Let's Go Away for Awhile

Hey everybody. It is with a heavy heart that I announce that, starting immediately, I will be closing down this blog.



...For the next week or two. Was that a bad place to pause? Oh, sorry. Yeah, okay. I see how that could have sent the wrong message. I'll work on


...That.

Anyway, so I'm gonna take a Blogcation. It's summer (yay!) and my life right now is pretty nuts and I've sort of hit a wall when it comes to offering up entertaining/interesting stuff to post, so I'm taking a rest for a week or two. This will give me some time to do some much-needed refocusing and decide just what this little spot of mine on the Beloved Internets is for these days, as some of my attention is diverted to the Forum (where a lot of my "Hey! Check this awesome thing out!" posts have gone) and microblogging over at Twitter (which is way fun, BTW).

Anyway, so the Mix will still drop on the first and I'll be Twittering, so it's not like I'm dying or anything. Unless I actually do die. In which case, can you book the Flaming Lips to play the wake or whatever it's called? And tell them not to skimp on the confetti. And we are so serving Swedish meatballs. I want you guys to party like never before. You deserve it. Also, just a thought: Solid. Gold. Coffin. Too tacky? What if it's covered in jewels? Hey, if I'm going out, I'm going out like a freakin' Pharaoh, man.

So anyway, enjoy yourselves. I'll be back with the all-new, all-different, all-improved Big Red Robot soon. We will be ready for business of the serious sort when we return. Believe that.

In the meantime, if you could take a moment and drop me a comment letting me know what you'd like to see more of (or less of) here, I'd sure appreciate it. I aim to please.

L8RS,
Dyl

Yumz

Holy. Freaking. Crap.

The Dark Knight = too awesome for words. Go see it. Immediately.

That is all.

Thinking Out Loud

I'm not a "tattoo guy." But if I ever got one it would probably be of an eagle with a snake writhing in its mouth and electricity bolts are shooting out of it and the eagle is clutching a skull in its razor-sharp claws. A skull that is on fire. And in the mouth of the skull is a bat which is chasing a lady wearing a shirt made from the Confederate flag and the lady has a tattoo of a wolf that is howling at the moon. And on the moon is written "Git R Done". And the moon is on fire. And dripping blood. And the blood drips make a shape that looks a lot like an eagle clutching a skull and eating an electric snake. And all of this is, of course, also on fire.

Or a dolphin on my ankle. Either way.

Dessert Island Disco, Day 10

Wowee Zowee
Pavement

More adventurous that their breakthrough album, Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain, 1995's Wowee Zowee is the Pavement album I'd listen to forever if necessary. There's plenty to keep one's attention here: "Fight This Generation," "Kennel District," "Serpentine Pad," "Pueblo," "Father To A Sister Of Thought". Basically, the entire album.

The fractured melodies, odd time shifts and obtuse lyrics were way more exciting than the boiler-plate second wave grunge that was being served up on 103.5 - the Edge (totally xtreme name, dude!) - at the time. And it's still more exciting than most, it's a classic, timeless album. Listen to 90% of anything else released in 1995 and I can guarantee you it'll sound like it was released in 1995. Not so here. It's an underground gem.

As great as the two albums that came after this are (Brighten the Corners and Terror Twilight), Pavement never quite matched the oddness displayed on this album. This is an album for defying whatever Number One has planned for you on this seemingly benign but ultimately devious little island paradise.



*******

Okay, so this has been fun. I'm sure I can do it again five years from now with an entirely different configuration, and if the Internet (not to mention America) is still around by then, maybe I will. Sound good? Mmmkay. It's a date, then.

Be sure to head over and check out Rose's list. Has anybody else given this any thought? Leave yr comments below or you can always start a discussion over at the Big Red Forum. Until next time, my fellow castaways.

Quote For the Day

"But I could never see Brian running around like the Beatles in [A Hard Day's Night]. I didn't read the fanzines - Tiger Beat and that stuff. Rolling Stone was years away, so were Crawdaddy and Creem magazines. But I read the liner notes on the Beach Boys' albums and Brian always sounded very serious. Dennis had a hot rod and a motorcycle and even then I knew he was the one the girls went weak over. Carl was a pudgy guy, too gentle. Al looked like an extra on Route 66. Mike reminded me of a guy who could stand in for Eddie Haskell on Leave It to Beaver. And Brian - Brian was off somewhere writing songs, carrying the load."

- Jim Fusilli
Pet Sounds
33 1/3 Series.

Dessert Island Disco, Day 9

I Can Hear the Heart Beating As One
Yo La Tengo

If Lou Reed had relaxed a bit, married Mo Tucker and settled down in suburban New Jersey, it'd sound a lot like this.

I don't know if this is YLT's best album (they've been making consistently great records since 1993's Painful), but it's my favorite. It's a perfect mix of all the stuff this band does: The shoegazey epicness of "Deeper Into Movies", the maudlin "Shadows", the country-ish "One PM Again", the baroque pop of "Center Of Gravity." It's like a big stew of everything great about rock & roll, served at just the right temperature.

Basically, they're the kind of band I'd love to be in. Put this one on while you go for a moonlit swim in that pristine lagoon. just make sure you wait a half hour after you've eaten. Wouldn't want to cramp up or anything.

Don't Tease Me, Bro

Anybody curious what the art for August's mix looks like? Well, wonder no longer. It'll drop on the first of August. I'm really liking it. It took a little bit of getting into, but once I was in, it really shook out nicely. I'm excited to get your feedback on it. [Cough, cough! Give Dylan feedback on the mixes! Cough! Cough!] Whew. Sorry. Must have gotten something caught in my throat. I'm much better now. Thank you.

Also, the very first BRR mix is now posted in the sidebar. Remember that one? Aaah, we were so much younger then.

And I think that's all for the bonus mixxes. I'm pretty sure they're all archived now. Whew! Anybody downloaded any of them yet? Do you love them? How about high Five! or It Came From the Garage! or any of them, actually? Are the mixtapes in general worth your/my time? Please tell me. Won't you?

Dessert Island Disco, Day 8

The Soft Bulletin
Flaming Lips

Mortality is a fact of life. We will all die, every one of us and everyone we love or hate or know tangentially. Everyone. Our bodies will disintegrate into the earth that spawned us while bugs eat us, plants eat us, the dirt eats us. We'll molder and decay and the world will keep spinning through the vast blackness of space, until that too dies suddenly one technicolored Wednesday morning and all you can think of is love.

You wouldn't expect morbid thoughts like this to be the basis of the last great psychedelic album of the 20th century, but when you're dealing with the Flaming Lips, you learn to expect the unexpected. From the anthemic opening track "Race For the Prize," a tale of two scientists racing for some sort of cure to some sort of disease (maybe death itself?) through to the dusky instrumental closer, "Sleeping On the Roof," we're treated to a gorgeous, layered and trippy album about life, death, love and space.

You know, the important stuff.

Listen to it while you watch the night horizon for signs of rescue, fighting off hallucinations brought on by malnutrition, dehydration and that spider bite on your hand.

Dessert Island Disco, Day 7

I, Jonathan
Jonathan Richman

I've already confessed my love for this album on this very blog, so I'll just say that this is a beautiful album and your life will greatly be enriched by it. Also, if you get the chance to see the man live, do it. He's hilarious and it's a great time.

Put this one on while you're hanging out in that wacky subterranean hatch whose weird blast door entrance you dug up and whose contents can be only described as inscrutably mysterious.