Friday, December 30, 2005


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Minneapolis has the best mainstream radio in the country. It is impossible to not find something listenable at any hour of the day. The best of the lot is "The Current", (streaming here) which is a public radio station which actually plays good music. And they have real djs that actually select songs that they like and sequence themselves (but unlike a lot of those stations like "The Mountain" or whatever in Denver that pretty much base their whole identity on the fact that they are not owned or operated by Clear Channel and have real djs, these guys have good taste. With "The Mountain", it's like "Wow, you guys are sure are independent and for real. And you are still playing the same stupid fucking Bob Seeger song that the radio always plays. Great."). "The Current" generally goes for the jangly indie rock/electro hipster rock/singer songwriter stuff, but they are carefully punctuated by lapses into socially acceptable hip hop. Sometimes the DJs seem a little uninformed about such music (like, "Yeah, Dave, actually the Dilated Peoples aren't any good, but... thanks for trying."), but for the most part it's right on.

The only station I know of like it is the mighty Triple-J (streaming here) the Australian National Public Radio youth station. That thing was a savior while I was sailing along the west coast. We couldn't pick it up while running but in every port we stopped in we'd be rocking it and hearing what was going on with all the fabulous hipsters in Sydney. They play indie rock and underground electronic and rap, with an emphasis on Oz-Rock (the title is unfortunate, like most of the cutesy colloquialisms the Aussies adore). They pick up on new shit waay faster than American radio, and feature artists mainstream radio would never touch. I remember one night we were moored and had gone into town, I think it was Broome, and the rest of the crew went to see some moldy "pub-rock" for like 20 oz bucks. I chose to get take away beer from the "bottle shop" and drink with the abborigines out in the street. Late that night, back on the boat we had all fallen asleep with the radio on. JJJ was playing an interview with Darkthrone and playing their songs. I was pysched. Everyone else was too drunk and tired to switch it off and they all complained of having bad dreams afterwards.

Triple-J also has radio personalities that are acctually funny (I remember this running bit they did where they read the newspaper headlines about the Palestine-Israel situation that involved Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon. They would pronounce his name as "Sharon" the woman's name, and pictured her as a "bogan babe" {white trash chick} who was always screwing up the peace process like "What's Sharon up to today... lets see, 'Sharon Cancels Mid-East Summit'. Aww, Shazza, what have you done this time?")

The "Hot 100" CD they put out every year is a big deal for people who grew up on the station. Young Australians look back on JJJ and talk about it was Saturday Night Live or something like "Remember when that guy was on? And they did that thing? Classic!" They think back to when JJJ was first playing shit like Radio Birdman and the Ramones.

The hindrance the station has is it's reliance on Australian rock that is hit-and-miss. Australians are fierce about their rock, and though they do listen to some American and British bands, there must be an equal time share given to Oz rock bands and for every rock sensation abroad they have their own homegrown equivalent. This is something else in common with Minneapolis radio: in Minneapolis I think there is a One-Atmosphere-Song-Per-Hour rule there. And a one Obligatory-Reference-to-The-Replacements-per-Discussion-of-Any-New-Band-that-Plays-Guitar rule.

In fact i think there is much comparable between Minnesota and Australia. They are both full of friendly, laid-back white people with funny accents. They enjoy things like rock music, animal husbandry, horticulture, smoking weed (I'm just assuming for the Minnesotans but, come on... they invented the deep fried Snickers Bar), drinking local beers (Leinies in MN, Victoria Bitter or Emu Bitter in Oz), friendly political discourse, and a presenting a smiling, inviting face to non-locals even while subtly trashing, mocking, and making them look foolish their local buddies.

Tuesday, December 27, 2005


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Just so people don't start thinking theyre looking at Pitchfork or something, I'd like to feature something that I've discovered recently that has nothing to do with trendy indie music. Clancy's Fancy Hot Sauce is basically the Nectar of the Gods. I discovered it in its hometown of Ann Arbor Michigan. It was probably in my top five favorite things about Ann Arbor, somewhere between cross country skiing, the 8 ball pub, the food (HA! Sorry, Ann Arborites- Tios sucks, The Fleetwood Diner sucks, and Zingermans is great, but a sandwhich costs 11 dollars and they'll try to sell you on a 7 dollar side of applewood-bacon-studded-chipotle-rubbed-new-potato-salad), and partaking in the age-old tradition of after-hours drinking in the posh ladies room of stately Rackham Hall. Clancy's Fancy is a hometown hero, much like Jeff Daniels, who is from Chelsea and does an evening of amusing stories and musical interludes every Christmas as a fundrasier at The Purple Rose Theatre. But unlike a night of jazz standards and holiday favorites with the star of Aracnophobia, Clancy's Fancy is shockingly good.

Its ingredients list is a battery of sensual delights: Apple Cider Vinegar, Michigan Extra Virgin Olive Oil, Fresh Garlic, Fresh Ginger, Michigan Wildflower honey, Cayenne and Scotch Bonnet Peppers, Orange Juice.

You don't know. Remember when everybody jumped on the Sriracha jock a couple years ago? Once they taste the fanciness, these little black bottles are going to be popping up everywhere and kicking that smug rooster out of every hipster's fridge. That's my prediction for this year. I know what I said last year about Yeungling knocking PBR out of the box didn't really happen, but this one's a lock.

Monday, December 26, 2005

It's time to check in with Che-Wei and Emily, regular contributers to White Animal who may not even know that they are. Emily sent me this link for an online radio station called Resonance FM. Apparantly, this station has good streaming radio. I wouldn't know as I have no time to listen to streaming radio. She also sent me a link to Shak Har Boobis.com which is... oh, don't even bother.

Che-Wei presented me with the latest development in the heady, rarified world of absurd rediculous mash-up projects: Q-Unit. It's an album long pairing of Queen and, you guessed it, G-unit . It will make you stupid. We stayed with Che- Wei recently in Brooklyn and he burned me a copy of Glassbreaks (he had to pull the take the mp3s off his site but here's a Stream of it ) by DJ BC, which is an album of hip hop and drum and bass remixes of Phillip Glass music featuring Tribe, Beasties, Lil
Jon etc. BC is a czech DJ who is also behind the Beatles/Beastie Boys Mash-up project The Beastles . BC seems like an earnest, you may might even say quaint sample artist who probably spends millions of hours making his mixes. It probably takes up all his time between being assailed by beautiful blonde DJ groupies in Prague. Yikes.

Thanks again to Emily and Che-Wei, and if you would like to contribute to White Animal just send links and ideas to emersonbreneman@gmail.com and paypall me 21.99$ for processing fees.

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I know i'm not blowing any indie music snobs minds or really anyone's mind with this. In fact, this group really doesn't need shout outs from anyone because they are already a household name in Britain and Europe, have appeared on David Letterman, in the NY Times (but so have Pelican for that matter..), and on NPR but in case you haven't heard this, here's Anthony and the Johnsons. It really is some of the most striking music I've heard lately. LIke another breakout singer of the past years, Joanna Newsome, He/She has an unearthly voice, but this is totally different. It's completely melodramatic and self-indulgant, like "Mother I Can Feel the Soil Falling Over My Head" times a thousand. Antony seems to be an incredible mimic, from song to song you may think you are listening to Billie Holiday, Jeff Buckley, Chet Baker, etc. And there's a black, apocalyptic air about the whole thing that some people might find addictive.

here are some MP3 links (that i've just realized are only irritatingly short samples, but... im too lazy to change the links now)

Hope There's Someone

Spiraling (feat. Devendra "the kind of hippie i want to see burning" Banhart)

For Today I am a Buoy

Saturday, December 24, 2005


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Yo, have you heard this new Bing Bong Bros joint? Shit is Binoculars.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005


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CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR FRIENDS POORNA AND MATT ON THE BIRTH OF THEIR FIRST BABY SAVANA METRO CEGIELA!  MUCH LOVE TO ALL THREE OF THEM.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005


No sooner had i compared the "Laffy Taffy" song to Kraftwerk than I found this mashup with "the man machine" on the hollerboards.
And speaking of my musical obessions of the moment, my current Joanna Newsome craze is appeased well by this REGGAETON remix of "Bridges and Baloons"!!! courtesy of the fine folks of Providence's Certified Bananas. Man, If they had played this at that wack mexican bar we were at the other night in the City everything would have been OK.
Well, I just found out there is some crazed DJ party in Philly going on right now. Meanwhile I tried to make an evening of it on State Street rubbing elbows with people from my high school who I didnt want to see (and some girls I REALLY didn't want to see) and various Media PA douchebags. Uh, things arent going right. Posted by Picasa
Right now Im in the suburbs of Philadelphia while Genevieve is in Spain... but at least I can download music. Here's what I copped so far:
(Ive added some links to "Radio Blog Club", where you can listen to some of this..)
1.Bjork- Who is it? (Vitalic rmx)=
a french electro-cutioner makes something off "Medula" listenable! And good.
2. .Jason Forrest- Shamelessly exciting=
= leaves his lo-fi shit you already copped off the Cock Rock Disco site (who's been paying attention?) in the dust.
3. .D4L-Shake that Laffy Taffy= we heard this song in the supermarket in brooklyn a few days ago, and i tracked it down. and it's bonkers- sounds like Kraftwerk are in a strip club and doin touchin on all the girls and the bouncers are like "Go ahead, guys."
4. .Woven Hand=- new 16 Horsepower side project is to bluegrass and christianity what Black metal is to Scandinavian Folk and anti-christianity. That's Woven Hand: Christianity; Bluegrass:: Black Metal: Scandinavian Folk; Antichristianity.
5. .Hammers of Misfortune- The Bastard= All the metal kids from Portland have been talking about this forever. Now I see why. I guess the new album isn't all that hot, but this is their first and it's a ROCK OPERA. And what all those metal kids don't know is that the singer sounds like the dude from Dead Can Dance... and that's ok!
6..Minotaur Shock- Nautical=- . Shit was all over the French Press (French Press! Hah.. whew too much coffee today) when we were there. But it's good. 8 bit meets stereophonics in a french rowboat. But it's good.
7. ..Dangerdoom= of course, just like every white college boy in the world right now. I can come to terms with that.
OK, got all that? Now get back at me with other new shit! Posted by Picasa

Blog of the moment: BEER AND RAP by Sergdun, if only just for the name Posted by Picasa

Watching "Deathwatch" the other day started me thinking about the gangsters of Paris. My friend Alain in Paris was obsessed with this book he had found at the bookshop near his apartment in Monmarte about the History of Gangsters in Paris. The book was filled dope photos of these men and women in action and was crazy. Like a french pictoral version of the book "Gangs of New York". I guess the heyday for this subculture was from the turn of the century to the twenties. Around this time, gangs and thugs prowled the then-quite-thugged-out streets around Rue Pigalle. There were the Apaches, who were young street toughs, and there were older dandies of fashion who carried straight razors and hung around the cafes drinking and whoring. There were gang wars based on whether you dressed like a hooligan, sailor or a fancy Parisian pimp. Everyone, though, was marked up with jailhouse tats that recorded their crimes and loves and mottos, things like the francophile equivalent to "Born to Lose" and "FTW". There were famous characters of this scene who had tales told about their evil exploits and appeared as notorious celebrities in the papers. This is a very vague interpretation of what I learned from this book, as it was in french, and the intenet seems to be desperately lacking in information on this subject. There is one good article about the Apaches here
And another about the "Dirty Tricks of the French Apaches" here, presumably so you can try them for yourself.  Posted by Picasa

WHITE ANIMAL:: FEEL THE RILLNESS Posted by Picasa

Brendan as Solange from "The Maids" Posted by Picasa

While we were in New York last week,G and I saw her friend Brendan and the rest of the egress theatre co. do a doubleheader production of "DEATHWATCH" and "THE MAIDS" by Jean genet . Shit was pretty intense. I had never heard of Genet but aparantly he was a freak pervert genius, especially in his early work which he wrote while he was in an out of prisons all over europe (we went to prison ON PURPOSE.. get it?). Heres a nice site with lots of quotes: Genet page.


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Now, Im not a person who has the time or willpower to sit around and play video games most of the time, and I don't imagine most of you are, but at the moment I'm at my mom's house in Media, PA, so for the I officially am that kind of person. My sister showed me KATAMARI DAMACY
and I felt completely justified to be such a person. Have you seen this thing? It will confirm your suspicions that the Japanese have it well over us not just in fucking crazy but in the technological ability to make their brand of fucking crazy into recreational gold. In Katamari Damacy you are the Prince of all Cosmos (or some shit) and you roll around a sticky ball which picks up EVERYTHING. You build up a giant ball of thumbtacks, chopsticks, bottle of green tea, cats, and eventually cars, people and buildings. You do all of this to appease the King of Universe, who occasionally shoots you with royal rainbows and then takes your katamari and turns it into a star. Imagine if the Pizacato 5, mark mothersbaugh, and Kubrick were all candy flipping and thought of a video game. And their minds became wireless transmitters that beamed their ideas straight into your playstation. Thats it. Posted by Picasa

Thursday, November 17, 2005


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The live webcast on http://www.3rdarm.biz last friday was madness.  3 turntables, my laptop, microphones and the "third channel"- another laptop picking up our streaming audio from the web and rebroadcasting it with a 30 second delay.  The result was a noisy, time-distorted phychadelic slopfest which seemed to be the perfect sound for holing up in Arthur's bunker and conjuring up digital juju.



 


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Elliot tweaks the third channel and bizamp.

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The effects of the third channel

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Alex with a huge bag of mutant peanuts

Friday, November 11, 2005

Oh Shit...

This was printed on http://dmbq.net/ a couple days ago. For once, a terrible engrish translation is not funny. At all.

"To whom it may concern.

Thank you for usually patronizing DMBQ.
Today we have to say everybody has regrettable information.

They, members, did from October 12, in the middle of an American tour that
had started from United States San Francisco. While the car that the
member had gotten on heads for New York, Mana Nishiura who was called
drummer China died of the traffic accident on the road in the
Baltimoa district about 1:00PM of American November 4 local Fridays.

We will discontinue all performances of the American tour scheduled at the following due to this accident.

We got the greatly aid from everybody that as a start of the overseas
presence of newborn DMBQ by the reorganized member. It became like
this, new and old parties concerned are very regrettable. About the
activity in the future we will report as soon as it will decide.

We wish to express our gratitude here for your kindness before the
life to Mana Nishiura, and we report respectfully.

November 10, 2005
DMBQ staff"

much respect and love to DMBQ and all their friends

Wednesday, November 09, 2005

Some good pictures for the "Contra-Bush" protests in Buenos Aires (oh man i cant wait to get down there) are up on Erin and crew's weblog Long Trail to BA, while Kate Mullan continues with good stories and pics on Dala Dala Stops Here.

G and I, by the way, have bought our tickets to Argentina (Jan 3rd) and are strking out for a little roadtrip tommorow. here are the tentative dates:

NOV 10th-13th: Boston
13th-15th: Connecticut
15th-20th: New Yawk
20th-27th: Ill be in Chilly Philly while G is maxing in sunny Spain, so pleeese holler at me, because Holiday-induced depression might be onsetting.
27th-Dec: We'll drive to Ann Arbor Michagan and stay there a while
Christmas: We'll be back in Philly (I think)
New Years: We'll be in Chicago (and Chris Rejano better not convince to take a massive caffiene at pill at 3 am again. We were on our way to a warehouse after-hours which turned out to have a 20 dollar cover. So we went home, Chris went to bed and I was left sitting up all night wide awake, watching and MF Doom DVD with a bellyache.
Jan 3rd-May 3rd: We'll be ghostface in Argentina/Uruguay/etc. Possibly reinacting "The Motorcycle Diaries". Watch out, because I might come back a cold-blooded Marxist Thug. More so.

Sunday, November 06, 2005


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Our Friend Sharon Niesp gave a poetic reading from a book entitled "Lesbians Over 60 Speak for Themselves", accompanied by a singing and Dancing james Brown doll, both of which were birthday presents from John Waters.  This avant-garde performance took place in the Green room of my fathers's House in Truro, where Jason lives and has of late taken on an atmosphere somewhere between a bohemian coffee house and an episode of "Playboy After Dark", with Jason entertaining various swingers and notables on the local scene, with the occasional groovy dance freakout to swinging hit makers like the Ohio Express and teh 1910 Fruitgum Company.
James would occasionally interject or contribute with a, "ARWWWW! I FEEL GOOD!" and a show stopping little dance. DJ Jason would soflty play the Carpenters during the tearier moments. It was amazing.

Thursday, November 03, 2005


WELCOME TO JAMROCK

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

OK, so the Olneyville Providence Halloween party was hectic. A lot of what you expect- knitted homemade Lightning Bolt outfits, RISD kids in elaborate costumes swilling the cheapest of ghetto booze, noise, chaos, a giant warehouse within stones throw of the Onleyville Hot Wiener system, dozen of bands you've never heard of and a few that you have, Several Jesuses, a Transformer, firecrackers, a lot of 16 year-olds, art damage, Japanese people, a Temporary Autonomous Fort Thunder vibe, guest appearances by aging local punk celebrities, a Haunted House, noise, a lot of that twitching jerking freakout that art school kids call "dancing" when anyone associated with Lightning Bolt or Forcefield collective is doing anything that makes a loud noise.
The Party was held in a giant warehouse that was completely open in the same neighborhood as the Munch Haus and the Dirt Palace. There was a big haunted house on the first floor and then areas for bands to play all around the rest of the building. At any time there were two bands playing at once, and never two bands playing in the same area back to back. So the masses of Olneyville noise punks, RISD girls, local crusties, scenesters from NY and Philly, randoms Oks etc. all decked out in insane costume had to roam all over the building to find the music- everything from total sludge stoner rock, digital glitchcore, spazz-rock squack, deathly eerie ambience, Japanese psychadelia, grind, and not a cover of "Monster Mash" or the Misfits' "Halloween" to be heard. And speaking of novelty, this was a massive at-least-tangentially punk-based costume party and I remember seeing only ONE pirate! That should give you an idea of the originality at work.
Bands were playing outside, in the front hall, all over the place so I didn't get a chance to see them all, but some standouts were: Buddy Ship are a Lightning Bolt side project that sounded.. like Lightning Bolt but a bit more of a art-metal Thrones-y influence. Still a lot of that firecracker/popcorn drum freakout that kids love.
A band who couldn't agree that their name might be "Drunk Mountain" and wore evil costumes (see pics below) and played a music that bridged the gap between Art-school noise rock and sludgey/grindy metal, which was crowd pleasing.
"Unicorn Hard-On" was a one-woman digital beatdown with screamy vocals which I elaborate on below.
Probably the most looked-forward to band of the night for the crusties, hobos and kids visiting from the Cranberry Harvest was "The Body"- a two piece who make a lumbering sonic dinosaur of doom riffs that grow into to steady punishing beats that even the hardcore kids can dance to. To say that their live sound is "atmospheric" doesn't even capture it- they arrived on stage in robes- one black, one white, wearing creepy masks- a bear and rabbit. A dusty, creepy sample track of unintelligble voices ran through the whole set, the cadances of which they used as framework for the low-level room-shaking guitar. When (after minutes of ominous build-up) it would boil over into a fierce stoner beat, the crowd would start to writhe and stagger all over each other. Near the end it seemed that things were getting out of control and that the overcrowded room would erupt into drunken violence, but "The Body" reigned it in and unplugged at just the right moment.
The second floor was kind of the "main stage" where the national touring bands played.
When "an albatross" are removed from the world of Philadelphia scenesterdom and placed within the context of Providence's noise art overkill, they acctually sound OK. In a setting where their theatrics and pretention are comparatively minor, you can focus on the music, which is a studious imitation of grindcore with baroque organ parts (Sharkey said they sound like the Zamboni machine that comes on at half-time in a Hockey game). And despite the fact that the singer always stands on an amp, shirtless, does the Jesus-christ pose, rants about "peace and love and rock and roll" and looks like (another Sharkeyism) Dave Navarro, they couldn't upstage some of the other acts for rockism.
Like "Green Milk from Planet Orange" (I shit you not) a Japanese band touring with them. We saw these guys earlier, in designer ski parkas and nikes with expensive rock haircuts and decided that they were so cool and Japanese that they didn't need to wear costumes. I asked one guy what band he was in and he said "Gleen Milk.. from Planet Olange." What sytle did they play? "Uhh.. kind of ploglock, sometime psychaderic." And they did, but also with boogaloo freakouts and groovy extended bass workouts and frantic screamy vocals. The vocalist came out in the audience with a bullhorn and jabbered and ranted and worked the crowd up into a Biblical psych-rock frenzy, circling around him, stomping and pounding on the floor. Their set, probably the best of the night (rivaled only by The Body), culminated in a Boredoms-like rythmic trance that raised the whole proceeding into something like a holy offering to the gods of amplified noise.
Providence's White Mice played a noisy, very Olneyville ugly rock set that I didn't feel too much (see photos below).
Another Providence disapointment were (i think ) "The Fuzz", who had something to do with Bob from Dropdead but were (in the words of Jay Lawrence) "too dumb to play".
Finally, the last of 20 or more bands was DMBQ . If all the noise and overkill and cheap booze hadn't worn out the crowd already, Japanese rockers DMBQ did with their deafening, theatric heavy rock finale. They sound like Guitar Wolf covering two Led Zeppelin songs at once. At this point a crowd of hundreds had dwindled down to maybe 25 stalwarts. For the last 20 minutes of their DMBQ played an excessive, extended noise climax where they invited the revelers to worships their phallic, vibrating guitars and then finally completely destroyed a brand new drum kit peice by peice. This was eardrum atrition, and the last note of the evening.
Like I said, it was hectic.

Tuesday, November 01, 2005


some spooky shit

This Transformer dude had to have the best costume... later he was wearing it in the pit... very scary.

and he could really transform..

and Roll Around!

Let the knob tweaking and eardrum bleeding begin, Santa style.

"Hey, I'm just a friendly Tiger."

".. just a tiger." MIke McLaughlin from the Lincoln.

J.C. was a Sexyclash Unicorn. Can't you tell?

Spooky "art".

whoa... Ghost Bike.

Holloween is the day when art fags rise from the dead and are allowed to roam the streets without fear.

"Unicorn Hard-On", a sexyclash Unicorn, and Taco.

Were they real punks or wearing punk costumes? Or is being punk just wearing a punk costume? That shit will mess with your mind, bro.

Is this some acidhead Aztec SunGod Voodoo New Orlean second-line freakout from the jacket of a Sun-Ra album?

No, it's Mummer's Day parade costume found in the trash.

This band-with-no-name.. (aka "Drunk Mountain") were heavy as fuck.

heavy as fuck.

Four-leg dude was doing it all night. That dedication.

The artfaggery of it all

Even BREAKOUT was there. And he was drinking a beer, and was like "Whats up, dude?". And he's in DROPDEAD.

"Unicorn Hard-on" was just what you would expect from excessive amounts of Daddy's cash to blow on sequencers and effects pedals, the art-damaging effects of RISD, Lightning Bolt, and preciousness... TOTALLY FUCKING AWESOME! Screamtacular electro noise nonsense like Peaches being crushed by a giant drum machine. On a unicorn. It was a RAVE!

The shit was off the hook, everybody was RAVING for her whole like 12 minute set.

The crazy blue Krishna-avatar dude who seemed to be a part of her act could barely handle it. All the RAVING.