Deaf, Dumb and Blind Pinball Kid

I'm not sure how it happened, but somehow I managed to forget just how much I love the Flaming Lips. I realize that this is unacceptable. I was severely chagrined when I stumbled on this footage of them rehearsing some Who songs for an upcoming celebration. Oh man, they are the bestest. If you haven't seen them live, then you are not alive. You are dead. Like a zombie. Or Dracula. Or Chewbacca after that moon got dropped on him in that one Star Wars book.




Via You Ain't No Picasso.

Dessert Island Disco, Day 3

Friends
The Beach Boys

I bet you thought I was going to go with Pet Sounds, huh? While that's a masterpiece, and my love for it is well-documented, this is maybe my favorite Beach Boys album. Either this or Wild Honey and this one has Dennis' "Little Bird" on it, which is an amazing song, so Friends wins by a nose, I guess.



This is the album a genius makes when he's taken too many drugs and becomes a totally paranoid agoraphobic who lays in bed all day, getting out every once in a while to swim in the pool or write something like "Busy Doin' Nothin'" or "I Went To Sleep" (which can be heard on the BRR Monthly Mix Bed Is For Sleeping, available for download here absolutely free of charge). It's a very warm, laid-back, homey album that could be listened to repeatedly while laying in hammock somewhere, getting the heck sunburned out of oneself.

Hey Kids! Learning!

Ever wanted to learn how to screenprint like all the hot Hollywood stars? Well, thanks to the fine folks over at Aesthetic Apparatus (whose work is freaking aces), now you can. They put together this wildly informative video detailing the process. Take a look:



Do you feel smarter now? Good. My work is done, then.

*******

Also, I'm digging this blog quite a lot.

Dessert Island Disco, Day 2

Blonde On Blonde
Bob Dylan

I easily could have picked Bringin' It All Back Home or Highway 61 Revisited from Dylan's late-60's period, but this one's a double album and again, I love that cover.

It's a pretty fair description of Dylan at the time and the album in particular: totally out of focus, turned on its side and impatiently pissed off. It's so ridiculous, so apocalyptic, so thin and wild and speeding toward some terrible crash.



It's the perfect album for dropping boulders on Piggy.

Dessert Island Disco, Day 1

Revolver
The Beatles

Tough call, but I love this Beatles album the mostest. Picking the best Beatles album is pretty impossible, so I'm going with my favorite. Sgt. Pepper's is probably a better album and a more obvious choice, but the mixture of solid pop and reigned-in psychedelia on display here gets me every time. I mean, look at that track list. Can you find a song that isn't brilliant or that won't get old? Because I sure can't.



Plus, if you're going to be stuck on an island indefinitely, you need album art you can stare at for a while while you're waiting for your wild boar to cook so you can share a nice meal with your only friend, the bloody volleyball.

Dessert Island Disco, Day Zero

You've heard of Desert Island Discs, right? Where you're crashed on a deserted island and somehow you had the foresight to bring along some music and something to play it on (or maybe you just brought the music and then constructed something from coconut shells, bamboo and assorted monkey parts to play it on after you'd tried to establish some semblance of civilization but before you all went crazy and killed and ate each other because the pig's head told you to?) and what would that music be?

This question, what music I'd listen to forever in an island prison/paradise, has always haunted me ever since the concept was introduced to me via that free magazine Tower Records used to put out, Pulse! (I don't think I was the target audience for that magazine, although I inhaled it every time I got my nerdy little paws on it. There was always a lot of Steely Dan - which I thought was a typo for Steely Dawn, which is a much more evocative band name, BTW - on those lists. Judging solely by that criteria, I suspect it was intended for middle-aged high school band teachers/music store employees. Or just any guy with ponytail and/or mustache.)

It's a heavy, personality-revealing question, what ten records you'd listen to until you died from dehydration/infection/getting smashed against a tree by a crazy smoke monster. You know, typical island danger. It requires some soul-searching, this D.I.D. thing. I mean, it's just those 10 albums! (I realize that Wiki says it's eight pieces on the BBC show, but they don't figure in inflation, plus that's probably in Metric and I'm not exactly sure how to convert that to English measurements, especially with the dollar performing so poorly in foreign markets so I'm just gonna go with 10 pieces. Roll with it.) That's it! They've got to be perfect! No filler here!

At 15 years old and with as many CDs in my library, I was still figuring out where the boundaries of my taste lie (let's put it this way: you probably couldn't have played lawn darts in those boundaries, let alone full-contact football) and was odiously ill-equipped to make these type of decisions.This is no game for children. This is serious business. Now I'm not saying my tastes are football-field-sized as of now, but I think I am maybe in a better position to make these hard decisions, knowing full well that any list I make is instantly outdated and subject to change given the day, week, or temperature. This idea was unfathomable to the teenaged me who feared that such a list, once set, was set infinitely. But I'm not so nuts now. Or at least a different kind of nuts.

For the next ten days, I will be posting one Desert Island Disc* here on the good ole' blog. Feel free to tell me I'm crazy in the comments section, start your own list on the Forum or, if you decide to do something similar on yr blog, lemme know and I'll link to it. Cool? The first installment will be crashing-landing later today. Watch out for debris.

*******

* This list is in no way definitive and may change due to any whim by its creator. This list is the intellectual property of Big Red Robot, Inc. a subsidiary of BloodCo, a Martian Overlord company. Martian Overlord: "Quietly enslaving the human race through covert means since we first laid eyes on your puny planet." ™ & © 2008.

What We Talk About

So, I started a forum to work alongside the blog for those of you interested in participating. Head over here to get started. You'll have to get a free Ning account, but it'll be worth it. And it's free. I've played around with it a little and it's a fairly slick system and, as I've mentioned, it's free.

Anyway, you're all invited. Come over and play.

Dedicated to the Lurkers

Yes, you. I can totally see you. Don't ask me how I can see you, I just can. It's magic, okay? Computer magic.

Anyway, now's your chance to delurk and say "hi". Please?

BRR Bonus Mix :: July 008 :: Sludgerock 101

What is this?! A bonus mix?! Dang, that Dylan guy is so generous! And handsome. Very handsome. Uh, anyway...

Gotta get this one out of my system, so, bonus mix for you! From its genesis in the opiate haze of the Velvets and onto the trash glam of the Dolls, the fight rock of the Stooges and beyond, punk rock crawled out of garages the whole world over, punching us in the collective face and stealing our girlfriend. How can you argue with something so primitive? It's like reasoning with Frankenstein's monster.



Download it here.

01. "I'm a street walking cheetah with a heart full of napalm"
02. "Don't need no mom and dad"
03. "I don't even know my name"
04. "I'm throwing up in the hall"
05. "There's gonna be a new race"
06. "No matter what you do or say"
07. "You make me feel just like a savage"
08. "I only get sleepless nights"
09. "It's gonna drive me insane"
10. "Put on our best frowns"
11. "A rock n roll nurse went into my head"
12. "I hate music"
13. "Do the alligator"
14. "I just gotta hear that band play"
15. "World ending, it's just beginning"
16. "Look out here, you pompous jerk"
17. "I need to shake it"
18. "Come on baby and bomb with the twist"
19. "Now I wish I was dead"
20. "Don't want you cause You're - A - Bore"

Rawk.

BRR Monthly Mix :: July 08 :: Cut the Pickle; Tickle-Tickle.

First off, thanks to those of you who voted. It's nice to know people actually read the blog/care about the mix. You guys rule.

So, as you already know, the winner for BRR Monthly Mix for July 2008 is none other than ... High Five!, 20 tracks designed to make you hap-hap-happy! If it does the trick, it should cause a little bit of this:



Yeah. That's the stuff.

Now I'm not conceited enough to say it's the perfect soundtrack for summer barbecues, family get-togethers and semi-annual witch burnings to ensure a profitable autumn harvest - you know, normal summer stuff - but it can be used as such in a pinch. Just don't try and use it as a flotation device. That will not work. Trust me.

Here's the tracklist:

01. Utah Rangers - "Bad Day For A Bad Hair Day"
02. Preston School Of Industry - "Falling Away"
03. Vampire Weekend - "A-Punk"
04. Phoenix - "Consolation Prizes"
05. Junior Senior - "We' R The Handclaps"
06. They Might Be Giants - "High Five!"
07. The Halo Benders - "Don't Touch My Bikini"
08. The Aliens - "The Happy Song"
09. Los Campesinos! - "Frontwards"
10. The New Pornographers - "Letter From An Occupant"
11. Martha Reeves & The Vandellas - "Live Wire"
12. Ben Folds Five - "Kate"
13. Ween - "Roses Are Free"
14. The Go Team! - "Doing It Right"
15. The B-52's - "6060-842"
16. Plumtree - "Scott Pilgrim (EP Version)"
17. Pine Hill Haints - "Death By Stereo"
18. Buddy Holly & The Crickets - "Rock Around With Ollie Vee"
19. Pooh Sticks - "Let The Good Times Roll"
20. William Shatner - "Common People"

That's right, I pulled out the Shatner on you. This is that serious.

Download it here, and make sure to come back here and let me know how you liked it, mmmkay?