This just in from the A.V. Club…

Dirty Projectors
Rise Above
(Dead Oceans)

The concept is irresistibly rich—young musician goes home to his parents' house, finds an empty cassette case for Black Flag's Damaged, and tries to remake the album from memory—but it would be a mistake to hear Rise Above as a mere conceptual exercise. For one thing, Dirty Projectors couldn't sound less beholden to the source material. Barely a note of "punk" rage plays out in songs as elaborately restructured and emotionally reconstituted as "No More," which laces cries of "I need action" with haunting harmonies and quasi-African guitars. Dirty Projectors leader Dave Longstreth clearly had more than a remake on his mind—a mind whose wandering ways will be worth following for years to come.
A.V. Club Rating: B+

Reviewed by Andy Battaglia
September 11th, 2007

SOURCE: TheOnion.com

How's Joe?

Future leaders of our nation

It's just a moon phase thing

CURRENT MOON

moon phase

And not just in a Bright Eyes release

Paradise Lost
Squabbling, bad management and development threaten to destroy Cassadaga, the one place in Central Florida that doesn't look like every other place In 1875, New Yorker George Colby and three spirit guides hiked through the brush and muck of Central Florida until they came across a serene place of rolling hills and ponds. Colby was a spiritualist – someone who communicates with the dead through mediums and séances – and he wanted to establish a spiritualist camp in the South. He found a property and, in 1880, filed a homestead for 74.4 acres with the state of Florida. About 15 years later (there is some confusion on the exact dates), Colby deeded 35 acres of his land to the newly formed Southern Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association.

By Deanna Sheffield/ORLANDO WEEKLY
Thursday, September 6, 2007

SOURCE: OrlandoWeekly.com

This just in from The Washington Post…

Author Dave Eggers Cops $250,000 Heinz Award

Author, philanthropist and literary entrepreneur Dave Eggers has become the youngest person ever to win one of the annual $250,000 awards from the Heinz Family Foundation. Eggers, 37, used earnings from his autobiographical 2000 bestseller "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" to launch 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring center in San Francisco for children ages 6 to 18. Since then, the center has replicated itself in five other cities, with another branch scheduled to open this fall in Boston. "I think of it as a validation of the work that 826 does," a grateful Eggers said in an interview. He said the $250,000 would be split evenly among the seven centers.

By Bob Thompson/Washington Post, Wednesday, September 12, 2007


SOURCE: WashingtonPost.com

BlogOrlando 2007

BarCamp Orlando 2007

A look see

PJ Harvey: "The Mountain" (Live for Norwegian radio)

Polly Jean Harvey stopped in Oslo on Wednesday for a Norwegian radio interview and also played five songs from her forthcoming White Chalk. Luckily, the performance was filmed, and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation has posted this performance of "The Mountain" from the session for all to see. If you've heard fellow White Chalk track "When Under Ether", you might not be surprised by the piano or the high vocal register. The shadowy lighting and the intense performance still make this riveting viewing, though, and there's no preparing yourself for when Harvey's voice leaps up for a Tim Buckley-esque flight of vocal fancy. "I feel nothing," she complains, describing dying trees and betrayal between lofty howls. It's still intriguing how quickly she can go back to an easygoing chuckle after this, too.

SOURCE: Pitchforkmedia.com

This just in from Pitchfork…

Weather Report founder Joe Zawinul Dies

Keyboardist, songwriter, and jazz fusion pioneer Joe Zawinul passed away today, September 11, in his native Vienna, according to a Reuters report. The report cites local news agency APA as saying that Zawinul succumbed to a rare form of skin cancer at age 75.

Read more

SOURCE: PitchforkMedia.com

Boxer briefs

The National: "Apartment Story"

If you've seen the cover of the National's Best New Music'd Boxer, then the latest video from that album might look familiar. Filmed in a Brooklyn church, the Banner Gwin-directed clip for "Apartment Story" shows well-dressed singles shyly introducing themselves to each other, tapping their fingers and their toes to the National's thrumming anthem. From a stage behind them, the band plays, and eventually the spiffy young folks start moving out to the dancefloor. "We wanted to capture the sweet but awkward vibe of a wedding reception or singles mixer," the National's Matt Berringer tells Spinner, which has the video. Funny, my wedding DJ thought it would be a good idea to get things going with some Kenny Rogers.

SOURCE: PitchforkMedia.com

If you happen to see either of these men…

…ask them when they are going to get off of their fat asses and produce something close to good music again.
Damn!

Sincerely,
Bart Silverfish
Blissink Records

Black Lips

Black Lips
Good Bad Not Evil
[Vice; 2007]

Rating: 8.3

Black Lips can, to date, be depended on for raucousness, irresponsibility, occasionally pissing in their own mouths onstage, and sloppy garage tunes indebted to noise and punk as much as the band's Southern roots. Given all that, the idea of them hitting anything outside of a niche audience seemed slim. They're a go-to band for filth-rock puritans, even as their unhinged live shows have helped them slowly gain a larger audience with each album's release.

SOURCE: PitchforkMedia.com

Print enlightenment

Art as interaction

Local Projects is turning museums into places where people interact with information—and each other. Its latest commission will have the whole country joining the conversation.

By Angela Starita


SOURCE: PrintMag.com

Animal Collective

Animal Collective
Strawberry Jam
[Domino; 2007]

Rating: 9.3

In March, Animal Collective's Panda Bear (aka Noah Lennox) had his breakout moment with the release of Person Pitch. It was his first solo album that didn't sound like what we'd previously heard from Animal Collective; sample-heavy and based on loops, the album's songwriting devices favored expansion and contraction over conventional chord changes. Person Pitch reflected Panda's interest in dance music-- even when it veered toward the angelic pop innocence forever associated with the harmony-drenched hits of the 1960s and 70s. Both the album and its transcendent centerpiece, "Bros", are deservedly being widely considered among the year's best.

SOURCE: PitchforkMedia.com

I love you, in Irish

Gilliam's Island

The alternative to
the All-American,
family-fun movies
of the last 5 years.

NOTE: Not for the faint of heart

Salad Fingers (7 episodes)

OMG!

A poem: If I Owned the Internet

How many poets could cram eBay, Friendster and Monster.com into 3-minute poem worthy of a standing ovation? "If I were in charge of the Internet," Rives says, "You could Mapquest your lover's mood swings/Hang left at cranky/Right at preoccupied/U-turn at silent treatment ..." Enjoy a unique talent.

About Rives


SOURCE: TED.com

A Jaw-dropping Photosynth demo

A Cross-modal, cross-user, multidimensional experience
Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth (based on Seadragon technology) creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation.

About Blaise Aguera y Arcas

SOURCE: TED.com

Dave Eggers: Where you at?

Before he started reading, he was talking about his process
for twisting Deng's voice into his own. This excerpt is one
of the first things he wrote when working on the book.
Moe's Books, Berkeley


There seems to be a suspicious lack of Dave Eggers on television these days. A scant few years ago you couldn't swing an old issue of Might without hitting a mention of the D to the E. He was last sighted at the 2005 Hay Festival of Literature & Arts.*
Upon further investigation we found this at McSweenys.com:

… In 1998, he founded McSweeney's, an independent book-publishing house in San Francisco that puts out the McSweeney's quarterly literary journal; the monthly magazine The Believer; a daily humor website, www.mcsweeneys.net; and Wholphin, a DVD quarterly of short films. In 2002, Eggers opened 826 Valencia, a writing lab for young people located in the Mission District of San Francisco, where he teaches writing to high-school students and runs a summer publishing camp; there are now branches of 826 in Brooklyn, Los Angeles, Seattle, Chicago, and Ann Arbor, and in 2007 a seventh center will open in Boston. With the help of his workshop students, Eggers edits a collection of fiction, essays, and journalism called The Best American Nonrequired Reading. He is also the co-editor of the Voice of Witness series of oral histories.
His fiction has appeared in Zoetrope, Punk Planet, and The New Yorker. He has recently written introductions to new editions of books by Edward Wallant, John Cheever, and Mark Twain.
His most recent work is What Is The What:
Valentino Achak Deng, real-life hero of this engrossing epic, was a refugee from the Sudanese civil war-the bloodbath before the current Darfur bloodbath-of the 1980s and 90s. In this fictionalized memoir, Eggers (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius) makes him an icon of globalization. Separated from his family when Arab militia destroy his village, Valentino joins thousands of other "Lost Boys," beset by starvation, thirst and man-eating lions on their march to squalid refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, where Valentino pieces together a new life. — Publishers Weekly

*In 1988, the festival was described by Bill Clinton in 2001 as "The Woodstock of the mind".

SOURCE: zelo research

Panoramas of the Moving Image: Mechanical Slides and Dissolving Views from Nineteenth-Century Magic Lantern Shows

September 12, 2007–February 25, 2008 Painted or printed images on glass were among the earliest forms of projected "motion picture" entertainment. Mechanical glass slides were manipulated to simulate various kinds of change in the image, and multiple projectors allowed for superimposed and dissolving views. Brightly colored, handcrafted slides, depicting human activity, fantasy figures, and landscapes, were typically presented with live narration, music, and sound effects, in what became popular by the 1870s as Magic Lantern shows. Experimental media artist Ernie Gehr's Panoramas of the Moving Image (2005) is a synchronized five-channel video installation that uses eighty-seven original slides and views selected from Gehr's personal collection and that of renowned pre-cinema collector David Francis. Projected side by side, the slides create a mesmerizing wide-screen spectacle. A selection of vintage paper Zoetrope strips and Phenakistiscope discs—complementary artifacts of nineteenth-century moving-image technology—are also on display.

Organized by Jytte Jensen, Curator, and Ron Magliozzi, Assistant Curator, Research and Collections *All dates are subject to change
SOURCE: MoMA.org

This video inspires smiles

Caribou's 'Melody Day' Song of the Week on BBC Radio 2

Melody Day is this week's record of the week on Mark Radcliffe and Stuart Maconie's show on BBC Radio 2.


SOURCE: www.caribou.fm

PJH, again!

The name is Hawk…Thomas Hawk

Photo courtesy of Zoomr.com

Only because you asked…

Absolutely heaven for fans of the genre.
Enjoy!

It tickles a little

St. Moist

MoistWorks is an audioblog started by James Morris* in April of 2004. A year later it was hijacked by a number of additional writers, many of them divas. We update Monday through Friday, putting up all sorts of music and as much text as the occasion seems to call for.

*JAMES MORRIS is the founder of moistworks. He played wide receiver briefly in the AFL. He is the editor of The Roxanne Diaries, the UTFO fan club newsletter.

Juicy Temples makes me thirsty

Klaus Heesch
Creative Director/Principal

Klaus learned his craft at various ad agencies and design studios. He was let out for good behavior and founded Juicy Temples in 1999. In the last eight years, he has won more than 100 awards at shows across the country. Besides his obvious talents, “Klaus makes this a refreshing place to work,” says Amanda Hutton. “Even when he starts singing — which happens all the time.”

Raised in Florida and a graduate of UCF, Klaus Heesch is a
nationally recognized designer. His work has been honored in
numerous publications and competitions including Communication
Arts, STEP Magazine, Print Regional Design Annual, Rockport’s
“1,000 Type Treatments”, “Great Graphic$ on a Budget”, and
“1,000 Greetings: Creative Correspondence Designed for All
Occasions,” the ADDYs, American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA),
Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival, and the Marketing
and Interactive Excellence (MIXX) Awards. He was also named Art
Director of the Year by the Orlando Advertising Federation.
Prior to founding Juicy Temples in 1999, Klaus served as an art
director and designer for various advertising agencies and design
studios working with clients as diverse as the United Way, Wet n’
Wild, Disney Cruise Lines and the House of Blues.

He has been a featured speaker at numerous industry conferences
and events. Recently an 8-page article in HOW Magazine featured
Klaus’s career path and the design work at Juicy Temples.

Side Note: An accomplished musician and songwriter, Klaus penned
the only song heard in ‘The Blair Witch Project.’



2424 E. Robinson St.
Orlando, Florida 32803
phone 407 895 5015
fax 407 895 1883
juicytemples.com

This just in from the Village Voice…

Clearing the Air
Sorting solid claims about the 9/11 toxic cloud from the obscuring haze of uncertainty

To understand how deeply New Yorkers hold the conviction that 9/11 environmental fallout is killing people, you need only to have attended the August 21 public meeting that was held in a chamber across from City Hall.


The topic was the disastrous August 18 fire in the heavily contaminated Deutsche Bank building at 130 Liberty Street, which killed two firefighters. Only three weeks before the sixth anniversary of the terror attacks, here were city, state, and federal officials once again trying to downplay the possibility that the fire released environmental toxins into the neighborhood.

By Graham Rayman
September 4th, 2007 6:18 PM

SOURCE: VillageVoice.com, Wikipedia.org

A God, actually…

Maxwell Lemuel Roach
(January 10, 1924 – August 16, 2007) was a bebop/hard boppercussionist, drummer, and composer. He worked with many of the greatest jazz musicians, including Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Duke Ellington, Charles Mingus, Sonny Rollins and Clifford Brown. Roach also led his own groups, and made numerous musical statements relating to the civil rights movement of African-Americans. He is generally considered to be one of the most important drummers in history.

SOURCE: Wikipedia.org, DemocracyNow.com

Extreme badass alert!

Kenneth Schalk (Candiria)
Drum Nation Volume 3 might be your
last chance to hear the talents of former Candiria drummer. Kenneth Schalk is one of the most impressively creative and diverse drummers ever to sit behind a kit. After a split with the band in August, Kenneth moved to the West Coast to take a small refreshing break from the music business.

SOURCE: Magna Carta records

WARNING: This video clip contains extreme amounts of badass drumming.
Whiplash could occur. Consult a physician before operating machinery or
driving a forklift.

Did someone say Emo?

Here's the only Emo I know.

One more from McSweeney's…

Wholphin Subscription
Beginning with No. 4

Edited by Brent Hoff

Wholphin is a new quarterly DVD magazine lovingly encoded with unique and ponderable films designed to make you feel the way we felt when we learned that dolphins and whales sometimes, you know, do it. TThe fourth issue of Wholphin will feature Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard lying to one another; the FBI mistaking an artist for a bioterrorist; Scottish 9-year-olds singing “Satan Rocks” at their country fair; an episode of the Russian “Married... with Children” re-scripted; an Academy Award nominated short; nuns; retired chimpanzees; plaster casters; and films from France, Morocco, New Zealand and the U.K. This issue will also include a bonus disc featuring the final installment of Adam Curtis’s The Power of Nightmares. Part Three: “The Shadows in the Cave.”

For Wholphin submission guidelines, please click here.

For a peek at what's on Wholphin no. 4, click here.

A Wholphin subscription lasts for 4 issues. You'll receive the current issue, plus the three subsequent issues.

This just in from McSweeney's…

The Believer Subscription Beginning with October 2007

Edited by Heidi Julavits, Ed Park, and Vendela Vida

By subscribing to the Believer, each month you will receive, in perfect-bound print, all the new articles, interviews, reviews, poems, and columns so enticingly excerpted here on the website; you will have the opportunity to study up close the beautiful illustrations of Charles Burns, Tony Millionaire, and our regular raft of guest artists and photographers; you can pore over each issue’s two-page vertically-oriented Schema spread, more or less unreproduceable on the website; you will enjoy the feel of the Westcan Printing Group’s gorgeous “Roland Enviro 100 Natural” recycled acid-free heavy stock paper against your hands, fingertips, and face; and you will save a hefty percentage off the $8 cover price. The Believer subscription currently starts with the October 2007 issue (Volume 5, Issue 8) and runs to September 2008. To purchase individual Believer issues, click here.

My new hero: Mark Frauenfelder

Mark Frauenfelder is a writer and illustrator living in Los Angeles. He co-founded bOING bOING magazine and the Boing Boing Blog, and was an editor at Wired from 1993-'98. For 3 years, Mark wrote a monthly column for Playboy called "Living Online," and was the co-editor of The Happy Mutant Handbook (Putnam-Berkley, 1995). He's the design columnist for Mobile PC magazine and a contributing editor to TheFeature.
He's the author and illustrator of a science experiment book called The Mad Professor.

Source: BoingBoing

Spread your wings and fly!

Lameness is the new cool

Ebony and Imus

Cornel West hangs with Prince and challenges—not denounces—hip-hop

by Makkada B. Selah
The Village Voice
August 21st, 2007

"There's a white brother named Paul Woodruff singing—he sounds better than Robin Thicke!" Princeton University professor Cornel West says excitedly, referring to "Still Here," a single on his new spoken-word CD, Never Forget: A Journey of Revelations. West, the public intellectual and widely cited authority on American race relations now famous for playing himself, "Councillor West of Zion," in the last two Matrix movies, calls everybody "brother" or "sister." It's so very '60s and Christian and gentlemanly of him. He and "Brother Prince," Mr. 3121 Jehovah's Witness Brother Prince himself, wrote Never Forget's first single, "Dear Mr. Man," and have become good friends.

SOURCE: The Village Voice

Photo courtesy of pragmatism.org

This just in from Stereogum…

Premature Evaluation: Liars - Liars (July 13, 2007)

Unlike Liars' last two albums, this new self-titled collection drops an overriding concept, unless it's love, youth, the ocean, and summertime nostalgia. More immediate and emotionally raw than past work, Liars' trim, submerged, clattering tracks aren't Drum's Not Dead epic... Liars'">more »

Boredoms Reveal 77 Drummers!

Includes Andrew W.K., David Grubbs, Alan Licht, plus people from Modest Mouse, Man Man, Lightning Bolt, Hot Snakes, Oneida, Excepter, Unwound, Enon, Gang Gang Dance, White Magic

There seems to be loads of excitement brewing over this weekend's 77-drum circle put on by the Boredoms at Brooklyn Bridge Park (going down 07/07/07, naturally). Is it the numeric synergy? A show of support for Japan's premier noise-rockers? Either way, expect the opposite of boredom at what's being billed as 77BOADRUM.

Sure, Boredoms could've chosen any djembe-dragging Joe off the street to fill in their 74 vacant spots (we presume the other three-- and the mysterious "0" spot-- are going to Boredoms members). But no; they had to get members and friends of Modest Mouse, Lightning Bolt, Man Man, Gang Gang Dance, Soft Circle, Oneida, Excepter, Aa, Blood on the Wall, Pit Er Pat, Unwound, Enon, Arbouretum, Sunburned Hand of the Man, Sightings, White Magic, No Neck Blues Band, Panthers, Celebration, Negative Approach, Tall Firs, and others, turning this into a veritable Traveling Wilburys of avant-garde percussion.

Something tells me, despite the 76 other maniacs pounding around him, Andrew W.K. will come through loud and clear. From note one. Something also tells me an enterprising production company could turn this into one of the cooler live albums/DVDs we'll see in a while.

In other Boredoms news, they've got quite a few regular tour dates after the drum thing. Scope those and the complete enumerated list of drummers below.

Drum leaders:

01 Hisham Bharoocha (Soft Circle / Pixeltan)
02 Tim Dewit (Gang Gang Dance)
03 Brian Chippendale (Lightning Bolt)
04 Dave Nuss (No Neck Blues Band / Under Satans Sun)
05 Jaiko Suzuki (Electro Putas)
06 Jesse Lee (White Magic)
07 Ryan Sawyer (Tall Firs / Stars Like Fleas)
08 Kid Millions (Oneida)
09 Andy McLeod (Howling Hex / Modest Mouse)
10 Aaron Moore
11 Robin Easton

Other drummers:

12 Sara Lund (Unwound)
13 Jim Black
14 Andrew W.K.
15 Butchy Fuego (Pit Er Pat)
16 Miggie (Blood on the Wall)
17 Brian Tamborello (Psychic Ills)
18 Andee Connors (A Minor Forest / Lumen)
19 John Moloney (Sunburned Hand of the Man)
20 Taylor Richardson (Sunburned Hand of the Man)
21 Chris Millstein
22 Abby Portner (First Nation)
23 Aviram Cohen (Soiled Mattress and the Springs)
24 Allison Busch (Awesome Color)
25 Warren Huegel (Tussle)
26 Nathan Corbin (Excepter)
27 Clare Amory
28 Jonathan Lockie (Sightings)
29 Josh Bonati (Aa)
30 Nadav Havusha (Aa)
31 Aron Wahl (Aa)
32 Jeffrey Salane (Panthers)
33 Jim Sykes
34 David Aron (Koi Pond)
35 Michael Catano
36 Spencer Herbst (Matta Lama)
37 Jim Siegel (Cul De Sac and Damo Suzuki)
38 Mike Pride (MDC, FUSHITSUSHA, John Zorn, Otomo Yoshihide)
39 Nick DeCarmine
40 Marianne Kozlowski (The Punks)
41 Than Luu (M. Ward)
42 Dave Bergander (Celebration)
43 Michael Evans (God Is My Co-Pilot)
44 Andrya Ambro
45 Justin DeRosa
46 Hart Mingus (Negative Approach)
47 Matthias Schulz (Enon / Holy Fuck)
48 Josh Madell (Antietam, Other Music)
49 Matt (No Neck Blues Band)
50 Jim Abramson (Dymaxion)
51 Oran Canfield (Child Abuse)
52 Adriana Magaña (Crash Worship)
53 Keith Connolly (No Neck Blues Band)
54 Travis Harrison
55 Jared Barron
56 Jason Kourkounis (Delta 72 / Hot Snakes)
57 Eric Cohen (Caroliner)
58 Daniel Franz (Arbouretum)
59 Christopher Brokaw (Codeine)
60 Jared Burak (Wet Cement)
61 Christopher Powell (Icy Demons / Man Man)
62 Sadie Laska (I.U.D.)
63 Pete Vogl (Koi Pond)
64 Barbara Schauwecker
65 AJ Edminson (Favourite Sons)
66 David Grubbs
67 John McSwain (VICE)
68 Dave Abramson (Climax Golden Twins)
69 Alan Licht
70 Rick Prior
71 Kayrock
72 Dave LeBleu (Prefuse 73 / Mercury Program)
73 Lizzy Bougatsos (Gang Gang Dance)
74 Alianna Kalaba (We Ragazzi)

Boredoms:

07-07 Brooklyn, NY - Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park (Brooklyn Bridge Park)
08-04 Helsinki, Finland - Nosturi
08-05 Tampere, Finland - Klubi
08-08 Oslo, Norway - Øya Festival
08-10 Gothenburg, Sweden - Way Out West Festival
08-12 Copenhagen, Denmark - Radio Concert Hall
10-18 Groningen, Netherlands - Vera
10-19 Hasslet, Belgium - KC Belgie
10-20 Kortrijk, Belgium - Sonic City Festival
10-22 Manchester, England - Academy
10-13 Glasgow, Scotland - Arches
10-24 Aberdeen, England - Moshulu
10-26 London, England - The Wire/Electra Festival
10-28 Dublin, Ireland - Deaf Festival
10-30 Cardiff, Wales - The Point

Source: Pitchforkmedia.com

This just in from Pitchfork…

Premiere: Animal Collective ‘Fireworks’ (Video)



A Fourth of July shot fired by Animal Collective: the new video for ‘Fireworks,’ from the highly anticipated Strawberry Jam. The video, directed by Jon Leone, beautifully captures the chem-free psychedelia of fireworks displays, the way the lights turn into colorful geometric shapes when you squint your eyes just so. The song's got a little of everything Animal Collective does best — a bit of Spacemen 3 guitar, a few subdued chants, and some trademark vocal whoops-- but the lyrics are unusually direct and concrete. And then it ends, as it should, with a grand finale that combines bombs bursting in air that look a bit like a joyous bunch of people creating an earth-bound version with sparklers. Ooooh. Ahhhhhh. Awwww. Happy Independence Day!

Charlotte Gainsbourg

‘The Songs That We Sing’ is the first video from
Charlotte Gainsbourg’s 2007 release ‘5:55’ out
on Because/VICE/Atlantic Records.

Brigitte Bardot & Serge Gainsbourg

Television (Tom Verlaine teaching Richard Hell ‘Venus’)

Heartbreakers (Thunders/Hell/Nolan/Lure)

The Tubes ‘White Punks On Dope’ (1976)

Blue Oyster Cult -‘This ain't the Summer of Love’ (1980)

Iron Maiden (1983)

The Boys Are Back In Town (Sydney Opera House, 1978)

Calliope

Taken from the recent release from The Veils, ‘Nux Vomica’
on Rough Trade Records, 2007.

She’s drawn to it

Guess who I met on my summer vacation?
Some may know her as Paige Braddock, while others may know her as the creator of Jane’s World. We met at one of the newspapers that she worked at back in her salad days. Paige has gone on to bigger and better things. After a few more newspaper gigs, she landed in northern California working for “Peanuts.” She’s Senior Vice President/Creative Director at
Charles M. Schultz Creative Associates. Long story short,
Paige was in town at the National Cartoonists Society’s annual convention. She called me to get together so the kids and I ventured down to a very swank 5-star hotel and lounged by the pool. We caught up on lost time, ate some fruit and met one of her good friends, Stephan Pastis, creator of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine. My son is a huge fan so he was floored when Stephan swam over and said hello. It was a great way to end a week of vacation and a great pleasure to catch up with an old friend. The universe was reminding me not to give up on my dreams just yet. I won’t.

Sir Anthony Macaluso

One Black Water Ale too many…

After a great set at the Orlando Brewery with his dynamic duo, Sir Tony Tone allows us to witness as he suddenly shrinks to the size of a walnut. At least 3 bystanders were rushed to the hospital for observation. No one else was injured during the incident.


PHOTO: Courtesy of Mr. Robert Johnson,
Copyright 2007

R O C K !

PHOTO: Courtesy of
Mr. Robert Johnson,
Copyright 2007

Answer: Formerly Cashmir Effect

Question: What was the name of the former band of the fabulous new duo that is now an up-and-coming part of the Orlando-area original music scene?
Answers first, questions later. Eric and Krystal Brewer are Arms Harbor. They’re a young, married, musically-linked duo. Think Johnny Cash and June Carter-Cash. This talented couple from western Tennessee, writes songs that sing to your soul while they rock and roll. They’ve already impressed throngs of the musical elite and are only just getting started.
Ladies and gentelmen, please give a very warm welcome to Arms Harbor.

PHOTO: Courtesy of Mr. Robert Johnson, Copyright 2007

Big Jef is Special

What do you call a muscian who performs a cover of Prince’s ‘Nothing Compares 2U,’ while playing a Texas 2-step, carrying the underlying melody to ‘Freebird’? O.K. How about mashing-up in a real-live band way, the theme from ‘The Jefferson’s,’ ‘Movin’ On Up,’ with the theme from ‘The Beverly Hillbillies’?
You would call that marvel of honky tonk-meets-punk, that guitar-playing, king of C&W funk, Big Jef Special. Good ole Jef and crew can be witnessed at the best kept secret in Orlando, Uncle Lou’s Entertainment Hall (1016 Mills Avenue, just north from and opposite to Wally’s Mills Ave. Liquors), every Thursday evening from 10 p.m. until closing.
Jef’s been around the block, musically and otherwise, and he knows how to entertain. If you’re lucky you might even get a glimpse of some other local music luminaries taking in the fresh sounds and cheap beer.
You can say I told you so!

PHOTO: Courtesy of Mr. Robert Johnson, Copyright 2007

Campfire in Fast Company

“The November issue of Fast Company has an in-depth story on Campfire, written by Danielle Sacks. Danielle spent two days in Orlando with Gregg and I, and a day in Detroit with us and the gang from Leo Burnett Detroit, sitting in on a brainstorm session for our current Pontiac campaign. During that time, Danielle drilled down deep. She heard the entire story behind Blair Witch, asked incredibly detailed questions about all our past campaigns, and immersed herself in what we were doing with Pontiac. Even the fact checking process was intense, but in the end I believe she explains what we do and why we do it better than anyone, including ourselves. Hell, I’ve been trying to explain my work to my parents for years, and after my Dad read the story he said “I think I finally understand what it is you do. So thanks for the amazing story, Danielle, and I’ll forgive you for calling me a “a hefty 37-year-old with bulbous hazel eyes.” Eventually.”

— Mike Monello, co-founder of Campfire Media

Technorati Tags: Campfire, Net Marketing, social media

Stop making sense!

Introducing,
Mr. Robert Johnson

This man will focus your attention on a burgeoning original music scene purculating up in-and-around Orlando’s better-known venues. While locally-based rock stars sleep comfortably in their plush lofts high above the din of the downtown streets, Mr. Robert Johnson is tirelessly attempting (and succeeding) to make Orlando aware of an underground talent pool that will eventually drown the City Beautiful in luscious sounds and soothing melodies. Don’t worry, there's plenty of rock in there too. No one knows how long this kindred spirit will inhabit this fine city. One thing is for certain: The longer we support guys like MRJ, the more muscically and socially rich this fair city will be.
PHOTO: Courtesy of Mr. Robert Johnson

For Stevie G

Royal Trux ‘Western Xterminator’ video, courtesy of Drag City, 2007

Battles ‘Atlas’

This song warms the cockles of my heart.
Battles ‘Atlas’ from the new release ‘Mirrored’ on Warp Records (2007)

Mark, Jack (Daniels) and me

Back in mid-February, on the eve of another birthday, I convinced my wife that it would be a fantastic idea if I travelled to NYC and spent the weekend with my music brother. Somehow she agreed and with that arrangements were made, tickets were booked and bags were packed. Knowing that my pal and I would need to prearrange some studio time we went about reserving time at a place near his apartment. The weather would be frigid but the thought of having 3 uninterrupted days and nights filled with exotic take-out food, strong coffee and enough alcohol to make Charles Bukowski proud, made me smile. The music flowed like my buddies broken toilet, constantly and with much volume. The concept of recording everything we played resulted in hours of music to sift through, distill and enhance with layers of new tracks. I’ll post a few of the works in progress soon. This particular creative process is far from over and the pennance I pay to the wife in return for a “lost” weekend in the John Lennon sense is worth every last “yes dear” I’ll utter.

Malcolm Gladwell

I was waiting for a takeout order last night and it was going to be a while, so I went over to a nearby Barnes & Noble and browsed around in the magazine section. As it usually turns out, while I’m browsing I become inspired to read something thought-provoking. So I went over to the information desk and asked about a book that I've read about and had become fascinated with. The book was ‘Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking’ by a gentleman by the name of Malcolm Gladwell. I’m familiar with the author through a book that I'm currenty (along with about 4 others) reading. The premise is to examine the concept of rapid cognition, the kind of thinking that happens in the blink of an eye. Mr. Gladwell’s opinion is that in mere seconds we know either that we like a person we’ve just met, like a home we're looking to buy the minute we step inside, etc. I highly recommend this and his other highly interesting book, ‘The Tipping Point.’