Stax documentary on PBS

I was very lucky the other night to catch by chance Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story on PBS. The traditional montage of interviews, vintage footage, and (minimal) narration by Samuel L. Jackson served very well, as the music, and even more so the old concert footage, stand strong all on their own. I'm considering ordering the DVD, because I'd easily watch this several more times. So many great moments, from concert performances by Otis Redding, or the Staple Singers, or Sam and Dave on the European tour of '67; to Jesse Jackson in a dashiki raising his fist to a crowd of 100,000 in Watts, before introducing Isaac Hayes; to the old session player explaining that Stax at its height replaced cotton as the biggest industry in Memphis, Tennessee. Check your local listings, as this is a musical and cultural treat not to be missed. Not to mention the simple fact that the classic rise-and-fall storyline puts any hair band Behind the Music episode to shame. (See: auctioning off of Isaac Hayes' custom gold plated Cadillac to skeptical white southern businessmen.)

What, no opening band to warm up the crowd?

When I first heard about the "Live Earth" concept, of concerts on all seven continents on 07/07/07, I swear it was the first thought into my head: who the hell's going to play on Antarctica in the middle of winter?! Bono may just be that committed/conceited, but I'm pretty sure the rest of U2 would finally balk. (Although the Edge already has his winter hat on; maybe he's good to go...)

So who do you get for a gig too extreme even for rock stars? The only people more badass than rock stars of course: scientists! We're not talking about these posers either, we're talking actual nerds, far geekier than any horn-rimmed-glasses faux-dweeb record store clerk. Their name is Nunatak, and they earned the gig by having more satellite bandwidth than the other research stations (who also apparently have resident bands). Take that, Fossil Bluff Forward Logistics Facility! Read all about it at Nature News, and if that link doesn't work for you here's a pdf version.

YouTube post.

I don't even want to think about how many hours went into this.



As for music, you can listen to the new Smashing Pumpkins album at AOL. I am pleasantly surprised at both the rockingness of the album and the minimum hassle installing yet another plugin, from AOL no less. Perhaps they have grown less evil of late?

pterodactyl, in color

pterodactyl have made a fun fun "music video."

Animal Collective?

Animal Collective "rarities" are here. Found via SeeqPod (which is like Hype Machine but better).

Do you guys like Animal Collective? I'm giving them a second chance, and suspect they may grow on me. Alternatively, I may get bored quickly and leave like I did before the end of the Akron Family show.

I'm getting bored...


SeeqPod Music beta - Playable Search

a political aside

"When he was approached near the House floor by a reporter, Mr. Young responded with an obscene gesture."
NY Times, 7 June 2007

Rep. Don Young (R-AL) may be trying to set a record for longest-distance pork. NY Times article here. Key funny bit:

Asked in a telephone interview who had organized the fund-raiser, Mr. Mazurkiewicz, the consultant, said he was then at another fund-raiser with a member of Mr. Mack’s staff who would know.

“Aronoff,” the staff member told Mr. Mazurkiewicz, within earshot of his mobile phone.

“Just some local businessmen,” Mr. Mazurkiewicz said into the phone.

Pterodactyl are a band!

So, my friend's pterodactyl-- ha ha... that would be cool to have a pet pterodactyl.


Pterodactyl have released their first full-length album! Yay! Check out the review at the ever-ridiculous Pitchfork, or read something that actually describes the music in words instead of in band names at a place called Dusted. Pitchfork has a couple of tracks up for listening and the band has more mp3s scattered around their site. Warning: many people possibly including your neighbors or your girlfriend will not like this music. Some people just can't handle the rock and roll.

the best band you never heard of.

Seriously.

Jetpack were a band in Providence in the late 90s. They released one 7" single called Investigator Man (on clear vinyl with accompanying comic book), and one self-titled full-length cd, on their short-lived label Sampson Recordings. I saw them play a few times, including opening for Don Caballero and on their own at the very hip AS220. Then they lost their drummer, and the remaining two guys became Hya Kcha, playing drums and bass-with-many-pedals. I also have a two-track cd of Hya Kcha's, cleverly titled "A Demonstration," which I will happily dig out and share if anyone's interested.

But back to the point: the self-titled Jetpack cd is one of my top 10, maybe top 5 favorite albums of all time and ever, bar none, and I absolutely pull it out and listen to it with much regularness. Simply put, it ROCKS. To be a little more descriptive, this is very much in the Math Rock vein, with off-kilter syncopations and odd-length phrasings and so on, but with a firm emphasis on the Rock part as well. To contrast, I never got into Don Caballero that much because their stuff can be too focused on the math part, and end up feeling almost clinical. Unwound, one of my other very favorite bands, might be a better comparison except that Jetpack is less dark and grungy/metally (metallic?). Not that Jetpack would ever jam, heavens no. Every riff is repeated exactly as many times as necessary for you to get your head around it, and then the song moves on. The volume or tempo shifts in that way that I love, building and falling and building again so you can barely sit still, like good early Mogwai but without the feedback, if that makes any sense. And I almost forgot to mention - these guys were fucking tight as tupperware. Unbelievable.

Okay, enough talk. No guilt about sharing these tracks since the guys have made them available on the Sampson site, and I'm sure the cd is essentially impossible to buy. (The Jetpack on Amazon is a different one.) So get the tracks from them, or over at Multiply, or zipped up, and let me know what you think.

turntable music

The very decent music blog debaser recently posted a link to a large (3 cds) and apparently rare collection of turntable wizardry from Ninjatune, called Xen Cuts. The label's tenth anniversary compilation, from 2000, includes tracks from Kid Koala, Z-Trip, Coldcut, and DJ Food (subject of an upcoming post), along with many others. If you like turntable music or, even better, aren't a fan yet and want a good sampling of some of the best the genre has to offer, definitely grab this while you can.

Xen Cuts, from Ninjatune.

Stranger Than Fiction soundtrack

Apologies to all three of my readers (LALOL!) for the extended absence.

We finally saw Stranger Than Fiction this weekend. In addition to being a really super duper movie, it's one of those films that makes great use of an excellent pop music soundtrack. Coincidently, considering I'll be seeing them at Toad's this very Thursday night (all right!), the soundtrack was compiled by Britt Daniel and Brian Reitzell of Spoon, and includes instrumental sections written by them in addition to several Spoon songs, including one previously unreleased (The Book I Write).

Grab it here. Enjoy!