Some might argue that filming artists in non-music venues like stores or in alleyways has already been done (Black Cab Sessions, Takeaway Shows, etc...) and any new versions are just unnecessary imitations. What makes the local versions in Portland interesting is that they are familiar artists in familiar places. Secondly, performances for This is Lost Gospel are free and anyone can attend them if they wish. While The Penny Jam does not include audiences they have recruited an impressive array of artists to film. This film is footage of Laura Gibson performing at OMSI.
Laura Gibson at OMSI from The Penny Jam on Vimeo.
7.30.2008
Laura Gibson - The Penny Jam
7.25.2008
Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson on Daytrotter
Enjoy the PDX Pop Now and Block Party Weekends, everybody.
7.22.2008
Black Kids - Partie Traumatic
After giving Black Kids 2007 EP release an 8.4/10 Pitchforkmedia has chosen to defend their 3.3/10 rating of their recent full length release Partie Traumatic with this photograph above. I haven't listed to Black Kids enough to argue one way or the other based on the music but this is ridiculous. The caption on the homepage doesn't even warn the reader of the ensuing madness:
"After a well-received EP, Jacksonville's Black Kids release a Bernard Butler-produced debut that surprisingly hit the top 5 in the UK."
When one is this eager to generate buzz about new bands one should take the time to think about what they're doing. Do we think this really is Best New Music? Should we even bother doing this? What happens if we don't like their music in six months after we've generated all of this buzz about them?Most importantly, they're just a bunch of "kids" playing music. They probably appreciated the praise, but they most likely didn't ask for it. It's kind of sick to think about people doing something like this. The picture isn't even that funny. When Pitchfork slammed Weezer or Nine Inch Nails they at least explained why. You think that it would be important to explain why you liked the ep of a band you generated a bunch of buzz about so much and why you're now so critical of the album. This could also be a big joke. ("Haha! JK! We don't take ourselves too seriously. It's just music! Now for the real review")
They've also asked all writers to lower their ratings because they've been "too high" recently.
Integrity,
johnson!
7.21.2008
The PB&J Campaign
Speaks for itself:
"How does this work? It's actually not ONLY about the PB&J. Any plant-based meal you eat instead of something based on meat, fish, eggs, or dairy products can have a big impact.
Find out more about how this works.
How much can you accomplish?
You might not end global warming in one lunch break, but each time you choose the plant-based meal you make a difference, just like taking out the recycling or taking public transportation to work instead of driving.
Ready to take the PB&J Pledge?"
More information about the PB&J Campaign.
Was, Is, Be...PDX
Here are some interesting things that are worth checking out.
On Saturday, Starfucker played a free show in an alleyway as part of a series of performances put on by This is Lost Gospel. Some other previous shows included local bands White Fang, Almost Nearly, and Glass Teeth. Stay tuned for some more shows featuring Southern Belle, Glass Candy, and yet-to-be-announced surprise guests. Check out the site for videos and photographs of the performances.
Tonight, Jack Lewis & The Woodgrain will be playing live on my radio show "The Half & Half Hour" at kpsu.org at 9:00. And at 10:00 another band, Patterns, will be playing on "Arya Imig's Sound Judgement."
Tuesday Night at the Dekum Manor will feature some other great local bands: The Shaky Hands, Here Comes a Big Black Cloud, Worlds Greatest Ghosts, and the Vonneguts. Should be crazy.
Thursday, head on over to the Hotel Deluxe for the first Top Down Film Festival Series show. The even will include a performance by Love Menu followed by a showing of the movie Big Time on top of the parking garage.
And........
Friday-Sunday = PDX Pop Now. Local Cut has a great compilation of songs by bands that will be performing at the festival.
happy summertime,
johnson!
TV on the Radio - Dear Science.
TV on the Radio will be releasing the follow up to their 2006 release, Return to Cookie Mountain, on September 23rd. It's title is Dear Science,. You can see them performing these new tracks at a few venues coming up including a stop at Portland's Roseland Theater for this year's Musicfest NW on September 5th.
7.18.2008
2nd Annual TSK Donut Eating Contest
7.17.2008
Our 16th Poet Laureate
7.16.2008
Sub Pop 20th Birthday Bash - Sunday
Sunday marked the second half of Sub Pop's 20th anniversary music festival. The 10 hour event showcased some of Sub Pop's current up-and-coming artists and indie-headliners, as well as legendary bands from throughout the Seattle label's fabled history reuniting on stage for the first time in years. I was able to get my mitts on some tickets for the day's "revelry," and sure enough the stacked lineup did not disappoint. The weather was great, too. Here's a rundown of the performances:
Kiwi polyglot-popsters The Ruby Suns started things off with a quick set of tunes from their immensely-awesome and genre-itinerant debut record The Sea Lion. The grand setting of sun and amphitheater fit some of their more expansive songs really well, although the multifarious instruments and sounds going on throughout Sea Lion seems near-impossible to duplicate on stage--especially with only two people--and, as Nick pointed out after seeing them a while back, the group is still honing their live act.
Next on the bill was Grand Archives, a hometown Seattle band who undoubtedly boasted the day's most entertaining stage-banter. Grand Archives' country-tinged, dad-rock was easy on the ears and perfect for lounging in the grass to. They strolled through a set of highlights from their self-titled album released earlier this year, all the while joking around with the small crowd, which was still gathering at that point.
A bit of a surprise and a huge highlight for me was getting to see Blitzen Trapper, a recent signee to the Sub Pop label and one of my favorite bands from Portland, take the main stage next. The group wasn't officially listed on the festival schedule (there was only a "TBA" between Grand Archives and Kinski, the band on-deck), so their unexpected appearance made the rollicking, foot-stomping, rock-jams they played that much sweeter. The songs were a mixture of Wild Mountain Nation and some other stuff that didn't sound too familiar (but is potentially from the new album, whenever that's coming out).
The harder-edged, psychedelic group Kinski came on next, playing straight through a string of loud, squalling, (mostly) instrumental songs. I've heard some of their stuff on the radio before and it's not bad, but have never got into them. My fellow festival-goer and I took this chance to hit the beer garden.
The British art-punk quartet Foals then took the stage, smashing a microphone into pieces before they even sang a verse. Their twitchy, tightly-coiled, and sometimes ambient math-rock helped jump-start the hitherto sleepy crowd, only the openness of the amphitheater setting rendered their contagious and irreverent energy somewhat muted (for example: their opening performance for Wolf Parade's "secret" show the next night at the much more compact and enclosed Neumos was night-and-day better). One major highlight was the nervous look on the stage crew guy's face after lead singer Yannis Phillippakis punctured an amp with his guitar neck. Simply priceless.
Les Thugs, a French early-grunge band, and the first of Sunday's highly-anticipated reunited groups to play, came on next. While I can appreciate the ground these guys helped break, I was still listening to Skee-lo and TLC when they were making their hit records, and their sound is one I just can't really connect to. This marked our second beer garden-run.
No Age did their noise-rock power pop thing next. While Pitchfork and other tastemakers are pretty enamored with this Los Angeles duo, I can't help but agree with the sentiments of my festival-companion: "I feel like guys I knew in mediocre high school bands could play this stuff." Alas, another beer. Hang in there, I promise I get less critical.
The second reunited band from Sub Pop's early days to perform on Sunday was Red Red Meat. Same impression as for Les Thugs, however I enjoyed their experimental, garage-rocky songs a lot more.
After RRM, Bay-area based psych/blues-rockers Comets On Fire played an impressive, scorching set. The virtuosic talent these guys displayed--especially lead guitarist Ethan Miller and drummer Utrillo Kushner--was insane. They wailed and shredded and absolutely killed it. Their intricate, time signature-shifting songs are so dense, it's nearly overwhelming to comprehend what their doing with their instruments. Wow.
Up next was another formerly-active band: Beachwood Sparks. These So-Cal dudes haven't played a show in years, which they apologetically told the crowd, though I thought their sort of indie-stoner-bluegrass sounded pretty dang smooth. I never got into this band either, but I can see why Sub Pop would have signed them way back when.
The last of the reuniting groups, Green River, was far and away the one with the most hype entering day-two of the Anniversary party, which makes sense: As soon as singer Mark Arm belted out the first words of "Come On Down," people went absolutely ape-shit. The crowd immediately ballooned to its largest size of the day, and a mosh-pit of a bunch of burly, hairy, dudes materialized out of nowhere. The band was clearly loving the throwback atmosphere, too; they were strutting and smiling as they relived song after song from their pre-Nirvana glory days, and drummer Alex Vincent even leapt off the stage at one point for some token crowd-surfing. Although I was even younger when Green River was laying the foundation for Seattle's grunge scene, their energy and showmanship Sunday night was undeniable, and worthy of their legend. The band definitely satisfied the festival's contingent of loyal fans eager for their return.
Wolf Parade's closing set aptly capstoned the epic day. The Montreal quintet sounded confident, inspired, and genuinely enthused to be playing that night. There were a few songs from Apologies, of course, but the group used most of the hour-long slot to showcase At Mount Zoomer's chops; and shit was tight. The band's strong chemistry was especially palpable on tracks like "Soldier's Grin," and "Animal In Your Care." And their acute interplay and gleeful willingness to adventure was explosive on "Fine Young Cannibals," where they--don't look now right-wing hipsters--jammed out the song's bridge for a while. Wolf Parade was the only festival act allowed to come out for an encore: wisely choosing to leave the delighted crowd with the anthemic "I'll Believe In Anything." Their performance Sunday was so good that I had to go and see them again the following night (at Neumos), which, if nothing else I've said makes any sense, is definitely saying something.
This is the Portland music scene?
Thanks MTV!
Update: Angry Blogger Response:
"I H8 95% OF THE PEOPLE I HAVE MET FROM PORTLAND. I THINK I JUST DON'T LIKE PEOPLE WHO THINK WHERE THEY LIVE IS ANY MORE/LESS INTERESTING THAN N E WHERE ELSE."
7.15.2008
PDX Pop Now 2008! Schedule
Courtesy of Infinite Wilderness
Friday, July 25th
Inside
6:00-6:30pm, Love Menu
6:40-7:10pm, The Rainy States
7:20-7:50pm, Sleep
Outside
8:05-8:35pm, Tu Fawning
8:45-9:15pm, Guidance Counselor
9:25-9:55pm, Dykeritz
Inside
10:10-10:40pm, Panther
10:50-11:20pm, Nick Jaina
11:30-12:00am, Devin Phillips Band
12:10-12:40am, The Builders and the Butchers
Saturday, July 26th
Outside
12:00-12:30pm, The Revisions
12:40-1:10pm, Chris Robley & the Fear of Heights
1:20-1:50pm, Swim Swam Swum
Inside
2:05-2:35pm, Y La Bamba
2:45-3:15pm, The Tenses
3:25-3:55pm, Andy Combs and the Moth
Outside
4:10-4:40pm, Sweater!
4:50-5:20pm, Bodhi
5:30-6:00pm, A Ghost's Face Two Inches From Your Own Face
Inside
6:15-6:45pm, Eskimo and Sons
6:55-7:25pm, The SubArachnoid Space
7:35-8:05pm, Reporter
Outside
8:20-8:50pm, Nurses
9:00-9:30pm, Blind Pilot
9:40-10:10pm, Living Proof
Inside
10:25-10:55pm, Portland Cello Project
11:05-11:35pm, Loch Lomond
11:45-12:15am, Atole
12:25-12:55am, Starfucker
Sunday, July 27th
Outside
12:00-12:30pm, Wooden Indian Burial Ground
12:40-1:10pm, World's Greatest Ghosts
1:20-1:50pm, Meth Teeth
Inside
2:05-2:35pm, Podington Bear
2:45-3:15pm, Grouper
3:25-3:55pm, Mattress
Outside
4:10-4:40pm, Cower
4:50-5:20pm, Experimental Dental School
5:30-6:00pm, Bark Hide and Horn
Inside
6:15-6:45pm, A Weather
6:55-7:25pm, Dragging an Ox Through Water
7:35-8:05pm, JonnyX and the Groadies
Outside
8:20-8:50pm, Pure Country Gold
9:00-9:30pm, Eat Skull
9:40-10:10pm, White Fang
Inside
10:25-10:55pm, The Warfield Experience
11:05-11:35pm, Sandpeople
11:45-12:15am, Norfolk & Western
12:25-12:55am, New Bloods
...i know. i know. enough. no more posts about this until next week...i did scoop the Willamette Week, but not the Mercury. Damn!
Environmental Graffiti
Images taken of Earth by satellite courtesy of Environmental Graffiti.
"The images you see below were taken at the turn of the Millennium, when NASA’s scientists had a brilliant idea: to scan through 400,000 images taken by the Landsat 7 satellite and display only the most the most beautiful. A handful of the best were painstakingly chosen and then displayed at the Library of Congress in 2000."
Guinea - Bissau
Malaspina Glacier, Alaska, USAThe Future of Farming
Photo Courtesy of MithunWho needs expansive fields when you can just grow food upwards? An article in the New York Times explores the possibility for growing food in urban environments. Some are thinking on much larger scale then others, but there is a growing consensus that this should happen soon. An explanation of the picture above:
The Mithun vertical farm design differs from Dr. Despommier's high-rise concept, but has piqued the interest of officials in Portland, Ore. "It was pushing the envelope as to how people might live sustainably in the future," said Bonnie Duncan of Mithun.
Photo Courtesy of MithunArchitects at Mithun, a Seattle architectural firm, proposed a small-scale vertical farm design for a Center for Urban Agriculture in downtown Seattle. The design won an award in the Living Building Challenge of the Cascadia Region's chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council in 2007.
This is the end...
This post is a little foray into party pic/fashion blogs. Hip-Hop/Hipster fusion fashion. It's all the same:
"Bros will be bros. Bros will always wear jeans, tennis shoes, and shirts with or without collars. Not rlly a big deal, yall."
"Bailey Roberts (the deep fashionista wearing blind people glasses) did yall hear about 'the colorful shit dying down'/that people need to start having beach parties to save fashion?"
"Theoretically, life style brands are good for culture. Realistically, they are just a way for marginally creative people to change the colours of products that already exist and sell them to a niche market."
Courtesy of the Hipster Runoff Blog
Reel Style - Los Angeles from Hypebeast TV on Vimeo.
7.14.2008
Hush Records - 10 year Anniversary
Photo by Hush RecordsLocal (Portland) Record Label, Hush Records, recently celebrated their tenth anniversary. In honor of the celebration they are giving away a two disc compilation of Hush artists for free from their site. Hush Records is best known for releasing early material by The Decemberists, but you would be hard pressed to find anyone who would claim that they're the only worthy band on the label.
There were a number of retrospectives in local newspapers last week about the label which was started by Chad Crouch.
Willamette Week
Back when Portland-born Crouch started Hush, things were a bit more, well, quiet on Portland’s musical front. He met the label’s earliest artists—its first release was a three-way split featuring Kind of Like Spitting, Jeff London and Reclinerland—by simply offering to record them. “I’ve never had trouble thinking something’s possible,” Crouch says of Hush’s genesis. “I didn’t have a visualization, like a prophet or a visionary would have. I’ve just been showing up and going along for the ride and responding as best I can.”
The label's mostly local roster is centered around a notable "Hush sound" (think mid-tempo, intelligent lyrics, and rich, textured production), a "Hush look" (clean layout, impressive packaging), and the fascinating way the label operates as one collective family, where performers hop between bands, everyone is close, and the line between musician and artist is deliberately blurred.
Photo by Carson Ellis
7.12.2008
New Music: War On Drugs - Wagonwheel Blues
With their heck-of-a debut record out for almost a month now, The War On Drugs are finally getting some deserving press.
1. Secretly Canadian* writes:
"The War On Drugs push the boundaries of a quintessentially American music. . . . Bringing a does of the West Coast to the hard streets of Philadelphia, their songs recall the '80's guitar army of Sonic Youth with the captivating lyrics and vocal stylings of Tom Petty or Bruce Springsteen. . . . Walls of guitar--acoustic, electric, twelve-string--douse each track of this debut album, threatening to cast the band into space-rock territory, but the melodies and immediately identifiable lyrics soldier on to keep these songs from blasting into the esoteric beyond. . . . The War On Drugs have that unmistakable singularity that comes along only so often, with the spirit of invention and playfulness lying earnestly at the forefront of their creative process."
*Grain of salt: it's clearly in SC's interest to talk up label artists.
2. Pitchfork gave their typical seven-point-something in an album review last Thursday, but the article nonetheless has its intelligent moments:
"The War On Drugs make excellent road-trip music. As its title implies, the Philly quintet's debut, Wagonwheel Blues, is Americana reimagined as blacktop and yellow lines, rubber tires, and overpriced gasoline. The album urges you along the interstate, but never burdens you with the stigma of roots music or reached-for authenticity. Of course, the band invokes the usual influences: Adam Granduciel sings like Bob Dylan . . . and the band nods to fellow Philadelphians Marah, to the Waterboys, and of course, to the Boss himself. . . . but . . . the War On Drugs filter these elements through the noise of early Yo La Tengo and Sonic Youth. Their songs are tangles of guitar, distorted harmonica, and droning organ, all wrapped so tightly that they become indistinguishable. . . ."Show Me the Coast" is a 10-minute epic that devolves into what might best be described as the E Street Band doing shoegazer.
On Wagonwheel Blues, the War On Drugs' approach comes across as not only natural, but imminently worthwhile, as if these revered sources needed to be roughed up a bit to sound new. . . . the War On Drugs aren't just another indie band with arena ambitions. Instead, they craft a big sound for their big ideas, so that Wagonwheel Blues fills the space between horizons."
3. And finally, from The Fader Magazine:
"It's not often that we totally nerd out and say things like: This album is so well sequenced, because, like, what does that even really mean? It turns out that it means the War On Drugs' [ new record] Wagonwheel Blues is Jamming and also totally Springsteeny and Dylany without getting caught up in all the nostalgia that comes along with taking cues from those dudes. The War On Drugs made a totally serious album, shimmering and sprawling—it's as inspiring as it is exhausting and dense."
To me, Wagonwheel Blues is a tremendous album that pays homage to near-mythical musicians of the past by re-working those influences through an innovative, contemporary lens. I highly recommend the record, and I enthusiastically agree with the above praises; though I'd also include the disclaimer that the album's not immediately forthcoming. Like Boxer (2007), or Joanna Newsom's voice, this one is a grower.
Wagonwheel Blues is out now via CD and LP on Secretly Canadian.
Album highlight "Taking the Farm" is up for streaming in the Gold Soundz player top right, and available to download here.
Barrel of Batteries, a free demo EP by the band that includes 4 additional songs, can also be downloaded here.
7.11.2008
Video: Beck - Gamma Ray
The first single from Beck's latest offering, Modern Guilt, out now on XL/interscope records.
PDX Pop Now! 2008 Line-Up
The line-up for this year's PDX Pop Now! 2008 festival has been announced. It's happening July 25th-27th at Rotture. As always, it's free and all-ages.*
The Players:
Andy Combs and the Moth, Atole, A Weather, Bark Hide and Horn, Blind Pilot, Bodhi, the Builders and the Butchers, Chris Robley & the Fear of Heights, Cower, Devin Phillips Band, Dragging an Ox Through Water, Dykeritz, Eat Skull, Eskimo & Sons, Experimental Dental School, A Ghost’s Face Two Inches From You Own Face, Grouper, Guidance Counselor, JonnyX and the Groadies, Living Proof, Loch Lomond, Love Menu, Mattress, Meth Teeth, New Bloods, Nick Jaina, Norfolk & Western, Nurses, Panther, Pure Country Gold, Podington Bear, the Portland Cello Project, the Rainy States, Reporter, the Revisions, Sandpeople, Sleep, Starfucker, the SubArachnoid Space, Sweater!, Swim Swam Swum, the Tenses, Tu Fawning, the Warfield Experience, White Fang, Wooden Indian Burial Ground, World’s Greatest Ghosts, Y La Bamba
The order of appearances will be released early next week.
It will be a great weekend with a number of great concerts occurring the week leading up to the festival as well. More to come on this front in the next few weeks (i.e. the greatest week in local music ever). The same weekend Girl Talk, Fleet Foxes, No Age, Chromeo, and the Hold Steady will also be performing in Portland. Save your money.
*I guess you could consider the number of posts about the festival an exercise in shameless self-promotion because I a member of this year's booking committee.
The order of appearances will be released early next week.
It will be a great weekend with a number of great concerts occurring the week leading up to the festival as well. More to come on this front in the next few weeks (i.e. the greatest week in local music ever). The same weekend Girl Talk, Fleet Foxes, No Age, Chromeo, and the Hold Steady will also be performing in Portland. Save your money.
*I guess you could consider the number of posts about the festival an exercise in shameless self-promotion because I a member of this year's booking committee.
7.10.2008
Video: Radiohead - House of Cards
The music video for Radioheads "House of Cards" is going to be really good. No cameras were used just some technology called the Geometric Informatics scanning system:
"The Geometric Informatics scanning system employs structured light to capture detailed 3D images at close proximity, and was used to render the performances of Radiohead's Thom Yorke, the female lead, and several partygoers. The Velodyne Lidar system uses multiple lasers to capture large environments in 3D, in this case 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute, capturing all of the exterior scenes and wide party shots."
7.08.2008
King Khan & The Shrines!
This band is hellaphilistine. King Khan & The Shrines. The Supreme Genius of King Khan & The Shrines.
Dantes - 7/12 - PDX
The Tractor Tavern - 7/13 - Seattle
More Department Of Eagles
While digging through french and english La Blogotheque's minimalist Take Away Show archives, I found an older episode featuring the aforementioned band of much recent posting here and elsewhere.
For this Take Away show, Department of Eagles' Daniel Rosse and Fred Nicolaus sing and play guitar while walking through teeming Chinatown streets, the honks and shouts and passersby weaving amongst them as they play six lovely songs from their first and (upcoming) second albums.
What's so ingenious about the Take Away Show format is its confluence of simplicity and unpredictability, the stripped down acoustics of talented musicians forming the realtime soundtrack to the world and life around them; and the Department of Eagles episode is a superior example.
There's a lot to watch here, so if you're pressed for time start with "Deep Blue Sea" about five minutes into part 1. The mesh of sound and image as Rosse walks though the bustling playfield is stunning, tapping into the same aesthetic ground of works like Koyyanisqatsi and Baraka, but in a non-orchestrated way that's more intimate, unsure of itself, and less epic in scope.
Here's a tracklisting for the episode, followed by Part 1 and Part 2 in their entirety:
"No One Does It Like You"
"Deep Blue Sea"
"You Move Too Fast"
"Sailing By Night"
"Balmy Nights"
"What Can Be Done"
The Dodos In-Store @ Amoeba Music
Amoeba.com currently features some quality footage of The Dodos' in-store show at the band's hometown Amoeba Music location in San Francisco, CA.
The duo of Meric Long, Logan Kroeber, and sometimes a third dude playing Vibes and other stuff, perform six songs from their latest album, Visiter, released earlier this year on French Kiss records.
Tracklist:
"Fools"
"Joe's Waltz"
"Ashley"
"It's That Time Again"
"Paint The Rust"
"The Season"
The posting also includes a fairly lengthy interview where the band discusses their regimental recording process, an adoption within the swelling ranks of Akron Family, as well as what's on deck for the future:
7.07.2008
Department of Eagles - In Ear Park
There were two posts at Pitchforkmedia today which I believe reflect how you should and shouldn't cover music.
The review of Beck's Modern Guilt was poor because it was merely a psycho-analysis of Mr. Beck based upon the lyrics of his music. While lyrics have meaning I've always found the advice of professor of poetry in college quite helpful: No matter what you think or how you think you will never truly know the meaning of another person's writing. Instead - what does it mean to you? I think this can also inform how you listen to music.
Secondly, the brief news story about Department of Eagles informed the reader about an upcoming album being released. Little did I know that the one song preview would match the quality of anything released by a related band by the name of Grizzly Bear.
Both articles presented music to the reader, but the way each was done was significantly different. The review of Modern Guilt attempted to explain the meaning of the album while the article about Department of Eagles merely presented the reader with the opportunity to think - what does this song mean to me?
If you want an example of irresponsible journalism read this post at the Portland Mercury End Hits Blog. I usually enjoy reading this blog, but this article was extremely disrespectful.
Carbon Neutral Island
There is a great article in the New Yorker about the topic that will increasingly demand more of our attention whether we do anything about it or not - global warming. It's both about an island in Denmark that is carbon neutral and a thought experiment in Switzerland with the purpose of determining how much power humans should use to curb our impact and how to actually accomplish this. While theory can give us direction the actual undertaking will be challenging:
“The problems of the twenty-first century are a different kind of problem,” he went on. “And I think our society will be measured according to the solution of this new kind of problem, which cannot be solved with the same recipe as the flight to the moon, or the Manhattan Project. It’s a qualitative difference—a paradigm change in the role of science for our society.” He continued, “The difficult thing is what I call ‘constructed Switzerland.’ You in America could call it ‘constructed United States’—the buildings and how they are built, but also where they are built and, even more important, the roads, the railroads, the lines for energy, for wastewater, and so on. It’s not economically feasible to replace everything in one instant.”
In most of the world our infrastructure was not designed with energy efficiency in mind - hence the necessity of a paradigm change towards designing our world around efficiency. Don't paradigms only exist because of change?
Black Kids - Partie Traumatic
Jacksonville, Florida's Black Kids are currently streaming their new album Partie Traumatic in its entirety over at their myspace page. And from the first riff of track one, you can't help but feel some kind of John-Cusack-80's-teen-flick longing.
The physical copy of the group's debut album hits American shelves on July 22nd, via Columbia records.
Bing Cherries
Around this time of year in the Pacific Northwest I recommend taking a walk through your neighborhood. You're bound to find a Bing cherry tree with hundreds of ripe cherries on them. Offer to pick a basket for the owner of the tree in return for your own basket or two, three, four...
enjoy,
johnson!
7.06.2008
The Capstan Shafts - Fixation Protocol
Tracklist for The Capstan Shafts Fixation Protocol. Out tomorrow July 8th on Rainbow Quartz. The tracks on the myspace page sound great.
2. Shaky Days, Bring Honey
3. Eyeliner Skywriting etc.
4. Middles of June
5. Anthropecene Stealers
6. Miss Cenozoic
7. What Used to Become You (Now Befalls You)
8. Communists in 19th Century America
9. Heart That Never Flies
10. Get Honest
11. Brightest Page in the History of Man
12. Her Novel 'Canal Zone Poetry"
13. Little World Saver
14. Boy to Take You Nowhere
15. Behemoth to a Flame
16. Hell with the Days Again
17. Stunted Kind
18. Fixation Protocol
19. Squeals of Resignation
20. Song for Monometallists
21. Framers Blameless Enterprise
22. Voting Hopeless
William Stafford
There is an article in The Oregonian about William Stafford. After reading the article I thought I would share this poem of his from An Oregon Message.
Run before Dawn
Most mornings I get away, slip out
the door before light, set forth on the dim, gray
road, letting my feet find a cadence
that softly carries me on. Nobody
is up - all alone my journey begins.
Some day it's escape: the city is burning
behind me, cars have stalled in their tracks,
and everybody is fleeing like me but some other direction.
My stride is for life, a far place.
Other day's it is hunting: maybe some game will cross
my path and my stride will follow for hours, matching
all turns. My breathing has caught the right beat
for endurance; familiar trancelike scenes glide by.
And sometimes it's a dream of motion, streelights coming near,
passing, shadows that lean before me, lengthened
then fading, and a sound from a tree: a soul, or an owl.
These journey's are quiet. They mark my days with adventure
too precious for anyone else to share, little gems
of darkness, the world going by, and my breath, and the road.
7.05.2008
Beck - Modern Guilt - Stereogum Premature Evaluation
Stereogum recently posted their "premature evaluation" of Beck's eighth full length release - Modern Guilt. I think their evaluation is spot on:
Modern Guilt is not all perfect, and it doesn't always match the crazy goodness of the advance song streams, but it's given us the first Beck album since 2002's Sea Change that we're digging almost from start to finish. And it's given us instant classic Beck turns via that grand slam, opening four track sequence. The fact that Beck can still parallel his highest moments eight LPs in as strong a testament to his enduring genius that we could ask for. With that we're putting "Gamma Ray" on the Happy-Birthday-America BBQ playlist. You should, too.
Here is a brief trailer for the album:
"Stuff" happening on the other side of the world
Sri Lanka vs. India
Asia Cup Final
Two days ago Sri Lanka had an opportunity to knock India - a more dangerous side than Pakistan - out of the competition, but they reduced their chances of winning by resting Chaminda Vaas and Ajantha Mendis. The move was obviously to keep Vaas fresh, and to prevent the Indians from getting first-hand experience of Mendis in case India made it to the final. As it turned out, India chased down 309 to progress to the title clash, ensuring that Sri Lanka go into the final having lost their last match, and that too to the eventual finalists.
The move was reminiscent of their tactics during the World Cup Super Eight match against Australia last year when they rested Vaas, Lasith Malinga and Muttiah Muralitharan, believing it would make a difference if the teams met again in the final. They were outplayed then, as they were outplayed by India here. Their strategy then did not make much difference to the outcome of the World Cup final, and Sri Lanka will hope that doesn't happen again. Read More.
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