I recently discoved the fantastic Mary Onettes. I find it hard to believe that I had never heard of them until now. Their new album Islands is out November 3rd, but I was suprised to find out that this is their second full length album. I quickly fell in love with this new album before I even knew anything about them-- I only knew they were on Labrador Records and were probably from Sweden. So I decided to do some investigating and found out this was not their first album. I felt kind of embarrassed that I had never heard of them before. How could this band have passed me by? They are exactly the kind of band that I fall in love with. Their first self titled album came out 2 years ago on my birthday, May 1st, 2007. I guess I was too busy listening to the Magic Position by Patrick Wolf and the deluxe reissue of the Dirty Dancing Soundtrack, which also came out on the same day. I am also a bit mad at my friends -- how could they have not told me about this band? Maybe they just assumed I knew all about them already. Or maybe they had not heard about them either! I typically love all things from Sweden. Especially if you are a band still musically living in the late 80's and early 90's. Espcially if you are influenced by The Smiths, The Cure, New Order, and Echo and the Bunnymen. This band was sort of made for me. I know I just recently discussed this, but I will discuss it again. I am, of course, in love with this new album, and it was the first time that I heard the Mary Onettes, so it will most likely remain the album with that special place in my heart. I went back last week and discovered their first album for the first time but I didn't like it as much as the new one. I did like it though, and am actually liking it more and more as I listen to it more and more. I know those Mary Onettes fans that have liked them since their first album will probably find this new one not as good but that is just becuase they are hearing this new album years after already falling in love with that first record. It all really depends on when you were introduced to the band.

There is a type of customer at Amoeba Music that remains one of my favorites. Those brave souls who sheepishly make their way to the deepest, most remote area of the store: The Classical Section. They look vulnerable but hopeful, curious but intimidated. They come, knowing they want Classical music, but unsure how to find something they’ll like.

                Amp Live feat. Trackademicks & Mr. Micro - Gary is a Robot (OM Records)

Above is the brand new video for the latest release from super-talented Bay Area producer Amp Live, equally known these days for both his membership with Zion I and for his acclaimed Radiohead remix project Rainydayz from last year when he masterfully reworked Thom Yorke & company's In Rainbows LP. The video above is for the single "Gary Is A Robot" (which comes in four other remixed versions) on which Amp is joined by Trackademicks and Mr. Micro. The track is a taste of what is to come on Amp Live's forthcoming solo album project, Murder at the Discotek, which is scheduled to drop on Child's Play/OM in the first quarter of 2010. Stay tuned for details.

Speaking of Bay Area hip-hop talent, hard-working, versatile SF emcee and self-described "make something happen-aire" Sellassie, who last night (Thursday) put it down at the In House Bay Area Talent Showcase at Element, is tonight (Friday 13th) opening for Raekwon at the Independent. Queen YoNasDa and DJ Raw B are also on the bill tonight.  9:00 PM show. Click here for tickets and info. 

Well somebody out there has money to burn ... shit, crisis what financial crisis? The pathetic and mostly lifeless contemporary art market was suddenly re-animated on Wednesday at Sotheby's New York when a silk-screen painting by Andy Warhol, produced in 1962, sold for a $43.8 million, the second highest price ever for a Warhol piece. (In 2007 his painting, Green car Crash (Green Burning Car 1), sold for a mind blowing $71.7 million.) The amazing thing about all this is that the pre-auction estimate of for the silk-screen was expected to pull in only about $8 - $12 million.

Alessandra Celletti and Hans-Joachim Roedelius (of Cluster -- formerly Kluster fame), who in recent times met on MySpace and began working on a collaborative piece titled Sustanza di Cose Sperata [Substance of Things Hoped For] -- which they have so far only performed at a few large European festivals and also recorded for the label Transparency -- will perform together for three exclusive US shows (LA, SF, NYC) next month.

And as you may already be aware, Amoeba Music is the only outlet for tickets to both the San Francisco show (12/3 at Theater 39) and the Los Angeles show (12/5 at Zipper Hall). In advance of these two highly anticipated concerts, the Amoeblog this week caught up with both the Italian based Celletti and the Austrian based Roedelius to talk music. The interview with Celletti, which was published yesterday, can be seen by clicking here. Meanwhile, immediately below the video of the artist in concert at the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts in Ojai, CA, is the Amoeblog conversation with the ever-active 75 year old Roedelius, who has long been considered the father of German electronic music as well as one of its most prolific artists, with approximately 150 albums to his credit.

Join They Might Be Giants and The Booksmith for a mini-concert, reading, and signing in celebration of KIDS GO!, a sing-along book/DVD with illustrations by Pascal Campion. Other TMBG CD titles will also be available, provided by Amoeba. Free event! All ages welcome! Thursday, November 12^th at 4pm at The Booksmith in San Francisco.

San Francisco's own Sonny & the Sunsets are releasing an album of confident, cool rock songs that have an easy, loose vibe to them called Tomorrow is Alright on Secret Seven/Soft Abuse Records! [Secret Seven is the same label that put out (with Empty Cellar) The Two Sides of Tim Cohen, and is soon to release The Sandwitches 12"...] It comes out November 17th as a vinyl only, limited release of 500 copies and will be available at Amoeba. The album features a wallop of guest appearances by San Francisco stalwarts Kelley Stoltz, Tim Cohen from The Fresh and Onlys, Tahlia Harbour of The Dry Spells and Heidi Alexander from The Sandwitches, among others. Sonny, whose musical endeavors have taken him through the years from piano bar gigs in Colorado to Marin's Headlands for an artist's retreat, chatted with me about his past, present and future.

MIss Ess: So you grew up here in San Francisco? How did you start playing music? Who helped you get going and what artists influenced you as a kid?

Sonny Smith: I learned when I was a kid. I was given a guitar. Van Halen.

Exene Cervenka, the legendary singer of X, performed at Amoeba Berkeley this past Saturday in support of her new solo record Somewhere Gone (out now on Bloodshot Records)! While the instrumentation of her latest LP is closer to that of her other X side project, The Knitters, the melodies and darker lyrical content still shine through on the new folksy record. Somewhere Gone features the late Amy Farris on strings as well as Cindy Wasserman and David Carpenter, from the band Dead Rock West on backing vocals and bass, respectively. The album also features a cameo from Flat Duo Jets' Dexter Romwebber, though Wasserman and Carpenter were only transfers from the record to the live performance.


Exene and her band played a 45 minute set of songs, mainly from the new album, though they did sprinkle in some unrecorded material throughout. Unlike solo sets from Frank Black or Paul McCartney, there were no rearranged X songs. Rather, the in-store focused on the material Exene had written over the past 4 years while living in rural Missouri.

Also while in Missouri, Exene has focused on her visual art, which has been showcased recently in galleries in Southern California, where she now resides. The album cover for Somewhere Gone is one example of the collage style art that Exene produces.

The Apple iPod turns the big 8 today. On the morning of November 10th, 2001, Apple first began selling its original version of the iPod MP3 music player. Pictured left, that original iPod sold for $399 + tax, and was marketed as an "Ultra-Portable MP3 Music Player" that "puts 1,000 Songs in Your Pocket."

Up to that point there had been many types/brands of MP3 players around (I knew a lot of folks who favored using their MiniDiscs as MP3 players) but no company had streamlined and made an MP3 player as user friendly as Apple did with the iPod. In 2001 it came with a 5GB hard drive, coupled with the first scrolling wheel and interface on an MP3 player.

Of course, in retrospect, compared to the variety of models of iPods and other MP3 players available to us today, this prototype iPod seems both bulky and pricey in contrast. Such is the way in this fast paced, ever-changing digital age. But what is most significant about the iPod is that in eight short years, it has not only changed the fortunes of the company that manufactures it (just as Apple's next big hit, the iPhone -- almost at 45 million in unit sales -- has similarly done), but it also has altered how the world listens to and consumes music.

Immediately before its commercial release back in late 2001, the iPod was being billed as the coming "Next Generation Player" and boy, that could not have been closer to the truth, since it literally signaled the generation of music consumers to come. The iPod was largely instrumental in changing everything to do with music; from listening to it, to buying or acquiring it, to selling, sharing, & storing music, etc, from that point on. In fact, in the music business that date, November 10th, 2001, could well be considered the watershed moment that divides two eras: BiP/AiP (Before iPod and After iPod).

When Los Angelenos - The Eastside Renaissance originally came out in 1983, I was not aware of all the Chicano bands that were popping up all over my back yard. Sure, I knew about the groups that came out in the seventies such as Tierra, El Chicano and Malo because oldies radio had been playing them for years. The only thing that I listened to at the time that was similar to The Eastside Renaissance was Los Lobos’ now classic …And A Time To Dance. Although groundbreaking in many ways, Los Lobos’ music was rooted in Traditional Mexican music and Americana. It was the kind of music that could be easily digested by the readers of Rolling Stone as being adventurous. However, to a fifteen-year getting into punk…not so much.

A few years later, thanks to the Alex Cox’ underground classic film Repo Man, a whole new world was opened to me. The soundtrack to Repo Man contained punk groups I dug at the time such as Fear, Black Flag, Suicidal Tendencies and The Circle Jerks, not to mention Iggy Pop performing the theme song. However it was The Plugz on the soundtrack that really knocked me out. It was Punk En Español and it had a sound all of its own. The songs “El Clavo En La Cruz” and their Spanish version of "Secret Agent Man (Hombre Secreto)" made it in every mix tape that I made during those years. Most of my friends that were into punk rock at the time didn’t get my fascination with The Plugz. They could never understand how excited I was that there was this band that were Mexicanos that sang in both Spanish and English.

Back in '88, during hip-hop's so-called 'golden age,' for some magnificant reason damn near every rap release that came out was an instant classic: records like Marley Marl's "The Symphony," Eric B & Rakim's "Follow The Leader," EPMD's "Strictly Business," Too Short's "Life Is...Too Short," and of course Sir-Mix-a-Lot's "Posse on Broadway." 

A single off the famed Seattle rapper's debut album Swass on Nastymix Records, Sir Mix-a-Lot's song struck a nerve with rap fans everywhere at the time firstly because of the great lyrics and the track's 808 kick-drum fueled sick beat, and secondly because listeners made the song lyrics relate to their own town's Broadway -- whether they were in New York or San Francisco or wherever.

Of course, the Broadway in "Posse On Broadway" was the one in Mix-a-Lot's (born Anthony Ray) own hometown of Seattle in the Capitol Hill district, the one were they "stopped at Taco Bell for some Mexican eatin' But Taco Bell was closed, The girls was on my tip. They said go back the other way we'll stop and eat at Dick's. Dick's is the place where the cool hang out. The Swass like to play and the rich flaunt clout. Posse to he burger stand so big we walk in twos." (Scroll down to see full song lyrics.)

In hindsight, who could've been more perfect to play the bought face in John Frankenheimer's Seconds than the most infamous of closeted actors, Rock Hudson? Irrespective of his own intrinsic make-up, Rock's bread-and-butter came from being sold as the perfect masculine physiognomy to wannabe-Doris Day housewives everywhere. As such, this film might be considered the actor's ontological biography. Here he plays the new body bought by an aging businessman who's tired of his family and life. Along with the new body comes a new social identity, that of an artist. Sounds pretty good, right? Unfortunately, Rock can't forget who he was/is, and when he discovers that the community he now lives in is a group of commodified identities like himself, the horror is manifested. He's the Cartesian cogito lost in a world of pure doubt, where everything is mere appearance and nothing is real, but (here's the clincher) he still has his memories. Not being able to forget the past keeps him from being able to commit to the manufactured fantasy. Consider the way such a realization can screw up sex:

Hiroshi Teshigahara's Face of Another is even more explicit in the horror that comes when a grounding fantasy is realized as such. In a spin on Plato's invisible man fable, Mr. Okuyama (Tatsuya Nakadai) is given a realistic mask after having his face melted in a chemical explosion. The mask is modeled on another man's face, behaves like a regular face, but can be removed. The doctor who invented the mask warns Okuyama that its continued use might distance him from his self, diminishing the sense of moral responsibility (just like invisibility). His "true" face remains hidden under bandages until he applies the new one. The real misery begins when Okuyama tests his wife's fidelity to that old adage of loving one for what's on the inside. As you might expect, grotesque disfigurement wasn't doing much for his sex life, particularly given his constant depressing whine. His wife tries to be supportive, but he's not having it. Instead, he puts on the mask and seduces her as "another man." When he confronts her, she claims to have known it was him all along. But even if she's telling the truth, does it make his realization any less horrific? It suggests (going with Žižek) that she's always been making love to a fantasy based on appearances (his old face was a mask, too), rather than the internal qualities he believes to constitute his core being. He feels (quite rightly, it seems) reduced to another's "phantasmic frame." Clearly, something needs to be violently repressed; what or who will it be? To misquote Sartre, hell is intersubjectivity.