Last week it was Eric's (also known as Majix to some) birthday. You might know him as the guy who works in Amoeba Hollywood's Reggae & Soul sections.  A few of us got together on a Tuesday night at his pad to celebrate the birth of this very righteous gentleman. We had turntables, courtesy of DJ Doleak who works in our Hip-Hop section. Doleak just destroyed it on the turntables for most of the night while Ray Ricky Rivera, Eric and myself jumped in from time to time to give Doleak a breather. Some members of local bands Aztlan Underground and Buyepongo (more on this amazing group later) showed up as well.

Being a gracious host, Eric supplied a great spread & there were plenty of spirits. It was a Tuesday night that felt like a Friday night. Some of us (well..not me) even started a little freestyle session. Can't say anyone was that inspired at four in the morning, but it was fun nonetheless.

Wednesday, however...was a little rough on some of us who had to work the next day.

Check out some photos that I took at the party:

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Continuing with my plan to see one summer blockbuster per week until the bitter end (we'll see how long I can last), I saw the Wachowski Brothers/Brother and Sister's Tolkien-inspired epic tribute to 70s' butchered anime, Speed Racer, this weekend.  As Eric B. and I were discussing, if you could turn the screen upside down, it would like an experimental film, something along the lines of Stan Brakhage's 1991 film, Delicacies of Molten Horror Synapse:


But with the more vibrant colors of the 70s cartoon series (a bowdlerized version of Tatsuo Yoshida's anime from the 60s, Mahha GoGoGo):


Although Time's critic Richard Corliss proclaims the new film "the future of movies," I have some hope to the contrary, as allegorically alluded to in this scene from auteur producer Roger Corman's Death Race 2000 (another film that Speed Racer resembles):


Just think of the geriatric sacrifice as a stand-in for classic filmmaking.  I'll have more to say (of course) in part II.

Here are a few suggestions, rules of etiquette and safety measures you might find helpful as you delve into the art of dumpster diving. These ideas might come in handy when the proverbial shit-hits-the-fan and just about every one of us will have to resort to something weird/cheap/pathetic/extreme for an evening’s worth of entertainment, an afternoon’s respite, a shopping fix, or simple economic survival in these feeble, hoary days of the 21st century. Ladies and gentleman - dumpster diving tips #3, #17 and #129:

#129- A small ladder or step-stool is always a damn good piece of gear to have close by, especially when you’re my age and the ol’ knees just don’t flex much anymore. Also be prepared, you just might hit the mother lode; bring a bag or box or shopping cart to stash your plunder. You really don’t need any other fancy doohickeys to engage in this mode of trade. Some people insist on carrying a flashlight, or wearing coolly equipped tool belts, or donning special military-issue-only night vision goggles … shit, this isn’t Mission Impossible! It’s just digging through somebody’s garbage. I don’t know, I guess a flashlight might be handy if you don’t have the cojones to dumpster dive in daylight hours!

# 17- Share the wealth. Take only what you can use, and leave the rest for some other lucky diver. Remember, just because something might be ‘free’ doesn’t mean you have to take it home. The fact is this country has one national resource we’ll never be without: garbage.

#3- Here is one of the most essential, vitally important bits of information you need to know: remove your keys, wallet, cell phone, asthma inhaler, sunglasses, or anything valuable in your pockets before plunging into a dumpster … trust me, this is from the voice of experience!

Joel Gion is quite the musical renaissance man.  In addition to working amongst piles of vinyl and CDs and obsessing over fine cinema and its soundtracks, he also finds time to front his own popular band, The Dilettantes, while intermittently doing time in his old band, The Brian Jonestown Massacre.  BJM was recently the subject of a feature documentary entitled Dig, which enabled fans to get up close and personal with one of the most riotous, chaotic groups of all time.  The film comes highly recommended by this blogger.  Joel will be touring with BJM this summer, and continues to gig regularly with The Dilettantes in support of their album 101 Tambourines.  More info in the conversation that follows:

ME:  What was the first record that really blew your hair back when you were a kid and made you start to really get into music?

Today I invite you to join me and others in celebrating the year 1988: a time widely considered to be the peak of the so-called "golden era" in hip-hop's relatively short history. In addition to this Amoeblog on 1988 I have also written another blog today on the same subject on WFMU's blog -- the website of the radio station where I do a weekly show entitled "Put The Needle On The Record."  And coincidentally, today's (Friday May 9th) program will be titled "1988" and will celebrate the same topic with lots of music from that year being played plus lots of discussion about that era in hip hop history.

It airs 3PM to 6PM (noon - 3PM PST) on 91.1FM and can be heard, either live or in later archives, online here. Joining me in the studio will be the hip-hop authors  Michael A Gonzales and Marcus Reeves who have also penned blogs on 1988. Read Michael's 1988 blog on his Blackadelicpop blog and another collaborator Miles Marshell Lewis' 1988 blog and scroll down to the end of this Amoeblog for links to other bloggers' 1988 essays. These will include many of the other scheduled participants in today's radio show including Bill Adler, Lisa Cortes, Todd Craig,  Serena Kim, and Steve Fleming.



For this Amoeblog on 1988 I want to make note of some of the many releases that dropped that year, mention some noteworthy events, plus include some hip-hop videos from that year. For me personally 1988 was a great year. I was a DJ on three Bay Area radio stations including KALX, where I played hip-hop and had just begun my writing career for a San Francisco newspaper. That same year I met the guys who had started a promising new magazine called The Source and by the following year I would be writing for their new hip-hop mag about Bay Area rap.  And there was lots of exciting Bay Area rap being released back in '88 -- mostly independently released cassettes and 12" singles -- including San Francisco's All Ready Fresh "2" who dropped their single "Sucker Butts," SF's Super Macks, who released the super hero themed single "Super Mack's In Effect," and Milpitas' Chris & Ray (neighbors of a young Peanut Butter Wolf) released their single "U Don't Walk U Run." There was also San Francisco's Thermo feat. The Waimea Bass, who released "Chillin' At Ocean Beach," Digital Underground, who dropped their first single "Your Life's A Cartoon"/"Underwater Rimes" on TNT/Macola, and the Vallejo group MVP (later to morph into The Click) who released an EP on Rushforce Records.

As proven by the entries on the new Top Five Hip-Hop Charts from each of the three Amoeba Music locations (Berkeley, SF, Hollywood -- charts below by Tunde, Jason Chavez, & Marques Newson) hip-hop is very much alive and well. 

Not only that, but hip-hop, a genre known for its high turnover and tendency for chewing up and spitting out artists after a short shelf life, is instead demonstrating love for several longtime hip-hoppers with new releases. 

These include Prodigy, who started out rapping with Mobb Deep potna Havoc two long decades ago, The Roots, who've just dropped their ninth album, and E40 who is celebrating twenty years as a rap recording artist and just released the new Sick Wid It Umbrella: The Complete Second Season rap compilation with its appropriate Sopranos styled cover.

The Roots, who just get better and better as time evolves, have just released their ninth album Rising    Down. It's their eight studio album and second for Def Jam, and it's in big demand with music fans. The  Philadelphia based hip-hop band, who tore shit up September '06 at their Amoeba Hollywood instore, is the number one seller at both the LA Amoeba and at Berkeley, while in SF it is a close second to Atmosphere (another longtime hip-hop artist).  Following The Roots' Game Theory album in 2006, the new album culls its title, presumably, from the William T. Vollmann's book Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means, published in 2004. Rising Down features numerous cameos and guest shots ,including Mos Def, Styles P, Talib Kweli, and Common.

David Crosby has a well-earned reputation for being an angelic-faced bad boy, a drug addicted ego freak. His work throughout the 60s and early 70s was mostly within the confines of The Byrds or Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. There is one record though, that to me is the standout among all the work of both of those bands, and it technically belongs to Crosby alone.
Crosby's first solo record, If I Could Only Remember My Name, as far as I am concerned, is one of the best albums ever made. It's an oddity for sure, and it seems miraculous that it was ever made. The album was recorded in San Francisco's Tenderloin in 1970/71. Sonically it's pure Cros-- heavy on the mystical harmonies, musically meandering all over the place-- but it also has guest appearances by Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Jerry Garcia, and Jorma Kaukonen, among many others. One of the best parts about the record is laying back, letting the sound float around you and then hearing intermittent vocals from Joni and Neil washing in and out of different songs. Though this is a solo album, the feeling of the record is often one of hazy collaboration, of seamless blending toward a greater vision. Someone needs to write a book about these recording sessions, if anyone can remember them!

The title just seems so fittingly Crosby! It always kind of cracks me up. The early 70s were a particularly drug-addled period for him. I recently read that he was referring to reincarnation with the title, not general confusion...but if you listen closely to the lyrics they seem to often reference being overwhelmed by city life, distrust and paranoia. All of this is presented in gorgeous, hooky tracks, so you could easily miss some of the more heavy themes. On the positive side of the lyrics, there are tracks like the beautiful and hippy-ish "Music Is Love." Check out this awesome performance of "Traction in the Rain" by Crosby and Graham Nash. This was on the BBC before the record was even recorded.

                                                          







                                                           
                                                              
                                                                      

Amoeba Music and Phil Blankenship are proud to present some of our film favorites at Los Angeles’ last full-time revival movie theater. See movies the way they're meant to be seen - on the big screen and with an audience!

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Saturday May 10

Burt Reynolds
& Jackie Gleason in

Smokey And
The Bandit

1977, 96 min.

New Beverly Cinema
7165 W Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036
(323) 938-4038
Midnight, $7

 

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May - New Beverly's 30th Anniversary!
May 3 Burnt Offerings
May 10 Smokey And The Bandit
May 24 Creature From Black Lake
May 31 Zardoz

June
June 7 Heavenly Bodies
June 21 John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness
June 28 Van Damme in Sudden Death

 

Twenty-two years later Jack Dangers, the UK born/ Bay Area based musician best known as front person for the group Meat Beat Manifesto, is still recording and releasing relevant music.  In addition to the recently released tenth studio Meat Beat Manifesto (MBM) album Autoimmune on Metropolis, Dangers has also just released a new solo project titled Music For Planetarium -- a limited edition release on Brainwashed. To help spread the word on both releases, Dangers and MBM (including Ben Stokes with whom he also collaborates under the name Tino Corp) just wrapped up their current US tour in the past couple of days. I caught up with them when they played the Highline Ballroom in New York about a week ago. The current MBM lineup includes Dangers, Ben Stokes, Mark Pistel and Lynn Farmer (on live drum kit set up).

Considering it is now 21 years since MBM's debut and 22 years since his original band, Perennial Divide, released their debut, and also considering that most other industrial or techno or ambient acts (all genres that Dangers' music has been labeled over the years) are no longer still making music, I asked Dangers what was the secret to MBM's and his longevity as an artist?  "The main thing is not to conform, not to follow what looks like the thing to do," he said. "It is important not to follow trends but just to be yourself. That is the main ingredient."

I asked Dangers about early in his career and his relationship to Andy Partridge and how it was exactly that the XTC member had helped him get started in his music career. Dangers replied that he first met Partridge back in 1981 in the small South Western English town of Swindon they both hail from.  "I got an intern job at the Uni recording studio (in Swindon) and got to see XTC rehearse for their English Settlement tour," he recalled adding that the XTC tour got cut short after just nine dates. "Andy pretty much knocked it on the head and didn't want to do any live performances after that."   But several years later, in 1986, Andy Partridge would work with Dangers and his first band Perennial Divide when he produced their Beehead EP - released in 1987 on Sweat Box.

Dangers first visited the US in 1989 and ended up moving Stateside, settling in the Bay Area's Mill Valley in 1994. I asked him how relocating from Swindon to Marin County came about?  "I was doing a lot of work with (Bay Area groups) Consolidated and Disposable Heroes of Hipocrisy in the early nineties," he recalled, adding that during that time period he, "Later met my future wife at SF Civic Center at a benefit for In Defense of Animals. And that was the main reason I moved over." He had also crossed paths with Ben Stokes, with whom he would forge a long-standing creative relationship. In concert, Stokes works his magic on the video sampling technology and when he is not on tour with Dangers, he is doing video production for DJ Shadow's tours (solo and with Cut Chemist).

I really thought the new album by The Cure would be out by now. I talked about it on this blog almost a year ago back in July of last year. I was very excited back then. But I am still holding my excitement. I guess it might be even stronger since their shows are coming up at the end of the month. They are playing at the Hollywood Bowl and the Shrine in Los Angeles. I know they are also playing at a city near you, in case you don't live in Los Angeles. But the album has been delayed a bit and is now coming out September 13th. They are doing something a little special before the album comes out, maybe to make it up to their fans for making us wait so long for the album. For the next four months they are going to put out a single with a b-side every month on the 13th. This should be starting on the 13th of May, which happens to be next Tuesday. I am still not entirely sure the label is really going to be able to pull this all together in time for a domestic single, but hopefully by next week I will have a copy of the new Cure single, "The Only One" in my hand. If they are smart it will be coming out on 7" as well, since they should know that we will buy it in all formats they give us. You can hear the single on their website right now. Just in case you were wondering, this new Cure album will be their 13th album --this explains the singles coming out on the 13th. By the way, The Cure still owes us a couple more of those fantastic double CD reissues. They stopped with Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me. I am still highly anticipating two of my favorite albums, Disintegration and Wish. Maybe they will happen before the new album-- there is a good four months still. That really should be enough time. So come on Robert Smith, finish what you started.

Prism Entertainment 6076

Even non-Bob Dylan fans should enjoy Todd Haynes' unorthodox and loosely structured Zimmerman biopic I'm Not There (out today on DVD) that fluidly captures the many sides of Bob Dylan with six actors each portraying the various slices of the life of the celebrated singer-songwriter from his early folk days through his much- publicized electric crossover stage and beyond. Even if you saw this film last year on the big screen, be sure to check it out on the newly issued 2 disc DVD version which includes audio commentary by director/co-writer Todd Haynes.

Actors who loosely play variations of Dylan include Cate Blanchett, Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw and the young Marcus Carl Franklin, as an eleven year old who calls himself Woody Guthrie -- all of whom are complimented by a flawless ensemble that include the Joan Baez- styled character played by Julianne Moore and David Cross' inspired turn as Allen Ginsberg (see clip above with the Blanchett- portrayed Dylan).

As a Dylan fan, what moved me even more than I'm Not There's subject matter was how Haynes so beautifully structured this heartfelt tribute to the artist, effortlessly shifting from one Dylan incarnation and stage of his illustrious career into the next. Truly amazing film-making!  My bet is that we will be seeing many future biopics that adapt this same unique approach pioneered by Haynes.

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Detroit native Curtis Fuller graces us with his presence this week at the Jazz theatre known as the Jazz Bakery. Nestled in the upscale Helms Bakery district of Culver City,  the Jazz Bakery is a non profit performance space run by the lovely jazz singer Ruth Price. I popped in this past Friday to check out the legendary Lee Konitz, who of course still kills it (at 80!) without breaking a sweat.

Mr. Fuller has led on quite a few albums, originals often fetch $500+.  Just try tracking down a copy of his debut on Transition or an orig. Bone & Bari on Blue Note and you could be doubling or tripling that.  And yes...he's that good.  Curtis also sided for Miles Davis and John Coltrane, for a stretch in the early 60's he was the sixth man in the Jazz Messengers and he played on the Wayne Shorter masterpiece Schizophrenia.  Of course he's kept busy since those glory days, check out the cut below recorded in 2005 followed by an amazing vintage cut "Children of the Night"...

AMOEBLOG:  I've heard many descriptions of your music, but how do you describe the music you make?

MOCHIPET: I like to think of my music as "experimental music," but more in a sense that I am always experimenting with new sounds and ideas. Not necessarily sounds that are new to the human ear, but sounds that are always new to mine. I used to try and always make sounds that no one has ever heard before but then I realized it doesn't matter if anyone else has heard it. It only matters if I had. Other people like to call my music. IDM, Glitch, Breakcore, etc etc..  But I just make music.

AMOEBLOG:   According to the liner notes, your new album, Microphonepet , was recorded over a five year span but you don't give years for each track. In which years were most of the tracks recorded?

MOCHIPET:  Yes, the songs were all spaced out and recorded over the past five years. I have always enjoyed making hip hop beats and collaborating with MC's. However, I never had enough for a full album, because it was not the only thing I did. But recently I had a chance to finish up these songs and compile them into a LP. The newest ones were "Girls and Boys and Toys" with Jahcoozi, "Banna Split" with Bicasso of Living Legends and E Da Boss, "Mr. Malase" (featuring Casual of Hieroglyphics, Dopestyle, and Humanbeings), and "Take You Down" (featuring Sindri andTaiwankid). The oldest one is probably "The Graduate" (featuring Dubphonics). The older ones were generally more sample based while the newer ones were more glitch and synth based.

About two months ago LA producer Daedelus and his crew laced up a short one minute pro-Barack Obama jingle in support of their favorite Democratic presidential runner.  Since then, Daedelus and Taz Arnold -- with the help of numerous other folks in LA -- have extended the short bit into a full length song and made an accompanying video for it that features many familiar faces and places around Los Angeles.  The creators of the video say it is a "dedication to LA, the mobilization of youth, and of course Obama."  Check it out!

I have a special relation to the Iron Man comic; it was my first.  Due to Uncle Skeeter giving me issue 52 as a Christmas present, I developed a lifelong obsession with the graphic narrative form (i.e., it made me a comics nerd, but never this nerdy).  Despite the ablative effects of my high school years, in which I temporarily replaced my adolescent recreational addiction with one of a more illicit kind, I still remember that comic, due to a picture of me clutching it by a Christmas tree.  So, I guess it's a combination of nostalgia, the (more often than not) sobriety of adulthood and the promise of no Ben Affleck that keeps me going back to shitty Hollywood adaptations of superhero comics I rarely read these days.  Thankfully, Iron Man the movie is pretty good.

Even without narcotics, the Iron Man comic is pretty forgettable.  I only remember a few of his villains: The Mandarin, a Fu Manchu ripoff who wore a specially powered ring on each of his fingers; the Unicorn, a technological foe who shot repulsor beams from his forehead; the Viet Cong, dreaded communists who envied his capitalist knowhow and freedom (aka surplus leisure time); and the bottle, which took something like a 120 issues before it became a problem.  Mainstream entertainment isn't allowed to mock other nationalities anymore -- at least not explicitly -- so the Mandarin was out as a villain for the movie.  However, fearing foreign ideologies is still in fashion.  Only problem is that communists make better capitalists than classic liberals do these days, so Red-baiting wouldn't hold much cachet.  Ang Lee's The Hulk demonstrated that most people don't go to see superhero films for an analysis of domestic problems, so alcoholism will have to wait for a subplot in the turgid third installment.  And a guy who shoots beams from his forehead would probably look pretty stupid on the big screen, giving the screenwriters and production designers migraines trying to come up with some phony explanation for why his head doesn't snap back when he fires. 

Today would have been the big 8-0 for the high flying trumpet man Maynard Ferguson...RIP