The bad news: I've been pretty lazy about updating this past week, and in all honesty, it's not going to get much better in these next two. I'm out tomorrow night for Christmas, then back & forth between MA & NY until January 5th when real life starts again.
The good news: Made 'yall a Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/New Year's present. Having settled on Tron Travolta as my asshole DJ name, here's the first of what will hopefully become a series of longform essential mixes for the site. am.fm.pm Presents: Cache Vol. 1 has little theme other than "Hey, here's a bunch of tracks that I really dug this year, mixed and mashed all electro-style."
Give a listen in the player below, and D/L as a seamless 59:43 min .mp3 of the mix (with the below cover art) by clicking here.
I'll be back in some capacity before New Year's. Have a time.
Holiday Mixtape Exclusive!
Turn it down you say! Baskerville + Twisted Sister!
You know that bit in Flight of the Navigator where the kid wakes up in the future (present) hospital and Sarah Jessica Parker is his purple haired nurse and the two talk about going to concerts?
Kid: My dad took me to see the Bee Gees a couple months ago. Who did you see?
Sarah Jessica Parker: Twisted Sister.
Kid: Never heard of her.
Sarah Jessica Parker: It's a him.
Kid: Oh.
Sarah Jessica Parker: Actually, it's a them.
That little exchange was reason alone to dislike Twisted Sister in my youth, despite the movie's best efforts to establish them as an of-the-moment counterculture band. Not because I, like the boy, mistook the group for a single girl, but because in second grade I knew that any band a girl liked was, by definition, terrible. Girls my age at the time liked New Kids on the Block and Debbie Gibson, whereas my friends and I traded bootlegged Beatles BBC sessions and homemade theme song compilation tapes. (To this day, I'll throw down for the "D-d-d-danger, watch behind you" bridge in the Duck Tales theme song as a genius bit of pop songwriting.)
I digress. In years since, I've come to appreciate the work of Jay Jay French and Dee Snider, Strangeland notwithstanding. Fresh from Baskerville this week, an aggro as fuck remix that's all about letting Sister sound just as dangerous as they're supposed to.
Twisted Sister "I Wanna Rock (Baskerville Remix)
Also, has nobody noticed this before?
Penis Medicine Spam as Contemporary Poetry 5
You know, one day these are going to stop coming, and I'm going to find myself actually having to write again.
Police to turn their attention to the south of of that wiu?
asked mr. Gaitskill was about to one evening suddenly he
said it is mademoiselle remember among the possessions of
the dead margaret season them with nutmeg, ginger, and pepper,
lay.
The preceptor, desirous of slaying his disciple name was
found in a list of antimedicean conspirators. On a warrior's
bed on the battlefield in the posture on their countenancesit
was so very unusual, i convenient it would not be consistent
with the.
The doctrines of the reformed church.will you that he had
become insane. Mcclernand, arriving being corrupted by the
filth they handled. They he tried to sleep, but the roar
and rattle of history of arizona the verde was known as
rio.
Tripping from sipping the dripping dirty water tap!
When President Bush informed the nation on March 17th, 2003 that we would be formally invading Iraq in a matter of days, the world sighed, and BBC Radio 1 pulled songs like Outkast's "B.O.B." and Hot Hot Heat's "Bandages" from play rotation, the way Clear Channel stations pulled Don Henley's "New York Minute" and, well, Outkast's "B.O.B." post-9/11.
"B.O.B." is an unfortunate but understandable casualty of the cultural conservatism that comes with war, but it takes a special kind of puritanism to yank "Bandages" for (I shit you not) "prevalence of the word 'bandages' in the song"- like Jon Voight in Coming Home lost his ability to comprehend metaphors along with the use of his legs.
Ups to The Illuminoids for this filthy, filthy remix.
Hot Hot Heat "Bandages (Illuminoids Remix)"
Rankin-Bass Butterfinger Medallions!
See, the rules for eating a Butterfinger are that you've got to delicately nibble broad plates of soft, waxy chocolate off of its "crispety, crunchety, peanut-buttery" core before before consuming the bulk of the bar. (See also: Klondike Bars.) Why? BECAUSE IT'S THE WAY THINGS HAVE TO BE, GODDAMMIT. WITHOUT STANDARDS WE ARE BUT BEASTS.
Nestle's new Rankin-Bass branded Butterfinger medallions deny this technique though: instead, these Peppermint-Patty sized disks have only Butterfinger chunks peppered within, which is pretty much the candy equivalent of sitting through all of Higher Learning for that one Kristy Swanson/Jennifer Connolly scene. I mean, the rest is alright, but I know in my heart of hearts what I'm really after.
On the upside, I'm reminded that I sure could go for a Butterfinger right about always.
Fresh, grim Max Justus! Life's just not fair!
As Kanye's 808s and Heartbreaks continues to reign o'er the Billboard charts and hearts alike, I've a great remix today of disk standout "Street Lights", that Ben Gibbard- caliber treatise on urban ennui that ranks alongside William Shatner's "It Hasn't Happened Yet" as one of the worst songs to listen to alone in city winters.
Having your mother/manager die during cosmetic surgery is a none- too- subtle metaphor for the need to prioritize your value system, and Ye' downright bleeds it on this track, elegantly re-upped by Record Machine's Max Justus. A thoroughly classy achievement of beat natation, Justus' remix is all at once vital, warm and lonely- like a basket of kittens left roadside.
D/L below, Max Justus' epic Five Leaping Leopards is available now via The Record Machine.
Kanye West "Street Lights (Max Justus Remix)"
Penis Medicine Spam as Contemporary Poetry 4
I like to think "timee" is pronounced as "timey", like "No tickee, no washee".
(When Santa starts tag teaming mother/daughter duos, I get full of race hate.)
Fire of long flames, will destroy all my foolish observed at the mess table of the regiment, that entered their shop, where singer machines were kritavarma filled with rage, pierced his foe with that is endued with terrible prowess (cmxlicmxlix).
When we walk thus intwin'd, let all eyes see if to be sick. then she lifted him right up off the is it that they are so obedient to thee and are setting. Alone! My brother, alone? Queried rose, exceedingly resplendent. Having his limbs for.
Yeah! Divide & Kreate does Coldplay and Jovi!
At first spin of Coldplay's Viva La Vida this summer, I shook my fist to the heavens, cursing Chris Martin and his appealing bombast. Amongst my crew back in 2005, I was a holdout supporter of X&Y, conceding that while "Fix You" was little darling for my tastes (though infinitely more palatable when set to giant monkey/dinosaur fights), I too would be a little dopey and flighty after a year of sex with Gwyneth Paltrow.
Coldplay is one of those bands I try my damnedest to dislike, but just can't. While never in regular earbud rotation, I catch myself listening to the off track of theirs with a rushed, pleasurable guilt- like I know I shouldn't be doing it, but fall to the temptation of its fleeting reward anyways.
This is the same logic applied by guys who molest women on crowded subway cars.
Forget the U2 comparisons then, how about motherfucking Jovi? I like that. Let's all sit on Coldplay for like, 10 more years, and then it will be cool to like their old stuff while still rolling eyes at their current output. That's something we can all agree on. D&K, you done it again.
Divide & Kreate "Livin' La Vida" (Coldplay vs. Bon Jovi)
Holy Shit! I Mean, it's no Downtown Sasquatch...
I'm sure that there's some good reason I didn't know Jimmy from Degrassi: The Next Generation (Aubrey Graham) is three mixtapes deep under the the stage name Drake, and as a member of the Young Money crew, has worked with Lil' Wayne, Clipse and Trey Songz, but for the life of me I can't think of what it is.
See, unlike Ashley & Craig, I know the boy can rhyme, and so should you. (Then again, so should the editors of XXL's 2009 Freshmen 10 issue, but hey.) Shit man, Jimmy Brooks is so well realized a character it'd be like Andre Braugher signing to Interscope. Make a point to seek out Drake's ferocious "Swagger Like Us" freestyle at his MySpace page, linked above. His next mixtape, Money Over Everything, is set to drop in 2009.
Drake & Lykke Li "Little Bit (Remix)"
Drake "Say You Will"
And yeah, I'll chill out on posting any more LL remixes this week.
Scatena la tua voglia! Trigger your desire!
In a shining example of truth in advertising, Brava Italia's Sexy Italia energy drink actually tastes like MS Word Lucida Handwriting font and astrological sign clip art.
I mean, I thought I had my bases covered with the Ed Hardy hoodie, rune medallions, and Got2B Spiking Glue in my chest hair, but I knew there was something holding me back from joining the esteemed leagues of shipping magnates sons too cheap to buy Rohypnol. Swarthy!
Penis Medicine Spam as Contemporary Poetry 3: The Super Special 2008 Hercule Poirot Edition
Today's installment of real-life Penis Medicine Spam as Contemporary Poetry features three emails, two of which, for some reason, make reference to fictional international detective Hercule Poirot. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Agatha Christie is a step backwards from Cicero, and that Yokoto Ludovico and Howk Matusek had best get up to speed with the likes of Quilliams Petit or they just might not qualify for that Bridport prize.
Also, Santa is a rapist.
"Say, to take vengeance for him, she destroyed (all right,
mac, wait till i get you ch16 *paragraphwhen were connected
with the permanent stone villages i noticed that as poirot
announced his profession, a little sobered him, for he spoke
kindly enough,."
"Round his brow he had a peculiar yellow band, a nature inside
her. You didn't think she could over the rest of their dress
while coloured pasteboard a fair argument that wherever
no.came from is and extraordinary bitterness) but he continued:."
"Kind, remarked poirot. Though they can sometimes seized the
coffee percolator with i'll wrap it in commission yet return'd?
malcolm. My liege, spontaneously generated from a dynamo.
no, there's 1,450 ft. On may 15th we were travelling along."
Shiver Jamz: The Hood Internet vs. Lykke Li
Glum indie pop has always done me we well around this time of year. As the city sky starts maintaining a perpetual dusk, and the only color to be found in this grey little island cluster are brown leaves and Christmas lights, honing in on emotionally brittle music provides a sense of control as the world around me hushes to frost. It's the band lulling the Titanic to its watery grave; Nero playing the fiddle as Rome burns.
That is, Lykke Li makes me want to take painkillers and watch La Planète sauvage over and over from the comfort of a blanket nest in the best possible way.
In pairing the Swedish chanteuse with galactic powder-dance contemporaries like countrymen The Field and Brooklyn outfit Holy Ghost!, Chicago's Hood Internet dropped one of the most subtle, effective mixtapes of the year back in May- featuring Digitalism, Hercules & Love Affair and more, The Hood Internet vs. Lykke Li has very much wormed its way back into my regular rotation this past week.
Below, Holy Ghost!'s "Hold On" finds an upsetting answer to its proposition in "I'm Good, I'm Gone", and Youth Novels standout "Dance, Dance, Dance" drives home from the party with The Field's rolling "A Paw in my Face".
The Hood Internet "I'm Good, I'm Ghost" (Lykke Li vs. Holy Ghost)
The Hood Internet "Dance, Dance, Dance in My Face" (Lykke Li vs. The Field)
The complete Hood Internet vs. Lykke Li Mixtape is available as both an album and seamless mp3 @ The Hood Internet's site. Li returns to North America in 2009, playing Sixth and I in DC on January 31st, and New York's Webster Hall on February 2nd. Also, brrrrr.
Previously on am.fm.pm: Aesther's "Little Bit" Remix
Penis Medicine Spam as Contemporary Poetry 2
Again, below the "CLICK HERE":
Of men, with eyes red in wrath, relinquished his waved by an angel from heaven. And tomorrow i the pair of earrings worn by his queen, and bring that, in his opinion, should not be passed over. Hoc ipso, quod in elementis dialectici docent.
FYI, that last line is from Cicero's Lucullus or Academica Priora, liber II - book 2 of the Prior Academics.
I swear to God I'm not photoshopping these things.
Singlez to Death! Beyoncé ReUp Double Down!
Whoa, where the hell did Nicki Minaj come from? By and large, Beyoncé doesn't do much for me, but Minaj has seriously toughened up November's ubiquitous "Single Ladies" on this remix, bringing two sick verses fiecer than anything off Beyoncé's play at the Chris Gaines game, I Am... Sacha Firece. The self satisfaction of a jilted lover having moved on smoulders in the track's lyrics ("You know I coulda been your wife / but sucks for you / Boo hoo / I would never rent a tux for you"), and the teasing, dark electro production of the original drives Minaj's railroad spike delivery nice and deep.
Also: Sasha Fierce sounds like the kooky alter ego of a wine drinkin', Mary Englebert lovin', Ya Ya Sisterhood readin' art mom.
Part Remy Ma, part Missy, hit Nicki Minaj's banging "Single Ladies" remix below. Bonus jam: a precious-to-death Tom Petty mashup featuring the sourcle album's lead single "If I Were a Boy", via superstar DJ Earworm.
Beyoncé Feat. Nicki Minaj "Single Ladies (Remix)"
DJ Earworm "If I Were A Free Fallin' Boy" (Beyoncé vs. Tom Petty)
Cadbury Ornament Creme Eggs are just regular Cadbury Creme Eggs. Yolk and all, exactly the same. Which is good, because having watched Home Alone three times over Thanksgiving, I kinda thought they might taste like the bottom of Marv's bare, beaten tar feet when he stomp pops all them bulbs breaking in the McCallister's side window. Ewww.
Off Season Jamz! Damian Marley + Air!
Hot damn, Bigg H. I've sung praises of Air before, but in lip chapped winter, a little toasting goes a long way. New official soundtrack to cranking the heat and dancing around in my boxer shorts.
DJ Bigg H "Surfin' on a Khaki Suit" (Air vs. Damian Marley)
Previously on am.fm.pm: Julep Jamz
Penis Medicine Spam as Contemporary Poetry
For those that can't read below "CLICK HERE", I transcribe:
S'pose they're not quite your sort. Fanny stared she would
die. Desperately she wanted to put it if they wanted to
decoy me away, surely night girl with the burned hand. And
the mother wondered wood of undine, and he was surprised
to find that.
Previously on am.fm.pm: The Jewess!
Go 'way. 'Baitin.
There's this part of me deep down inside that shudders a little bit knowing that Brawndo, the nectar of Mike Judge's cringingly possible film Idiocracy, is actually being produced in this world. But then there's this bigger, tard-strength part of me that screams "Holy shit yo! Fucking Brawndo! For real!"
Though carbonated, Brawndo packs all the taste and viscosity of still-liquid lime Jell-o. (Come to think of it, the drink might have a powerful ally in shitty, charcoal filtered vodka.) And it's nice to sip on an energy drink without that synthetic taurine aftertaste. I can't shake it though: What's audience for a drink like this? Regular broseph energy drink consumers? Nerds like me? Any DVD sales figures of Idiocracy can't be all that representative of it's popularity seeing as how the movie- a scathing cultural satire and the closest thing the world will ever see to a live action Futurama movie- never got a proper theatrical run.
Really, releasing this beverage to the public is classic Judge commentary: with Beavis and Butthead, he sold the braindead MTV viewership back to themselves with characters grotesque in their lack of caricature. Whether you get the reference or not, by drinking Brawndo, you're just taking part in the setup to another grand joke. Bottoms up, then. I'll be drinking this again.
(Start selling Stummies at Duane Reade though, and we're in business.)
