Amoeblogger Brad Schelden was absolutely right Memorial Day when he predicted that R. Kelly's new album would likely be a hot seller at Amoeba Music upon its release the following day. Go back and check it if you missed this informative AMOEBLOG, which gave a really good history of the ever-popular & controversial R&B star plus a link to his video "Careful" with Sparkle. Equally, if not much more so to some, entertaining is the Dave Chappelle video "R.Kelly: I'm Gonna P*** On You" included on the about to be released DVD The Best of Chappelle's Show (Uncensored): Top 25 Sketches (Comedy Central/Paramount). Available in stores on Tuesday, June 5th, the other 24 sketches include (among others) the sidesplittingly funny 'A Night With Wayne Brady' and 'The Ni**ar Family' sketches, plus the played-to-death so that it's well-past-expiration-date funny  'Charlie Murphy's True Hollywood Stories: Rick James." While I want to own this new DVD, truth is that I have already seen all of these skits a zillion times so right now I prefer to go back and re-watch that surprsingly engaging, revealing James Lipton interview with Chappelle on Bravo's Inside the Actor's Studio.


One of the best videos to surface in the past week or so online is the fun, fast-paced video mashup "Shatner Woo Remix" -- posted by YouTube user "smudgeorama," who took a recent Conan O'Brian interview segment with William Shatner and chopped up and mixed interview portions with clips from a video of renaissance man Shatner driving a car at 160 MPH and remixed it with a cool electronic track into a mind-dazzling 2 and quarter minute video.

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Since moving to the Bay Area from Fresno several years ago, Jason Chavez, who works in the hip-hop and soul sections at Amoeba Music in San Francisco, has been extremely active outside of work, busily recording and performing whenever possible. Under the name 4AM, Chavez performs and records a rich variety of music. He also DJs regularly around SF at spots including Sip Bar in North Beach, the Beauty Bar in the Mission, and Milk, directly across the street from Amoeba Music on Haight. As a musician (producer, percussionist, vocalist, etc), he is most prolific and has an impressive catalog to prove this with both his solo releases and as a key collaborator with others including with the likes of art-hop group Octavius, Dopesytle 1231, DJs of Mass Destruction, and most recently as a member of Black Fiction, which also features some other Amoeba Music employees. One of those members is fellow Amoebite Big Ant with whom he has collaborated with on a cool DJ project. 4AM has appeared twice on the Amoeba Music Compilation series: on Volume IV as a solo artist on the track "Sorry Wrong #" and on Volume V under the artist name The Dead Have Highways on the song "The Alone" along with the Count of Monte Frisco. His DJ mix CDs, including the Hug Life series are available at Amoeba SF -- ask for them. Meanwhile, I asked the smart and always witty artist some questions about his life as a musician, an Amoeba employee, creator of the "Hug Life" movement, and a former Fresno resident.


jamoeblog: When did you move to San Francisco from Fresno?
4AM: Aaah, the proper term is 'escaped,' around six years ago in order to promote my first album and basically not die of respiratory problems.

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The legendary Joe Bataan is making a rare appearance in the Los Angeles area. You don't want to miss this! Joe, who had retired from live performances for over twenty years at one point, has been doing sporadic shows in the homey hot spots for the last couple of years. He has done shows in San Francisco, L.A., The Bronx and Japan, where the slow and low lifestyle is still going strong.

Many of Joe Bataan albums are still available. Most of what was released on the Salsoul label that Joe Bataan started in the 70’s is still in print. Fania Records has recently reissued Joe Bataan’s classics Mr. New York and the East Side Kids, Riot, and Saint Latin's Day Massacre. Vampisoul, the retro label out of Madrid, has also reissued several of Joe’s classics as well as 2005’s brilliant Call My Name, a collaboration with ESL’s Daniel Collás that kept Joe’s funky Latin soul intact.

Both shows are in the hood, so if you really want to see the old school with their elbows up going side to side, you'll won't want to miss these shows!

Friday, June 15 @ The Montebello Inn, Montebello, Ca.

Saturday, June 16th @ La Conga Mexican Bar & Grill, San Pedro, Ca.

          
                SCRATCH GUITAR MAESTRO

"It is guitar but a lot of the method is like turntablism" says The Genie, born Luis Monterrosa, the innovator of DJ influenced "scratch guitar"  music, who was brought to the attention of many Amoeba Music fans after he appeared two and a half years ago on the two-CD set Amoeba Music Compilation Vol. V with his wonderful composition "Before The World Goes," which was culled from his own album Rebel Music.
                                                                   As I was just starting to assemble the elements of what would become the fifth volume in the Amoeba Music compilaiton  series, which showcases underground/indie artists -- mainly from California and many of them Amoeba Music employees -- Naomi (the marketing person at the San Francisco Amoeba store) told me about a few "must check out" artists for that upcoming collection. Knowing what impeccable taste Naomi has (much earlier she turned me onto Deerhoof long before it seemed anyone knew about them), I immediately dropped everything to check out the artists she recommended, including the Genie. And again she was right. The Genie is definitely a must check out artist!

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Four gold stars for Notes On A Scandal!


I watched the film last night and was blown away by Judi Dench's performance.  It's unusual that a jaded ex film theory student like myself is blown away like that, and although I do truly always love Dame Judi, this was the penultimate character for her I thought. 

Breathtakingly vicious and manipulative, her Barbara is as layered as any real live human being, unusual for a film script these days.  In fact, the layers of each main character in the film, Barbara, Sheba and Steven, are peeled away like the skin of an onion-- as the film progresses we get deeper and deeper into their psyches and man, are they all twisted!


The are also all twisted up in the affair that art teacher Sheba (Cate Blanchett) is carrying on with her seemingly abused 15 year old student, Steven.  Lonely and intense fellow teacher Barbara befriends Sheba, who she alternatively loves and hates for her beauty and bourgeois sensibilities, and she uses their closeness to pull Sheba further and further into her web of neediness when she discovers the affair.

I hate to say this since the film shows the more pathetic sides of humanity, but this movie and its characters reminded me more of real life than most films.  The secretiveness, the two-faced-ness, the desperation, the complication, the cat....it was all so dense and realistic!  I loved that Barbara narrates the film and that we get to  hear her innermost thoughts, which she carefully journals every night-- it's the ultimate gournol.  She convinces herself that she knows all about Sheba's life and marriage and thoughts and feelings because she is so absorbed with wanting things her own way, seeing things her own way.

Each character completely justifies his or her actions to themselves, and it is incredible to watch.  Judi already has an Oscar, but still, someone should have given her an honorary award this year for her insanely believable ferociousness and vulnerability in this film.  She scares me now. 

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The day after a big holiday Monday is usually a very sad day for music new releases. All the music distributors and shippers shut down on Monday holidays. Because of this, the labels traditionally keep the Tuesday releases pretty slim the day after the holiday. So R. Kelly and Perry Farrell are both pretty lucky with two new albums out today. Without much competition, the albums might do a little better than they probably should. Most Janes Addiction fans would probably appreciate it if Perry Farrell just stopped making music. He managed to make some brilliant albums in the late 80s and early 90s. He even did pretty good with his post Jane's Addiction band Porno for Pyros. "We'll make great pets" is still repeating in my head after all these years. It was a super catchy song.

Perry Farrell started playing music in the brilliant but short lived band Psi Com. The band released one self titled album in 1985. He went on to create two excellent album with Jane's Addiction. "Nothing's Shocking" and "Ritual de lo Habitual" had a major influence on many of us who grew up in the late 80s and early 90s. Especially those of us growing up in southern California. These albums and their singles were heard everywhere. Everyone had the tapes blasting in their cars and I swear that I probably heard Jane's Addiction at least once a day, somewhere. The band became known as the symbol for alternative music. Back when alternative actually still meant something. Perry Farrell also went on to create the alternative music festival known as Lollapalooza. This was  a pretty exciting festival for kids who had never experienced anything like this before. Perry Farrell also released the movie "The Gift" in 1993. While this may be one of the worst films ever released, it remained one of my favorites for many years.

As I waited with my boyfriend, Corey, in the Emergency Room loading dock, nurses, aides, cleaning people and, I think, some illegal immigrants would rush through. The energy was frenetic. It was like someone spliced together all the link and filler scenes from a TV medical drama, and edited out the entertaining parts where you find out the doctor’s sleeping with the wife of the man who runs the hospital who is an alcoholic/pill addict and, even more tragic, votes Republican.

We learned that Corey had appendicitis. They wanted to perform surgery that night. Our plans to play poker and go dancing would, in all likelihood, have to be cancelled.

A cute picture of my boyfriend, Corey

Corey is a self-professed control-freak, and this would reveal itself in many ways. He would grill anyone who entered our room with the same battery of questions, to which he would receive, more or less, the same answers. I didn’t ask why, but I secretly theorized that he was waiting for one of them to “slip up” and say something like, “Well, you may be feeling discomfort because your uterus is over-extended,” to which Corey could then raise his pointed finger and exclaim, “Ah, ha! Got you! I’m a boy and I don’t have a uterus! Because of my hysterectomy last year.”

My boyfriend won’t find that joke funny, but he’s all cripple from surgery, so I’m safe.

After posting last week's AMOEBLOG about increasing US postal costs, which included an interview with Dischord Records' Ian MacKaye -- the legendary DC punk icon -- I received a couple of emails off-blog from fans of MacKaye's groups Fugazi and Minor Threat. One (from Dave in Orange County) linked me to a killer website that takes visitors on a walking tour of the Washington DC punk scene that started in late seventies. The online destination offers "10 txt-walks, 10 videos. Places and stories of hardcore in DC," where you can either view the ten documentary videos on the site or as a podcast. You can also download a PDF map of DC punk from the site.
  
What I like about the DC punk history site is that it sheds light on a scene that was overshadowed by such well-documented punk scenes in the UK, NYC, and California. And that got me thinking about all the other great USA punk scene histories like Boston, who years ago in reaction to SoCal's well-publicized scene, released the great compilation This Is Boston, Not LA. Another overlooked early US punk scene was that of Chicago, which is captured in the new film You Weren't There: The History of the Chicago Punk 1977-1984 from Regressive Films. The documentary looks back on the impact that punk had on the Windy City and features such well known bands as Articles of Faith, Effigies and Naked Raygun and such lesser known punk acts as Silver Abuse, Savage Beliefs, and Negative Element. Check out this movie trailer:

CHARLES NELSON REILLY 1/13 1931-5/27 2007

here is a video for you to remember him....

I will only say that this day seems to make me sad - more and more sad every year.


This, to me, isn't about anything as petty as a red or a blue state, shallow things created by the media to increase the distances between us. My brain chases my heart around, and ultimately they end up over in the corner somewhere, in the dark. Sad. Crushing sadness for everyone involved.



It's a sadness, indeed, to know the state of the world - and to feel the tears upon your face, feeling helpless and alone - wishing for nothing more than this:



Nanci Griffith. Twenty years of helping me stay human in a world that tears apart every human heart. Thank you, Ma'am. I can't thank you enough.

So I saw Lisa Gerrard last night at the Palace of Fine Arts. I can't really imagine a better place to see the magical Lisa Gerrard than the Palace of Fine Arts. Besides maybe the Paramount theater in Oakland, where I last saw Dead Can Dance perform a couple of years ago. I usually like to get to the Palace of Fine Arts early so I can walk around and enjoy it, but we didn't have enough time and it was really cold last night.
My friend Rosemarie joined me for the show last night. I couldn't think of a greater person to join me for the show. I have not seen her enough lately so it was great to be able to hang out on such a magical evening. We both love the Dead Can Dance and Lisa Gerrard, so we were very excited for the show.

Seeing Lisa Gerrard is sort of like going to church. Her fans are all very devoted and would do anything for their Lisa. And it seems she would do anything for her fans. She really does give back all the love to her audience. You can just feel the love in the crowd. I really do love seeing Dead Can Dance perform with all their magical different instruments. Its also great to see the vocals of both Lisa and Brenda Perry go back and forth. But it was nice to see Lisa all by herself last night. She was joined by one of the members of Dead Can Dance, John Bonnar on keyboards. She was also joined by the guy who plays on the new album on keyboards and piano.

Her shows really are very magical. The feeling you get from the show stays with you years later. Her voice is amazing and really takes over the whole theater. I was literally staring at her trying to imagine how she makes her voice do the things it does. Her voice quickly changes tones and styles in mid song. Its like a whole chorus is coming out her mouth. She played a mix of her new album and her previous solo albums. The best of which is her first solo album, "The Mirror Pool."

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I’m sorry.

I haven’t written to you in ages, I know. It’s awful of me, but don’t take it personally – I have a really good excuse, and it has the added bonus of being true.

Saturday began normally enough. I woke up about and hour before my alarm went off, percolated some java, weaned my cat off my calf muscles and onto a bowl of kibble, shaved, brushed, exercised and watched the abortion episodes of “Maude”. Nothing remarkable.

I left home to walk to Amoeba Music Hollywood fifteen minutes earlier than necessary; again, totally normal – I am chronically early to everything.

I was greeted at the door by a big hug from Karen and carefully made my way back to the jazz / classical / soundtracks / New Orleans / gospel / comedy / new age / blues room amidst a maze of potential accidents as created by our early morning cleaning staff.

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Brent James
7.5 years employment
Information Control

Q: What was playing in your house when you were a kid?

BJ: Janis Joplin, "Mercedes Benz" and lots of  Willie Nelson, lots of The Doors, Fleetwood Mac.  Basic 70's things that are very important to my formative years.

What was your first show?

The Shirelles at a classic car show in Turlock, California.  No lies, my dad was the president of the Cam Twisters USA! He still is.  That was it!

That's crazy. ...yet fabulous. What was the first band that you were really into?

Ratt.  They made me want to be a musician.  It's true!  Why lie, you know?


What is your favorite venue here in the city?

Cafe du Nord.

Yes, I love it.  That's one of my favorites too.  What is your favorite band right now?

I just gotta say I listen to a lot of old things right now.  Ruth Etting and vocalists of the 30s and 40s is what I am listening to a lot at home, besides the usual.

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'I'm like the Rainman of the F train now because I now know every speck of that train,' laughed New York public space guerilla artist & recent subway prankster Ellen Moynihan. "Sixty seats, eight doors, and seven poles. And the overhead ads are exactly seventy inches by ten inches," said the ring leader of the spirited and highly creative four-woman House Of Malcontents crew, made up of Ellen and three other New York artists with a shared desire to reshape public spaces such as a subway car to make it more homey. This they accomplished last month when all four boarded an early morning F train in Brooklyn headed into Manhattan, and briskly and artistically made it over to look and feel more like ... home.

'No Train Like Home,' they dubbed the installation that took the four guerilla artists 40 minutes to carry out during early morning New York City commute hour. Carol Tessitore was one of the collaborators. The other two wish to remain anonymous because of the illegality of the maneuver. The idea for the 'No Train Like Home' came to Moynihan, who is also a writer (currently working on a book about Patti Smith), after checking out Mark Ecko's controversial graffiti on subway event in Chelsea a couple of years ago. Later, as she was riding the bland, drab, New York subway, she fantasized about how great it would be to make over the institutionalized-looking subway car into something warmer, to make it feel and look like your living room -- especially since so many New Yorkers spend so much time commuting by subway daily.


At first she thought, "How cool would it be to get a grant and get a lot of money and a subway car of my own to redecorate?" But soon after she gave up on the difficult task of trying to get a grant, and also on the idea of asking for permission. So she studied the subway to learn "every speck" -- taking photos and measuring in preparation for the perfectly plotted makeover morning (April 6th) when Ellen and her three fellow Malcontents went to work on the train. They put a runner rug down the center of the subway car and taped down 'welcome' mats near the sliding train doors, covered the windows with curtains, tied flowers to the poles, put pillows on the usually uncomfortable hard seats, scattered magazines around to read, and nice art to look at instead of the ads already there. "We made copies of family portraits or paintings you'd see at home," said photoshop expert Carol, who also 'stitched together' on computer photo images of books on a shelf and later printed them out on the long reams of paper they had purchased.

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So I went to see Old Joy back when it was at the Red Vic.  It's out on DVD now and it's really different from any movie I can think of at the (tired) moment.  In a good way.


I'd like to stress again here on my blog (strongly) that I am not a Yoga Mat Person, but I will say this movie has a meditational feeling to it.  By that, I mean while you watch it there is so much silence and there are so many moments of a quiet kind of reflection that when you finish watching it you really do feel like you went somewhere else on a journey.

The journey of the film takes place in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon.  Old friends from way back Mark and Kurt meet up and go camping.  They haven't seen each other in a long time and it's obvious that their lives have branched far away from one another in those years apart.  What's great about this film is that the issues that  this growing apart have caused are never directly addressed.  Instead, the filmmaker Kelly Reichardt allows the viewer to use those gorgeous silent moments to absorb thoughts and scenery and to reflect, bring about one's own ideas, and draw one's own conclusions.  I love it when movies don't preach their message to you,slam you over the head with whatever it is they are trying to get you to feel,  and this one is brilliant in that regard.


The film definitely sparked my own memories about similar experiences.  It got the awkward silences right for sure. Mark is the Reformed And Now Responsible Guy and Kurt is the Wild Dude That Never Grew Up Totally.  Kurt is still flying by the seat of his pants and Mark is uncomfortably wearing his like Urkel.  I read a review a few weeks ago that said how the viewer sees both Mark and Kurt by the end of the film will say a lot about how that viewer sees life in general and I think that is a fair and interesting comment. 

Oh, what a week.

The View is self destructing right there on live tv for everyone to see.




































What else is there?

Well, there's a new video for the White Stripes first single from their forthcoming album, Icky Thump.  You can watch it here: Icky Thump Video Hottness

When at the beginning of last week the United States Post Office quietly but significantly raised its rates (yet again), small struggling music companies that depend on mail-orders to generate important cash-flow particularly felt the pinch. Among them was Washington DC's Dischord Records, the longtime, legendary, anti-capitalist label founded by Jeff Nelson and Ian MacKaye. As a result of the USPS rates hike, the label was forced to abandon its long-running, customer-friendly, postpaid policy whereby, until just last week, when someone bought, say, a mail-ordered copy of a Fugazi album or CD for $10, the price included all shipping and handling costs. But not anymore! 
    
"For the first time in our 27 years we decided that we can no longer cover for the Post Office because we've always had a postpaid price. We always operated like 'this is the price including postage' but they keep raising the price at a maddening pace," said Dischord's Ian MacKaye who is equally known for his membership of such bands as Teen Idles, Minor Threat, Embrace, Fugazi, Pailhead, and most recently, The Evens.
 
"We were before just barely breaking even," said MacKaye in an interview with me on WFMU last week (archived on MP3 here), in which he suggested that something even criminal is afoot with the latest USPS price hikes. "This most recent increase, I think, is completely insane and it is a crime. Someone from Time Warner and similar kinds of corporations has gotten involved and they've managed to create a situation in which their rates have not gone up or they have gone up insignificantly and yet the smaller publishing companies, and that includes Dischord and other labels, our prices for shipping went up 30%, so if we were selling a CD for ten bucks and charging a $1.60 to ship it, it's now gone up to something like $2.20. It's quite an increase."

The first thing you’ll notice about the Mexican restaurant El Conquistador is that it is gay, but in an old school Mexican way some of us grew up on, like that mustachio tio who liked to wear tight Mariachi pants yet never played Mariachi music. The tio your mom said was married but we never met our Aunt. It was that same tio that always brought a male “friend” to family functions. When I go to El Conquistador, this is where I imagine my gay tio hanging out, having Margaritas.

El Conquistador is in Silver Lake, a throwback to when Silver Lake was all Latinos and gays with a few bohemians scattered about. The main attraction is not the food. In fact, skip it all together; your stomach will thank you later. The star of the show is their Margaritas. When you absolutely, positively, want to forget everything on your mind, this is the place.

El Conquistador does not have the best Margarita. El Compadre's infamous “Flaming Margarita” is the best that I have had so far. But if you try to light a flame in one of El Conquistador’s Margaritas, you’d make a Molotov cocktail instead. Yeah, it’s that strong. After a hard day of work or a bad break-up, El Conquistador's Margaritas works better than the Lacuna procedure in the movie, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

Whatever your flavor, order your Margarita “Rocas con sal.” That’s the way to have it. Blended just doesn’t cut it, ever. I like the cross section of people that go to El Conquistador -- Leather Daddies in chaps sitting next to the Alterna-moms with their babies in carriages, sucking down margaritas, trying to forget motherhood for a few. Then there's Retro-rockers looking like they stepped out of a Uriah Heep album next to newly in-love couples sharing eyes and a margarita with two straws like a milk shake. Of course, don’t forget, along with our gay tios is our gays tias hanging in strong. I didn’t have a gay tia in my family, so when I have children, I’ll have to adopt one.      

It’s been three years since I had to report to jury duty. The last time I had to go I sat in a jury waiting room reading Walter Mosley books until they dismissed us at the end of the day. I love Walter Mosley’s Easy Rawlins series because it all takes place in Los Angeles, mainly South L.A., not too far from where I grew up. Much like reading other Los Angeles writers such as Raymond Chandler, John Fante and Charles Bukowski, I try to imagine what Los Angeles looked like years before I was born. Some of the areas that they wrote about that were once suburbs are now ghettos. Other areas, mainly downtown L.A., once inhabited by immigrants, cutthroats and hustlers of all kind, have now been replaced by unimaginative people with money displacing anyone with flavor.

I took the Gold Line from my place in Cypress Park and transferred to the Red Line that dropped me off right at Civic Center, where the courthouse is located. Once in the courthouse, the woman in charge giving the instructions for the day lost it after 10 minutes of repeating herself several times. People just don’t listen. She told people to fill out the green portion of the summons and soon several people were filling out the purple section. She told people not to ask questions until after the end of the instructions and soon several more people were coming up to her to ask her the same questions she just gave the answers to. People who work in this field must cut their life expectancy by ten years with all the yelling they have to do.

Immediately, we were called into a courtroom for jury selection. No Walter Mosley for me today. The judge explained that this particular civil case was expected to last from 30-60 days. A collective groan came out of all us potential jurors. The first thing we had to go through during the section process is going through the hardship cases. Out of a room of ninety people, seventy-five of us had excuses why we could not be on a jury for that long of a duration. The judge was reasonable. He dismissed people that were going to school, caregivers for the elderly or parents with a single earner income. Others tried to stretch the truth by adapting other people’s hardships to their own in hopes that will get them out of jury duty. At this point you've got to wonder about the intelligence of some people. You are going before a judge, a person that has to differentiate truth from fiction EVERY DAY! Do you really think he's never met a liar before? This just made the judge upset. He dismissed the liars and made them come back the next day, thus continuing jury duty for at least one more day. Those idiots left grinning, thinking they pulled one over the judge, not knowing that 90 % of us will complete our jury service in a matter of hours.

So last night we went down to the beautiful Cafe Du Nord to see the brilliant Patrick Wolf. Curt had never been there! So I was excited for him to see it. The bastard has only been to San Francisco once about five years ago. I missed that show and have been waiting ever since to see him live. I have loved all 3 of his albums and have been waiting patiently to hear how they sounded live. I was a little worried that he would disappoint.  It was hard to imagine him pulling off the brilliance of the albums in a live setting. But he literally blew me and everyone there away. I was expecting some over the top outfit and of course he met my expectations in this regard at least. I thought maybe some suspenders and a jaunty cap with a feather. He came out with a blue wig, shiny gold suspenders and little school boy shorts. He reminded me of a young Liza Minnelli mixed with Mccauley Culkin's version of Michael Alig. Maybe with a little Marc Almond and high school musical thrown in there. He even made a costume change half way through the show. He was joined by three young men on stage. Stand up bass, drums, and of course electronics. His violin player had gone back to England because of the "weather." The songs sounded great live and he was quite the little show man. He interacted with the crowd and told some great little stories.
 
He played a lot of my favorites from the first two albums. The live version of "To the Lighthouse" brought some little tears to my eyes. The highlight of the night was right before he came on stage. Five bears walked right in front of us to find their spot for the show. While a couple of them were obviously dragged to the show. The fact that they were there made me happy. It was overall a very stylish indie crowd. But its nice to know he has crossed the boundaries into bear territory. And I swear I saw George Lucas and Catherine Zeta Jones in front of me as well. The best thing about the show was how positive he was. He could have easily been a little mopey depressed emo goth on stage complaining about how horrible and tragic his life was. But he instead remained positive and optimistic. He shared not only his music with the audience but also a little bit of love. I left the show with a big smile on my face.

131,577 YouTube viewers can't be wrong! Well, actually, they can, as some videos with questionable entertainment value get repeated viewings on the popular video website. But not so in the case of the cute, highly-entertaining, and skills-a-plenty turntablist Lejo dj who, as of May 23 @ 8:04AM Pacific Time, had gotten 131,577 well deserved hits for his 53 second clip "Lejo DJ," in which the simple-but-brilliant, four-fingered/two-bugged-out-eyes hand puppet character cuts up the vinyl on his miniature gramophone.


Nearly as entertaining are other, less-popular clips by the four-finger artist as "Lejo: Magic Trick" and "Lejo: Accordian" -- his dueling accordion duet with a look-a-like hand-character. Simply called "hand cabaret" and using only bare hands, bits of wood, no dialogue (just music), and a lot of animated imagination and humor, the Netherlands based Lejo has been entertaining Dutch audiences for many years. He even appeared in short-film form on the Dutch kids TV show Sesamstraat (yeah, just like Sesame Street). You can email the artist at: info@lejo.nu.

Out today is the new album by Erasure. Yes, they are still putting out albums. It seems like they are putting out a new album every year or so now. Almost as often as their best period in the late 80s and early 90s. Vince Clark, one half of Erasure, is for sure one of my heroes. After helping to form Depeche Mode and create one of the first brilliant synth albums "Speak and Spell,"  he went on to create two brilliant Yaz albums. Then came Erasure with such brilliant albums as "Wonderland, "The Innocents," "Wild," and "Chorus." Erasure has actually surprised me a couple times over the past couple years by creating some still brilliant songs. They basically invented synth pop back in the 80s. I can't really imagine where I would be without them. They have wrote some of the catchiest songs of the period that still remain great songs.

This new album is about their 13th full length album. Maybe their 15th if you count "Crackers International" and the brilliant ABBA cover album "ABBAesque." They have continued to make accessible dance albums over the years. However, with 13 or 15 albums there are bound to be some ups and downs. "I Say I Say I Say" really marked the end of the great Erasure albums, for me at least. Some might say it ended with 1991's excellent album "Chorus." In 2005 they ended up making a great comeback album, "Nightbird." I have to admit that I am still impressed with Erasure and their new album "Light at the End of the World." It may not have as many great songs as their albums of the past. But Andy Bell and Vince Clark still have the magic to make a catchy pop album. It is easy to find yourself singing along to most of the songs on the album. It might just be my memories of albums past that has kept me an Erasure fan after all these years. But they still have me under their spell. They created a lasting genre that has affected millions and influenced many.

my roommate's band performed this weekend at the No Fun Fest in NYC.

here was their set:

Juan (AKA Wonway Posibul), who joined Amoeba Berkeley two and a half years ago, lives and breathes hip-hop. At the East Bay music store his title is hip-hop buyer. Outside, he is emcee Wonway Posibul with Berkeley hip-hop crew the Secluded Journalists. Additionally, the always busy artist has, over time, collaborated with many other artists on projects including the acclaimed A Tribe Called Quest tribute he recorded with Oakland Faders DJ and fellow Amoeba Berkeley employee DJ Platurn. He is also an in-demand DJ and currently spins at East Bay spots, including Kitty's and Easy Lounge. But it is the unique class that this qualified educator teaches once a week at Cell Space in San Francisco that he finds most rewarding. "Def Ed" is the exact title of the progressive course he teaches on the art of emceeing. As well as schooling his young students on how to effectively write rhymes, Juan also carefully mentors them on how to present their rhymes properly -- how to flow.

AMOEBLOG: How does teaching kids to emcee benefit you as an artist and as a person?
JUAN: I was raised by a community that consisted of family, friends, artists, activists, and teachers. I wouldn't have progressed as an emcee without them. So it's only natural I give back to the community that raised me -- especially with Hip Hop nowadays and the consolidation of images and ideas that's being presented to the youth. I feel like teaching is one little way of fighting the bullshit, and trying to establish a balance. This is my first year teaching, so just making these lesson plans, and breaking down what I feel is important to be an emcee, and for the first time critically looking at what I'm doing, I'm learning a lot and becoming a stronger writer and emcee because of it. The kids also bring an energy along with some new styles that I think are very exciting and inspirational.

Where is this film in the IMDb ???

Atlas Entertainment Corporation 5011

So yesterday started off really good. My old friend from Long Beach Poly High School dropped by Amoeba. I had not seen Melissa in like 14 years. But of course we recognized each other and it seemed like it had only been a couple months. I didn't really realize that I miss her until we hung out a little.  The rest of the day I had little memories of all the important events I experienced with her. We had to talk about Cameron Diaz a bit. I still can't believe she has not talked about her formative years in high school drama. So I dedicate this blog to my friend Melissa. It's crazy its been so long.

Last night we had the pleasure of seeing Bjork live. For some reason I have never made it out to see her before. I kind of find it hard to believe myself. But it just has never worked out. Or maybe I've been to so many shows at this point that I am starting to forget who I have  seen.  Although it is kind of a hassle to get all the way out to Shoreline, it is kind of a fun adventure.  It's like a little vacation. Parking is just a bit of a nightmare. Even though they have hundreds of employees directing traffic, it still manages to take way longer than it should. There is also nothing really to do in Mountain View other than work at Google or go to a show at Shoreline.  But we did manage to find In-N-Out. So did everyone else it seemed. So we ate our meatless hamburger with hundreds of other Bjork fans. I don't ever eat fast food, but In-N-Out is my one exception. Even though the employees seem to be all part of some weird religious cult, they do make good food. And it is nice that nothing is frozen. They also don't look at you weird when you order an animal style grilled cheese!

I listened to Elliott Smith almost constantly for a number of years, in particular during my collegiate hermit era.  His music has meant a lot to me, so this week's release of New Moon was sad and happy at the same time for me.  I think that's how his music always is too, rolling opposites into one, simultaneously delicate and strong.  It's one of the best things about his songs and no small part of what makes them classics.

New Moon is a double cd length collection of songs that for various reasons never made it to full length albums. Elliott always wanted to put out a double album a la The White Album, and it's hard that this posthumous collection is as close as he got. The tracks are all from the years 1994-1997, arguably his best period.  Some of them are from singles and some are never before released.  Being a big ol' fan, I had heard pretty much all of  them before (Thanks Charlie!), but that doesn't lessen the impact of hearing them again for the first time in years and having them all together collected.  I have to say since Elliott's death in 2003 I had virtually stopped listening to his records.  I feel strange hearing his voice again on New Moon and I keep listening to it over and over and over.

The great thing about the release, aside from the amazing songs, is that it was put together by people who were really close to Elliott and who knew his aesthetic and how important it is to maintain his vision.  None of the tracks are overdubbed or messed with; they are presented in the form they were recorded, and they are as spare as any of his early releases. 

His songs are so unbelievably rich and evocative.  I think the detail in every aspect of every song is nearly unparalleled.  His songs are fantastic top to bottom, from the lyrics to the chords to the melody.  Even the covers he chose over the years are flawless.  One of my favorites, "Thirteen" by Alex Chilton, is included here at last.  I feel like my meager writing can't do the tracks any justice, so i don't have too much to say except that I am sad that he's not around any more and I am hopeful that more and more people will find his music.  And that you should listen to "Angel in the Snow" cause it's one of the best songs he ever wrote.  It is so funny and also telling that Elliott's throwaways are usually better than what 90% of people putting out music ever write.  He must have been very hard on himself.

A.I.P. Home Video 7043