All the Party People... Come On!

Q: How does a Seattle indie band gain some electronica cred?

A: Tell everybody they're from Europe, or specifically, Mannheim, Germany, as the case happens to be for the members of United State of Electronica.

So the story goes: these guys started up a fake electronica band at a Seattle nightclub, and the overwhelming response led them to take this thing more seriously. So seriously, in fact, they released a full-length album in 2004:


The opening track, "It Is On!", is quite bitchin', but the consensus is that the song doesn't really take off until after the vocoder shit ends, and the female vocals take center stage. So, if you're a busy music executive, fast forward to 1:17.

United State of Electronica - It Is On!

Album number 2 is expected to be out later this year or early next year. In the meantime, hit up their official website. There are other mp3s available plus some fun live videos.

T. Pop

Unable to leave a-pop alone, I've got another chunk for you to chew on. This time, we're snacking on Taiwan. New Yorker is a new pop band that just put out an album in 2007 called Make You Happy. The title track:



The lead singer, Mei, actually works at the music shop where I used to practice and take drum lessons. Pretty nice girl. Unfortunately, the album suffers a little from being too pop. I guess it's a so-so-ness in the songwriting. One thing that kind of sticks out is that the vocals tend to try to carry the music. It works on some tracks: "Let It Be" and "Make You Happy", but sort of falls flat for others: "Kiss Kiss" and "Oh! My God!"

But still, this is a decent album. Not really standard Taiwanese pop, but belonging more to a new kind of independent pop status. It's a little rough around the edges, but it's not bad. I'm looking forward to future albums.

New Yorker - Make You Happy
New Yorker - Let It Be

Recap of Chicago Festivities

Flight to Midwest America: $355
Hotel stay: $155
Concert ticket: $195
Corn on the cob: $3

Memories to last a lifetime: Priceless...

Cheeseburger, I know, but I've always wanted to write something like that.

After making the horrible decision to not attend Coachella (I blame momentary retardation), I was determined to make up for it by traveling the distance to attend the next big thing. I was also excited to visit Barack Obama's hometown. Barack the Casbah.

I'll list my favorite three performances.

Blonde Redhead.

She sat on a giant fake horse on stage. Yes, it was black felt.

Silverchair.

Oh, grunge. How I missed you. And man, did Daniel Johns age or what?

Daft Punk.

The energy, oh, the energy. I felt like I was staring at a giant Brite Lite setup on speed.

Despite the heat... then the rain (wtf!?!)... then the heat again, the journey was well rewarded. Although I've been anti-big-venue and anti-outdoor in the past, and although this adventure put a big a$$ dent in my wallet, it was well worth every penny and every minute of every delayed flight. I'm going again next year... and you're coming with me.

A. Pop

I may have found myself back in the west, but my head is still in the east. I've got a couple bands on repeat right now. One is a three woman outfit out of Japan called Chatmonchy. Don't ask me what their name's supposed to mean. The only Japanese I learned in my three years as their neighbor was gleaned from fansubbed Naruto cartoons.

But back to Chatmonchy, we're talking about kickassness on so multiple levels. For one thing, they are a band. Drummer, bassist, and vocal/guitar. With melodies and hooks reminiscent of the J Pop superstar, Ai Otsuka, this group befits from a rock sensibility maybe borrowed from heavyweight veterans Puffy Amiyumi. Quite frankly, I wish I was in this band. This song is off their 2006 full length release, Minimari, and one of my favorites:

Chatmonchy - Koi no Kemuri

You can also find their music vids (called PVs in Japan) in their grainy, incomprehensible glory on youtube. Here's one of their most popular tracks to date:

Chatmonchy - Shangrila

Another Edition of Irrelevance

Europe got Rilo Kiley, Canada may have gotten Bjork, but the USA got Sting and his bulging (insert perverted imagination here).

Virgin Music festival in Baltimore...here are some highlights...

Saturday
-It's 90+ degrees in Baltimore. Compared to Coachella that may be tolerated, except it's humid. That means swamp ass, but all over your body, including your face when you apply sunscreen.
- After feeling sick and recovering, I make it back on time to catch Peter Bjorn and John (props to my friend/coworker Sam who got to play bongos with them in two songs) who were awesome.
-LCD Soundsystem had the entire crowd dancing like fools.
-TV on the Radio were amazing as usual with the lead singer of Celebration to join them for a few of their songs (might I add here I got to see them in the barricade.
-Modest Mouse was coaxed on stage by chanting of their name, which soon ended with "WHAT THE FUCK, WHAT THE FUCK".

Sunday.
-A lot cooler. Which turned to cloudy, which turned to rainy.
-Caught Matisyahu; during the second song, the cutest little boy with huge headphones (to protect his ears from the sound) was let loose on stage. The photographers went nuts. The kid, rather confused walked in toddler fashion very slowly as if his head would fall off.
-Bad brains lead singer flings a round loaf of bread on stage in which i mistake as a rock and duck like an idiot.
-Karen O as usual has both the boys and girls (including me) wishing we could be/do her. The bowl cut never looked so hot.
-Wu-Tang Clan; this is what Baltimore was waiting for. I was in charge of escorting a Washington Post photographer into the pit to catch crowd surfers. As we were mangled with heavy equipment on us, I was reminded again how old I am getting. By the end, we both looked like we got out of the shower with our clothes on. I forgive him (the crowd shot used on the front cover ended up being a picture that was NOT escorted by me) and will remain his BFF.
-MIA rockin a new short hair cut, rocked her fans with tons of new material. She came on stage with my friend's poncho covered in hot pink gaffing tape spelling her name in which she proceeded to rip off after the third song.

Overall
After long days in the sun and rain, being yelled at by photographers, yelling at photographers, stopping a fight, nonstop dirty jokes (virgin jokes, poon jokes, poop/porta-potti jokes, thats-what-she-said jokes, and oh yeah, did I mentioned we're going to bring the word "cooter" back?), and swamping sweat, it was definitely worth working. It was the one time where coworkers from the past and present from 930 Club were all in one place, and that was enough for me.

The end.

Because the Band Thing is Cool There, Too

Two Taiwanese Oriental bands have just recently come up on the radar, and besides being ethnically superior, they both share the fact that they're pretty talented. Here are their respective gimmicks:

YMCK, FROM JAPAN, layer beautifully innocent vocals over 8-bit music. Plus, their website consists of fobbed out English and pixelated illustrations. How can you not love them?

YMCK - Magical 8bit Tour

Official site.

Magical 8bit Tour:



John and Ash grew up together in Taiwan, and after being separated for 15 years, presumably because of the zombie revolution (but more likely because of some way less romantic socio-economic reason or school), the two were reunited in New York, rekindled (or started) a romance, and began making sweet music together as Misha (literally and hehe the other kind).

Misha - Summersend

Myspace.

So now that the Taiwanese music revolution is upon us, heed my call, Bobby and Jerome. Let's milk this thing for all it's worth.

Akon needs friends

Ok so remember that video clip I posted up a minute ago where Akon tosses that kid off the stage? Well since then, Akon's released his half assed public apology track "Sorry Blame Me" to clean up his image (seriously, that track might as well have been named "Fuck you, shit ain't my fault"). In fact dude's taking it up the PR notch by trying to get fans to be in his Top Friends on his Myspace page.

Apparently, Mobile Faker have teamed up with Akon to launch this contest. The folks at Mobile Faker claim that their mobile application is the key to climbing up the social ladder. Faux calls to get you out of sticky situations, the latest news in pop culture and music so you know whats up.. and fake boyfriends/girlfriends to show off to other people called InstaMates... if you're on sprint its 4 bucks for the version with all the bells and whistles. Otherwise you can access it free via mobile internet at m.mobilefaker.com.

So the catch is: people gotta upload themselves as InstaMates... meaning upload a pic of yourself with a short fake bio so that other people can dl these profiles and pretend that they have a boyfriend/girlfriend. The entry that is most downloaded by folks wins the coveted spot on Akon's page.

Oh and uh I might've assisted in putting this contest together... BUHAHAHA.

Enter to win.

Help!

It's been a pleasure sharing music with everybody, and I wasn't expecting any payout or anything, but now it's time to call in a favor or five.

My internet's going to be down for the next week or so, and that in itself isn't too bad except that I need to download certain torrents that seem to be fairly time-sensitive, meaning there are only a few seeders left.

If you can spare some bandwidth and can help a brotha out, please give me a call or shoot me an email (I can check at work).

I'd really appreciate it and will reward you greatly for work that would, in essence, make you my coke mule. Thank you much!

"What You Starin At? I'm Not a Mirror"

Reason Number 5 why I need cable TV:

Hollyhood on MTV.



yea yea so what if the only posts i put up now are all youtubes.

enjoy or...KILL YOSELF!

Cat... Power!

"That's more than a name, that's an attitude," said Madonna's character in the 1992 baseball chick-flick, A League of Their Own. It rings just as true today as it did back then, as Cat Power's The Greatest has indeed been dubbed the greatest, at least by the prestigious Shortlist Music Prize.

So what's the Shortlist? Since 2001, it's been probably the only annual music award that's been worth a damn. Nominated by fellow musicians, journalists and people who keep it real, the only requirements for an album to be listed are that 1. it was released within the previous calendar year, and 2. it hasn't been certified gold by the assholes at the RI-fuckin'-AA at its time of nomination. Previous winners include Damien Rice's O and Sufjan Stevens' Come On! Feel the Illinoise!

So congratulations to Ms. Power on this great achievement. Now it's time for a little rant.

Cat Power entries in big music blogs were fairly ubiquitous last year, which is understandable. Between the album and highly-regarded live shows, she deserves all the press coverage she's getting. The thing that bothered me, though, was that everybody kept calling her "Chan." Granted, Cat Power is really just one hep lady, but the un-ironic first name basis always annoyed me. I mean, it's not like, "Hey, Chan, quit fucking up." That's okay. It's more like Fergie said, "They always claim they know me/Comin' to me call me Stacy." Then she spells her name.

Anyway, here are a couple of Cat Power tracks:

Cat Power - The Greatest

Cat Power - Wonderwall (live)