While the Flickr link and image will undoubtedly automatically post here, I wanted to make sure that the full, original 1400 x 900 version of the image was also readily available. Enjoy!
Chapter 1, passage 3: Every man and every woman is a star.
Because I love you all so dearly, gentle readers, I have put together another mixwit tape for your enjoyment. In this installement I share with you a variety of delightful mashups. What is a mashup, you may ask? Something akin to a remix, but in this case more focused on taking two (sometimes more) songs and melding them together in such a way that you’d never want to hear them any other way. Generally speaking, this mix is intended to at least get you chair dancing, if not full out dancing your ass off. Three from A plus D, three from Instamatic, three from DJ Lobsterdust.
That’s all for now! I hope you have as much fun with this as I have!
Image on the tape is art from P. Robertson’s Kings of Power 4 Billion %. Download it. Watch it. He’s great.
The Eagles of Death Metal - The Ballad of Queen Bee and Baby Duck
This song is great. It’s dripping with influence from psychedelic bands of yesteryear and it’s got the silly sensibilities which made Toni Basil’s Mickey so infectious. I really don’t know what to say about this song other than I love it. Don’t let the name fool you, they sound nothing like the Eagles, or death metal. (At least not on this track.)
(P.S. on an unrelated note, it’s my birthday!)
I just signed up for Mixwit! The interface for this “mix tape” making web app is a joy to work with. I can’t wait to get some of my other cohorts in on this, because I’d like to make this a regular blog feature. I have always enjoyed making mix tapes and cds for friends. It was always a very involved and heartfelt process. There’s something about music that speaks directly to the heart, and sharing your favorite music is a really good way to give people insight into who you are and how you think. (Which is why differences in music are so often dealbreakers in otherwise perfectly legit relationships, I think. Although I know that it’s not always the case. You’re a lil bit country, I’m a lil bit rock’n'roll, etc etc.)
Back with more handcrafted ideas for giving people stuff because of some holiday or another is EvilMadScientist.com as they demonstrate how to create Iterative Algorithmic Sculptures from Fimo!
I love fractals despite having only the wispiest of understandings on the mathematics behind them. The tutorial offers you a way to handcraft a physical model of the Sierpinski Triangle, with or without the math background. Although he does offer a few sources that explain what the Chaos Game is, which is worth learning about even if you really only appreciate fractals for their visual appeal. (I found a neat little flash version of the Chaos Game while poking around to find out more about the math portion of this project.)
There are a lot of great photos to go with this project, which is helpful since it looks rather challenging. Seeing this done, I could definitely picture someone making Triforce gear using some of the principles here.
My thought:
My dear associate SlyFloyd has a very good handle on the hip-hop world, and has brought some really great artists to light. I, on the other hand, know approximately jack-squat about hip-hop with the exception of a few artists that I assume most folks have heard about already. (Talib Kweli, anyone?)
I’m far more interested with the obscure, the “noisy”, the psychedelic-inspired, and otherwise just generally quirky music.
In the four concert snippets above I feel tones of both Philip Glass - Einstein on the Beach in particular - and the kind of dizzy-handed wistfulness I’ve learned to love and respect from The Velvet Underground’s dreamier tracks. These musicians, centered around core member Tori Kudo, find themselves in the same psychedelic playground as the sisters of Cocorosie.
What got me turned onto the artist was a track found in The Wire #10, a sampler attached to the British music magazine of the same name.
MAHER SHALAL HASH BAZ POST OFFICE
Recorded in East Kilbride Arts Centre, Scotland, in May 2002, Blues Du Jour (Geographic) features 41 new compositions by Tori Kudo, the leader of Japan’s Maher Shalal Hash Baz. “Post Office” is one of Kudo’s most gorgeous songs; in his words, the story of a disappearing woman whose hope never vanishes. The track features Alison Mitchell (trumpet) and Katrina Mitchell (xylophone) from The Pastels, in addition to the sevenpiece Maher group which participated in the sessions.
As noted in the description above, “Maher Shalal Hash Baz” is the band name and somewhat of a pseudonym for Tori Kudo himself. But whatever does this psuedonym mean?
Via Wikipedia -
Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz - “Hurry o spoil! He has made haste to the plunder!” or “Hurrying to the spoil he has made haste to the plunder” - was the second mentioned son of the prophet Isaiah, mentioned by name in Isaiah 8:1–3. The name is a reference to the impending plunder of Samaria and Damascus by the king of Assyria.
I love a name that leads to hours of reading!
For albums and merchandise, visit the Domino Recording Company. There are a few freebie downloads there as well. There are also a couple freebies at the Last.FM page for the artist.
Via Maybe Logic.com:
Maybe Logic “is” a hilarious and mind-bending journey into the multi-dimensional life of Robert Anton Wilson, author of the Illuminatus! Trilogy. Featuring video spanning 25 years and the best of 100 hours of footage thoroughly tweaked, transmuted and regenerated, Maybe Logic follows the ever-open eye of Pope Bob as he penetrates human illusions exposing the mathematical probabilities and spooky synchronicities of the 8 dimensions of his Universe.
The feature-length documentary features Tom Robbins, RU Sirius, Ivan Stang, Paul Krassner, Valerie Corral and Douglas Rushkoff.
The soundtrack includes music from Boards of Canada, Animals On Wheels, Tarentel, Funki Porcini, The Supplicants, Pullman, Matt Elliott, The Cinematic Orchestra, Ognen Spiroski and Amon Tobin.
This documentary on the lives and times of Robert Anton Wilson was made by Deepleaf Productions. It won Best Documentary Audience Award at the 2004 San Francisco Independent Film Festival. It’s a region-free DVD, and the run time is over 3 hours. There are tons of extras, too. I fully recommend checking out the trailer when you get an opportunity. The only thing that’s mildly discouraging is that it’s a little difficult to hear RAW speak, but that could be an audio quality issue on the trailer. Regardless, when I get my hands on the DVD I’ll go out of my way to watch it with subtitles.
Deepleaf has also put out an audio book of The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Exceprts of that audio book are available as a podcast at Deepleaf Audio. The snippet of podcast I listened to is brilliantly narrated. I was not at all impressed with the narrator for The Earth Will Shake, however. Perhaps it’s just a matter of taste, but the narrator featured in that snippet (Scot Crisp) had awful rhythm and struck me as completely smarmy and dull. I tend to prefer a physical book anyway. More on all of that after I’ve had an opportunity to read the book.
(Ahem. Added an Amazon Wishlist tracker to the Misc Information page. Just, you know, so everyone’s aware.)
Edit: A much better take on this situation, from one far more familiar can be found over yonder. At this point I suppose you could consider my post to be more of a primer for the almost equally undereducated.
So, Robert Anton Wilson died yesterday. It was also Albert Hofmann’s birthday. For those who might not be familiar, R.A. Wilson is responsible for the Illuminatus Trilogy (along with Robert Shea). Albert Hofmann is the inventor of LSD.
I went to Robert Anton Wilson’s blog and visited the bookstore at his site. The bookstore has a list of all his books, as well as books by other authors and films that he recommends reading/viewing. A bunch of interesting selections to be had, all around.
The blog appears to have been little-used but does seem to have some interesting tidbits. (All Hail Eris!)
I clicked the Amazon link in the RAW bookstore and I found this! It’s a bunch of arcade cabinets and cocktail tables for sale. <3 I gotta add… all of those to my wish list. As a reminder that I need to own a swank living area and many arcade machines must fill it.
I do wish I could properly celebrate this passing/birthday and what will go on to be a double anniversary. (I think they’d both appreciate a damn good party.) One birth, and one death, timestamps are totally different except in that 01/11 aspect. Still, 01/11 is something we can remember because it’s something we do every year. That’s the nice thing about making time circular like that, it can enforce our tendency to live in the past in a positive way by giving us a memory to look forward to experiencing in a new way.
Even if I can’t party hard, I suppose I can take this weekend to do a lot of reading. There’s all kinds of ways to evoke powerful feelings, afterall.
“Belief is the death of intelligence. As soon as one believes a doctrine of any sort, or assumes certitude, one stops thinking about that aspect of existence.” ~ RAW
“Of course I’m crazy, but that doesn’t mean I’m wrong.” ~ RAW
“The shock of discovering that most of the power in the world is held by ignorant and greedy people can really bum you out at first; but after you’ve lived with it a few decades, it becomes, like cancer and other plagues, just another problem that we will solve eventually if we keep working at it.” ~ RAW
“At the beginning of the 1960s, here in the United States, LSD became a drug of abuse. In a short time, this wave of popular use swept the country and it became drug number one. It was then used incautiously and people were not prepared and informed about its deep effects. And then all kinds of things happened, which caused LSD to become an infamous drug. It was a troublesome time! Telephones, panic, and alarm!” ~ A. Hofmann
“In old times, and also in our time among the Indian tribes, psychedelic substances were considered sacred and they were used with the right attitude and in a ritual and spiritual context. And what a difference if we compare it with the careless and irresponsible use of LSD in the streets and in the discotheques of New York City and everywhere in the West. It is a tragic misunderstanding of the nature and the meaning of these kinds of substances.” ~ A. Hofmann
“Through my LSD experience and my new picture of reality, I became aware of the wonder of creation, the magnificence of nature and of the animal and plant kingdom. I became very sensitive to what will happen to all this and all of us.” ~ A. Hofmann
http://www.azuli.com/full-details/?s=67135c9d2024662c695090f3c6be4697&id=537&category=1
This compliation is to die for. It opens with some pleasantly ethereal Bjork. In contrast to the Filter review, this song’s album of origin is not one I assumed I must own. Point of fact, I myself only like Bjork’s material in small doses. (They mentioned a few others I didn’t necessarily classify as flat-out essential. At least, not until I heard this compilation.) This happens to be a particularly pungent and heady dose, a good kickoff to the tone and caliber of this album overall.
The album is sprinkled throughout with the deep, heartwarming and bizzare mix of sonic encounters one has come to expect from a group like the Flaming Lips. Although, ironically enough the track I found least intriguing was the one contrbuted by the band responsible for putting together this otherwise stellar mix of sound. They procure a cover of the White Stripes’ Seven Nation Army, cheekily titled “Harry Potter and George Bush’s Severed Head Mix”. The listenablility factor is somewhat qwestionerball, what with the heavy presence of siren sounds and the like. However, if one like’s Faust’s odd buzzy tone in the chorus of their contribution (It’s a Bit of a Pain, track 4), then one is apt to enjoy this cover. The other track liable to raise a few eyebrows is the last. It’s part of a series, and not part of the Lips’ picks at all. Worth a listen for the beat poetical value, but definitely not for everyone.
The booklet is highly edifying in this audio journey, and provides a really candid glimpse into the band that is the Flaming Lips - more than worth a look in my opinion.
In these busy days of iPods and burnt discs cobbled together from oddball MP3s, it’s nice to be able to pop down to the record store, and get a total education on music from a single disc. Skim the tracklist, if you don’t know half the artists, and are a Flaming Lips fan, then I implore you to trust their judgement. I picked it up in a Virgin MegaStore, but you can find it online here.
On a one to ten scale, I give this disc an overall of 9.7. Would have scored a perfect if it wasn’t for the two slightly awkward tracks and the realization that I have a lot of albums to buy. (Sebadoh’s Harmacy down… a whole bunch more to go.)
If you like:
Techno -
07 - Flim Aphex Twin
11 - Playground for a Wedgeless Firm Chemical Brothers
Pretty Rock -
03 - Speed of Sound Chris Bell
06 - People Alfie
16 - On Fire Sebadoh
Utterly Unique -
09 - Up The Down Escalator The Chameleons
10 - Seven Nation Army Flaming Lips
Instrumental -
08 - Galileo Mice Parade
02 - My Ship Miles Davis
12 - Saudade Love and Rockets
Old Skoolish -
14 - Sleep Comes Down Psychedelic Furs
18 - I’m Not In Love 10cc
Dreamy -
13 - Monochrome Lush
15 - River Man Nick Drake
17 - Pyramid Song Radiohead
Some kids play in the sandbox. We play in the.... litterbox??? The RKNet staff is pleased that you decided to stop by. Currently this is a multi-author project, with a rotating cast of totally kooky characters. Contact giania [at symbol] gmail [dot] com if you'd like to play here too.
Author's Page: Giania
