday night here in the art lab.

Steve Jansen‘s work is consistently great, whether ambient or aggressive, it’s always something fascinating in tonality and atmosphere. This is no exception, working with vocalist Thomas Feiner, this is an achingly melancholy, evocative track. Lush strings, processional drums, and layers of sound build across the tune like a cinematic piece.

I drew this melancholy rendition of Nick Cave while seated comfortably…and seemingly invoking the style of Keith Giffen in the process.

I’ve liked just about everything I’ve heard from Jakwob, whether it be original or remixes (his version of Ellie Goulding’s Starry Eyed is canon for me) and I very much liked the original release of Electrify, but this acoustic, in-studio retake just impressed me as a chamber jazz-pop flip that shows once again that good tunes work beyond their own initial context, especially in the hands of good performers. Anyone know more about the vocalist, Jetta?

It’s very early on with this one.

The duo Leisure Process only made a handful of singles in the early 80s, but they definitely were part of the early New Wave movement that had one foot in post-punk and another in the smoothest pop. Martin Rushent produced*, and the band itself had a decent pedigree; Ross Middleton came from Glasgow’s Positive Noise, and Gary Barnacle was a session player (and continues to be) of high quality. This single also features the original rhythm section from Level 42.

The video is typical faux art-house 80s; a lot of strange cuts, strangers performers, and a narrative that’s more weird fever nightmare than much else.

^{Rushent’s career of work with Human League, Joy Division, The Buzzcocks, and others of the period is quite solid. He also did work with his son’s band more recently, Does It Offend You, Yeah?.}

Her and her husband and their daughter…lovely people. Quirky in all the best ways possible.

A little Curve and some Cocteau Twins is what Phantogram sounds like on this cut, performed live on The Current.

The Robert Glasper Experiment cover Little Dragon’s “Twice” from REVIVEmusic on Vimeo.

Shot at Kenny Castaways on Jan. 9th 2011 for the Revive Music Group showcase for APAP.

Robert Glasper – Piano
Chris Dave- Drums
Derrick Hodge – Bass
Casey Benjamin – Vocoder

Special Guests
Keyon Harrold – Trumpet
Kenneth Whalum III – Tenor Sax
Saunders Sermon – Trombone

Video by Meghan Stabile

She has been a good listen since I first heard her Olesi: Fragments of an Earth release a half dozen years ago. She’s solid, earthy goodness with a cosmic sheen.

…because I like wonky humor, almost wholly irrespective of whether the underlying views coincide with my own (see also, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, early Dennis Miller, et al). This is probably the smartest thing Yahoo! has done with its media arm in years.

While I always liked New Order from the first time I head them (probably circa 1983) it has taken me many years to come around to liking Joy Division and some of the many side projects of the various NO roster.*  One of the things I always enjoyed however, was the elastic, cutting basslines of Hook.

One of the last projects I every got around to investigating was one of the worst overall, but one of the earliest experiments by Hook, Revenge.  Their debut, One True Passion, was stultingly bad, with almost no signs of what made Hook great.  It borders on unlistenable.  This EP of four tracks and three remixes is a mild improvement in that you can occasionally get hints of that aforementioned Hook bass magic, and occasionally when you don’t, it’s salvaged by the rather erudite remixing of folks like Gary Clail, as exists on the remix of Deadbeat.  Hook learned from that drubbing I suspect, since he has not returned to that formula since.

To that end, I have revisited the last NO album I bought, Republic; granted, it was a replacement copy and it was found in a cut-out bin, the album is New Order damnit and its still mostly good.  It’s not their strongest release, but Regret, Spooky and the strange, almost ECM-like Avalanche make for fun, sometimes sumptuous listening.

* Notable exception to the poppy but very well crafted early work of The Other Two, which I liked from note one.

MPAA Chief Chris Dodd made a peace overture to Silicon Valley Wednesday, telling an audience that “Hollywood is pro-technology and pro-Internet.”

Dear Chris,

Hollywood (and by extension you and your entire caste of venal bovine fecality hurlers) isn’t and also is not.  The entire history of Hollywood is one of fighting any technological advance that disrupts their creative (read: extortionate, criminal) accounting practices, up to and including the internet.

Dodd said that “nearly one-quarter of all global Internet traffic is copyright theft.”

More lying, with no real way to substantiate it.  I know, since I actually worked in “anti-piracy” (a stupid term since it’s not piracy, it’s file sharing) and know that no one can ‘boil the ocean’ and even begin to get the numbers remotely correct (although various imbeciles, including Movielabs in conjunction with hair-brained former studio execs with big egos and small neural activity between their ears, have tried to jumpstart projects to do some inferential projections based on hosed models…they were at best designed for failure, much like everything else in that industry) to derive meaningful observations in the way Dodd suggests.

Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography – Language from Matthew Rogers on Vimeo.

I love language. I sometimes sound deeply prolix and completely overboard in word choice, but it is much for the same reasons Fry doesn’t lament such habits; language is beautiful and funny and weird and it is how one essentially shapes thought. For that reason alone, I am not ashamed to be really mad decent with the vernacular and pimpin on syntax, yo.

I was (and to some degree still am) given a heap of turd over my Gore Vidal meets Tourette’s victim approach to speech, but it’s my own and I’m in no hurry to change because someone else can’t deal with polysyllabia…or conversely with those that are so hung up on being grammar marms that they render the language sterile and moribund with their pedantic nitpicking. Get bent…woot.

No idea…but the song is catchy in that late 60s-too-much-listening-to-early-Jefferson-Airplane kind of way.  Video has a high WTFF.

Wax Poetics in the US is one of the few publications on underground and upcoming styles of electronic/funk/dance/jazz/shake dat ass music of ANY value (yes, Pitchfork, you are irrelevant). WP is having its 10 year anniversary, and to celebrate, there’s a freely downloadable mix of Prince cuts (including some obscure but tasty b-sides; I quite like the additions of 17 Days, The Ballad of Dorothy Parker and the very rare Sticky Like Glue) by LA bass-mechanic DāM-FunK. Enjoy.

Vexed Live – Brand New Heavies – Midnight at the Oasis from VexedMag.com on Vimeo.

One of the big crossover artists of the early acid jazz scene (along with Jamiroquai, Incognito, and Gilles Peterson) Brand New Heavies were and still are a great live outfit which I’ve personally never gotten to see, although I did catch frontwoman N’Dea Davenport on her solo tour years ago…she was at the then Justice League (now the Independent) with Kudu as both opening act and asher rhythm section.

So, to summarize, the copyright industry has put itself in a position where they get insane amounts of money for doing absolutely nothing, and use that money to buy laws that give them even more money and restrict our freedoms of speech. That is not just unacceptable. That is repulsive.

Sounds about right indeed.  Now, Rick Falkvinge is not exactly a neutral actor in all this, seeing as he’s the main mouthpiece for the Pirate Party out of Sweden; that doesn’t change the accuracy of his observations, or the appeal of his proposed legislative fixes.

The key is that there has to be a coordinated push against, instead of a constant reaction to, the machinations of Big Content and their various proxies (i.e. the laughable anti-Piracy industry, which consists largely of small, poorly managed firms doing lackey-like bidding for Tiberius-grade media oligarch-luddites).

Found this one at Creative Applications, and I have to say that the product design and implementation just floors me. Interactivity and style like that just doesn’t come around much.

In a sleek glass covered case Jens’ team installed three units of what at best resembles unconventional record players. Instead of vinyl each unit spins a pre-installed disc with concentric geometric patterns that translate into control signals for Ableton Live. Three discs, three tracks of different sounds each. Enough for sound designer and producer Yannick Labbé (of Trickski fame) to work and perform with. The visual patterns were created by ‘reverse-engineering’ a set of music he had composed exclusively for the event. “After discussing which tracks were most suitable for the performance and the audience, Yannick produced the whole set,” says Jens. “We then fitted the discs, set up our software (Arduino, Processing) to read the patterns and control the tracks.” Interestingly enough, the discs themselves were produced manually – no sophisticated software workflow needed.

Lot’s of great FOSS tech there, and used in a way even Apple-monkeys would have pause for.

Harriet Tubman is a trio (typically) that has done some recent gigs as a “double trio” (to borrow the Crimsonism), and that does some mind-bending damage live, especially when covering John Coltrane’s Ascension. Big, messy, and moving with a leviathan-like power. Not for the weak-willed.

Brandon Ross: guitars
Melvin Gibbs: bass
JT Lewis: drums
Graham Haynes: cornet
DJ Logic & Val Inc.: turntables

Like great wine, great beer deserves well-trained people who can build a strong collection of barrels and bottles, and know how pair them well. Many restaurants and bars have a long way to go,…

This is very true.  Thankfully, living in the Bay Area means that many places are already getting there, with not only good venues available (i.e. Martins West, Magnolia, Alembic, Monk’s Kettle, etc), but quite a few have expertise to help pair the stuff with meals (although I’ve become decent at determining what will and won’t work with certain things myself, I like it when someone with a real passion for comestibles and imbibables points out something unexpected.

There’s no difference between fame and infamy now. There’s a new school of professional famous people that don’t do anything. They don’t create anything. You should make something. You should bring something into the world that wasn’t in the world before. It doesn’t matter what that is. It doesn’t matter if it’s a table or a film or gardening — everyone should create. You should do something, then sit back and say, “I did that.”

Ricky Gervais from a recent Esquire interview.  I have to say I’m in total agreement.

Found this via the Fear of Tigers remix, and its overall a good slice of electro-pop. Alternates between ethereal and dreamy to propulsive anthemic synth-sprints. More here

I think, and I’m trying to learn this in life generally, to really make every single step you take in life count. Whether it’s picking up your coffee or going to bed at night. Every breath you take to be significant, and to acknowledge it. I think it makes you so much more aware of the other individuals in life.

- Trixie Whitley, late 2011 on self-awareness and being on

Amnesia Connect from Amnesia Razorfish on Vimeo.

So the image to the left is a work in progress that I kind of started because the reference shot (of one Courtney Simonds, aka Sinned-Angel-Stock from DA, hence the title of this post) reminds me of the classic eyewear used by Sir Alec Guinness in the original BBC adaptation of John LeCarre’s espionage epic Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.  I just saw the new big screen remake with an all star cast (Gary Oldman, Ciaran Hinds, Tom Hardy, Benedict Cumberbatch, John Hurt, et al)

Which brings me to what I wanted to ramble about as a 2012 opener; the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy remake, and the sense of how people perceive the world of espionage.  By now most people have been pop culture conditioned into the thrilling capers of the various Bonds (announcing themselves into rooms by name still makes me believe you are the lousiest ‘secret’ agent imaginable) or the Bournes, Ryans and even Evelyn Salt.  All of them are fun (except Timothy Dalton as Bond, he was blandness layered on badness) but none of them capture the lurid, dark, moral ambiguity and perpetual grayness of actual political intrigue.

Maybe I’m just too wonky, but sometimes I want a visceral representation of what that is.  The human part of what happens with policy after the public exhortations of the democratically elected and the autocratically injected do their thing.

That means a certain deliberate, ill-intentioned lack of clarity.  It means no predictable action sequences.  It means a lot of internal monologues.  It means occasionally spelling things out just enough to keep from being totally uncertain of anything…but only that.  Mostly it means a certain sustained level of discomfort at everyone and everything due to having that side of the human condition exposed for scrutiny, and finding oneself more empathetic at the small and not so small compromises and sacrifices made to stay afloat.  It means loose, unresolved ends.

In that way, Tinker Tailor was a rousing success.  I really liked it.  It isn’t as engrossing as the original miniseries, but as one third the length it would be almost impossible to achieve the grandeur with that much concision.  What you do get are great performances by a stellar cast and an atmosphere of muted tones and subtle marks that perfectly dress the mood.  This is not for everyone, and it is not a popcorn blockbuster….but it is a damn good film.

Because I like St. Vincent, and I really like the Pop Group (a band that should, but is unlikely to ever, reform)

Any company that takes sides against their customer’s interest is a dead company.

That might be true for a lot of cases, but it’s hardly a rule without exception.  Mindless Apple fanboyism certainly plays that out (sorry, I don’t want my experience dictated to me with immutable finality until the next upgrade, which will also be immutable and final), so does almost everything that happens on Wall Street these days (yes, lets sell some derivatives to fools who rely on us then bet against them, because who cares about customers when I have a bonus the size of the GDP of Taiwan coming to me).

So let’s just keep that in perspective.

Companies and their management that take advantage of their customers probably should suffer a bit; probably in proportion to the damage they do.  To that end the next iPad should be nixed in lieu of just offering every customer a chance at a patent lawsuit with a random firm of their choice, and every Financier making over a million a year should be left destitute on an island with only deer ticks for food.

acrylic paint, acrylic ink, collage on masonite and bristol, scanned and de/reconstructed digitally.

It has some amount of self-reference in it, and a lot of random stuff with no overarching meaning other than visual stimuli.