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)