Done out of pure reverence for the great late Miles Davis,  musician Andy Baio  recorded an inspired 8-Bit reinterpretation of Davis' jazz classic Kind of Blue, in recent months. Aptly titled Kind Of Bloop, journalist/musician Baio writes of the inspired composition on his blog, "I've always wondered what chiptune jazz covers would sound like. What would the jazz masters sound like on a Nintendo Entertainment System? Coltrane on a C-64? Mingus on Amiga?"

Baio says that in his extensive research of such jazz classic 8-Bit covers he was only able to find four jazz covers ever released: ast0r's version of Coltrane's Giant Steps and Charlie Parker's Confirmation, Sergeeo's own Giant Steps cover, and Bun's version of Coltrane's My Favorite Things.

Portland, OR based Baio, who describes himself as a journalist/programmer and the CTO of Kickstarter, then invited the aforementioned Ast0r and Sergeeo, along with the chiptune artists Virt, Shnabubula, and Disasterpeace, to collaborate with him on a track-by-track remake of the classic Miles Davis album. The Amoeblog recently caught up with Baio to ask him about the project and the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter.

Amoeblog: How did you first get the idea to reinterpret Kind of Blue?

Oakland author Kaya Oakes' book Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture was recently published by Holt Books.  Oakes was the co-founder of the respected magazine Kitchen Sink, and her accolades include winning the Utne Independent Press Award for "Best New Magazine" in 2002. Since her book hit shelves, Kaya has been quite active doing readings up and down the West Coast. Tonight, October 17th, as part of Litquake Litcrawl reading series with Small Press Distribution, she will be reading at The Marsh cafe on Valencia between 21st and 22nd in San Francisco, from 8:30-9:30pm. The Amoeblog caught up with the author to talk about indie culture and her new book.

Amoeblog: Why did you decide to write Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture?

Kaya Oakes: The book came together for a number of different reasons. I was  approached by an agent right when the final issue of the magazine I helped found (Kitchen Sink) was coming out, and she asked if I was interested in writing a book about underground music, which is the topic of one of my courses at UC Berkeley. I came up with the idea of doing a broader overview of indie culture, since in my experience it means a lot more than just music. Plus, I felt like indie had given me so much that I wanted to give something back in turn, and I had time on my hands for a big project for the first time in five years. It was a strange coincidence to have one thing ending and another beginning, but I’m glad it happened.

Amoeblog: For those who haven't yet read your book, how do you define "indie culture," and if you were to stamp a date and place on it, when exactly did "indie" start and where?

1) People Under The Stairs Carried Away (OM)

2) Ghostface Killah Ghostdini: The Wizard of Poetry in Emerald City (Def Jam)

3) Crown CIty Rockers The Day After Forever (Gold Dust Media)

4) Del the Funky Homosapien & Tame One Parallel Uni-Verses (Gold Dust Media)

5) Jern Eye Vision MYX


6) BK-One with Benzilla Radio Do Canibal (Rhymesayers)

7) Skyzoo The Salvation (Duck Down)

8 Antipop Consortium Fluorescent Black (Big Dada)

9 Jay Are (J Rawls & John Robinson) The 1960's Jazz Revolution Again (Groove Attack)

10) Nump Student Ov Da Game (30-30 Sic Wid It Records)

People Under The Stairs (PUTS) are both back on San Francisco label OM Records for their latest album Carried Away, and back on top of the new San Francisco Amoeba Music Top Ten chart, which comes courtesy of Luis at the Haight Street store. "It's a real good album," enthused Luis of the new Thes One + Double K (PUTS) release, which is album number seven from the ever popular pair, who have been busy the past several months performing many large scale shows, including several festivals such as Coachella and Bonnaroo (where Spin magazine dubbed their set “Best Performance. Period.”). To keep that ol skool hip-hop feel, PUTS deliberatley recorded the new album entirely on reel to reel, sampling lots of classic bits, including numerous rock samples. Note that the first pressing (now at Amoeba) of the CD is wrapped around a die cut O-card and a fold out “PUTS Party Safety Guide” poster. Each album also comes with a special VIP (Very Important Partier) lanyard that will allow fans to acquire exclusive material at the ongoing People Under the Stairs World Tour.

"Man, I see in Fight Club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. Goddamn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off," says Fight Club's Tyler Durden -- played to perfection by Brad Pitt  -- who is the dark alter ego of the nameless narrator/protagonist played brilliantly by Edward Norton. Equally powerful is the actress Helena Bonham Carter in the supporting rolel of Marla Singer. Meat Loaf and Jared Leto also play secondary characters in the film.

Today, October 15th, 2009, is the ten year anniversary of the date the David Fincher directed movie first arrived in cinemas.  Based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk, the engaging dark tale, with its underlying theme of consumerism and the ptifalls of materialsim, is about the nameless Edward Norton character who, in his struggle with insomnia and lack of medication to treat it, ends up in support groups, which he soon becomes addicted to attending. And then by some twists of fate he gets drawn into the web of the dark violent psychē of Tyler Durden, ending up living in his large dilapidated house where the fight club is formed. The violent and provocative film, which has a really dark humor to it, is the sort of film you can go back and watch repeatedly. The movie's great soundtrack by the Dust Brothers also includes The Pixies ("Where Is My Mind"), Marlene Dietrich ("No Love, No Nothin"), and Tom Waits ("Goin' Out West")... Look for both the Fight Club CD and DVD at each Amoeba Music store. Below is the scene with the eight rules of Fight Club.

Of the numerous new releases to arrive onto the hip-hop shelves at Amoeba Music today (Tuesday, Oct 13th), my personal fave new joint is the latest from the ever prolific Del The Funky Homosapien. On the new CD the longtime Oakland Hieroglyphics emcee teams up with the equally talented Jersey guy Tame One -- formerly of legendary hip-hop duo The Artifacts (with El Da Sensei) and member of the East Coast hip-hop super-group The Weathermen (Aesop Rock, Cage Kennylz, Yak Ballz, El-P, Breeze Brewin, etc.).

Parallel Uni-Verses is the title of the new album featuring this bi-coastal power duo, released on Gold Dust Media. The collaboration comes as a surprise to many hip-hop fans (myself included), since you would never expect these two artists to join forces. But the good news is it works, and really well, too, on songs such as "Flashback," featured above in the new video directed by Alex Ghassan. The vid was recorded two months ago at the East River State Park on the Williamsburg Waterfront outdoor show in Brooklyn and at various other NYC spots including (what looks like) Fat Beats record store on Sixth Ave. in the West Village.