the tinyblog: musica Archives

some things i meant to mention, mostly about music

(me on my porch)

regarding team gina

Last night I went to a lesbian dance party called Lick! and saw like, the best lesbian rap group ever, called Team Gina. They sounded a lot more practiced live than they do in the MySpace recordings, and they blew me away.

Especially because they rapped about the "olecranon" (the anatomical word for your elbow) which I thought was badass because I wrote a poem with "occiput" in it. I went up and told them I thought it was cool and she said she was a massage therapist. So, big ups to massage therapist rappers. I'd love to do what they're doing!

regarding Ryan Chapman:

Made a new friend recently, and we were feeling each other on the good-music-and-good-weed tip. I went over to his house for like a "first friend date" and we got crunk on the vaporizer and listened to LP's on his nice setup. Here's what we played:

Big Star - 3rd: Femme Fatale
Talking Heads - Fear of Music
Bowie - Changes: John, I'm Only Dancing
Spoon - Gimme Fiction: Turn My Camera On / My Mathematical Mind
Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago: Flume
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Film Score
Panda Bear - Person Pitch: Take Pills / Side D
Al Green - Stay
Broken Social Scene Presents Kevin Smith - If...: TBTF / Fucked Up Kids
Okkervil River - The Stage Names: You Can't Hold the Hand of a Rock and Roll Man
Dodo Bird - Beware of the Maniacs: Horny Hippies
Shearwater - Rook: Home Life
Plants and Animals - Parc Avenue: Good Friend
The Born Ruffians - Red, Yellow and Blue: Little Garcon
some little Earlimart single with a Wings cover on it
Spiritualized - A&E: Sitting on Fire / Death Take Your People

Then, just the other night, I went to a show for the band plays bass for: Red Jacket Mine, a nice Ryan Adamsish alt-country band with some good, solid chops.

Ryan and I walked outside to smoke a bowl after his set. He mentioned that we should go talk to Benny, a guy who lives on the street in Fremont and does art by stacking rocks. I'd heard of the dude from a few newspaper articles, notably this Stranger feature about Benny.

We did indeed find him and he did know Ryan for sure. He took a liking to me and I'm sure would have been happy to shoot the shit and smoke my weed all night. He read me from his book of contemporary Arabic poetry. He read first in Arabic, and then translated on the fly, which was quite a treat for me. Intense poems read grandiosely!

Then he busted out three different harmonicas and played us a tune before we went back to the High Dive.

When we got back , I was fairly successful with possibly the cheesiest pickup line ever (that was seriously meant to be a sincere compliment and not a pickup line, she seemed to be there with someone affectionately):

Me: How does it feel the be the cutest girl here?
She: I wouldn't know.
Me: Hm. I guess not.
She: *surprised look*
Me: Well look around. All I can do is marvel. You look good.

Then I walked away. No problem. But as I sat and danced, she ended up standing next to me and we talked for a few hours. We were vibing and she stuck to me like glue for most of the show. Then, during a long moment where I helped the band load equipment I took too long without letting her know I was still there and she went home. Hm. It was nice for one night that didn't have to turn into anything.

regarding going home

I went home last weekend to visit my mom and got to meet her beautiful new dog and catch up. We went to some cool shows ourselves, including a bluegrass festival out there, and a Dub show (!?!) played by my mom's across-the-street neighbors. They were pretty amazing, and I'm not even a huge dub fan. I'm allergic to too much JahJah talk, you know? But whatever, I hope my mom does indeed send me a The Reggies T-Shirt.

I'm not sure whether people can pick their parents, but I'm either glad I picked my mom, or damn lucky. Met a lot of people on the planet and not many as cool as my mom.

Posted by tiny daniel at 9:56 PM | Permalink

block party

It was over a week ago, but some love from the Capitol Hill Block Party:

PWRFL Power was possibly the coolest act I saw there. His songs are dorky and sincere and his guitar playing is great. Just one guy. PWRFL Power = Kazutaka "Kaz" Nomura. I wanted to see him because of his cool interview in the Stranger with himself. I wasn't disappointed.

Girls bumping to Gabriel Teodros.

Just a couple songs from John Vanderslice... he was good.

The Cave Singers were Jesse's top priority and we got a great show on the hot, hot balcony.

Nice company.

Last act of the night was Spoon.

Posted by tiny daniel at 4:37 AM | Permalink

that's a blast from the past

I just read the Stranger's four star review of Amy Winehouse's black to black, where it mentions a youtube video of her singing a duet of Beat It.

Anyway, of course I immediately listen to it. My mom is sleeping in the other room but I turn it low.

It's crazy... she sings it in this really wacky experimental way... perhaps just to piss off her incredibly well-groomed co-duet singer. As the stranger reviewer points out, even though she seems a little wacky about it, I think it's on purpose, and she's pitch perfect.

I listen to it quietly, but I hear her stir as the song ends. "Sorry mom," I say.

"That's a blast from the past," she says, mostly asleep.

A pause, then, "I was dreaming about Robin."

"Old Robin or new Robin?"

"Old Robin." (Then something about why it's silly I'd think she'd be dreaming of new Robin).

I thought about it for a second, "What did she say?"

"She didn't say anything," my mom said, with a DUH tone in her voice, "she was listening to Beat It."

Posted by tiny daniel at 12:15 AM | Permalink

a few albums i love that hardly anyone has heard of

Deltron 3030 does Deltron 3030: Del is a weird rapper and has kind of a whiny voice that's hard to get used to. But Deltron 3030 is his cinematic masterpiece, and this album makes his rapping and voice work. It took me a long time to hear the individual songs on this album, because it flows from song to song so well. 3030 is a joke about the future, about the music business, about politics, and probably some other stuff. There's some really phenomenal, mellow and varied hip hop going on. Plus, Del's raps are relaxed and effortless here.

When I just read the Wikipedia page for Deltron 3030, I just discovered a few things I never knew. That this belongs to a genre called "acid rap", and that there's actually a second Deltron 3030 album coming out. I can't believe it, I always assumed it was a one time thing.

Mr. Bungle does California: Most people who have even heard of Mike Patton know him as the lead singer of Faith No More who did that song with the piano where the fish flops around at the end. He's a lovely guy, and I've met more than three guys who say they would go bisexual for Mike Patton only.

But, he's so concerned with his totally insane-o image, that it's hard for him to make the lovely music he's capable of. The first Mr. Bungle album, the self-titled Mr. Bungle, was a side project and he filled it with fart noises, swearing, and noise filled, explosive clownlike heavy metal. It's not the LEAST accessible Mike Patton album but it alienated lots of Faith No More fans who wanted to see what else he was up to.

That's why no one every listened to California. For a normal Mr. Bungle fan it's bizarrely soothing, and to anyone else who heard the first Mr. Bungle album they would assume it was like it. It's not. It couldn't be more different and still have the same person singing.

Mike actually just came out with a new Band/Album (he usually just comes out with new bands instead of new albums) called Peeping Tom. This was his attempt at making quality pop music, instead of crazy heavy metal, or just random insane noise like his other solo/side projects. He said, "If I were going to hear pop music on the radio, this is what I would want it to sound like."

But California is what I'd like it to sound like. Not that there aren't weird noise moments, in general it is a smooth as butter set of groove lounge hymns. This is beautiful music that just gets better with time.

Beck does One Foot in the Grave: Beck... right around the same time he was making crazy money for the first time with Loser, got a side record deal to record two silly albums that he knew had no commercial potential. One was the strange, eclectic, Stereopathic Soulmanure. The other was One Foot in the Grave.

It's a mostly acoustic mix of wierd songs that sound like white trash negro spirituals. I think some of them really are spirituals... like He's a Mighty Good Leader. But some, like I Get Lonesome are spirituals only for suburbanites. He talks about how he stomps on the floor just to make a sound. These are weak-willed, strong-hearted songs to blast in the forest. This is a real, sincere album! It's rough, it's ragged, and it has great songwriting throughout and almost no polish. This is one of those albums I wouldn't blame anyone for hating, but I love it. It's the soundtrack to white loneliness.

Posted by tiny daniel at 12:45 AM | Permalink

one line record reviews

Of Montreal - Hissing Fauna You Are The Destroyer:
Violently cool and human relationship destruction epic. Like hyper-disco or something.

Miles Davis - Miles Ahead +19:
The +19 is him plus 19 other horns. Inspiring little jazz tour de force for a damn good mood.

Kings of Leon - Aha Shake Heartbreak:
Rock and roll moaner extraordinare and truly rocking songs.

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black:
Funny, dark soul songs from a just-drawn-that- way London girl.

Joanna Newsom - Ys:
Earnest symphonic harp music from a girl with a squeaky voice and a million words.

(I guess they really aren't one line. Close enough.)

Posted by tiny daniel at 1:17 AM | Permalink

amon tobin extravaganza

Hey Joe here's a handful of Amon Tobin tracks on empeethree...I picked stuff that was my favorite, and also tried to give a sense of the scope of what he does. There is a fair amount of variety between some of these tracks.

I'm going to leave them up here for only about a week, for obvious reasons. (Bandwidth, lawsuits, etc.)

From Permutation: