Crosses (Sorta) and Punk

Sorry to be on a long-term tangent about this sorta stuff (i.e. 80's hardcore-ish musesicks), but to follow up on the Flipper post earlier, I found a Die Kreuzen interview with all these performances on YouTube so I figured I'd post some of the choice ones. Die Kreuzen, for some reason, hasn't really earned as much posthumous praise as bunch of their contemporaries (probably because they got pretty shitty after their first couple of releases...), but I'm glad to have found this evidence to point out the injustice of this willful collective ignorance. (Also, notice how the Kreuzen boys lie about not being violent! PUNK IS VIOLENCE! At least that's what I read somewhere. In a book. Or something).








Also, here's a video of Siege wherein THE LEAD SINGER IS TOO INTENSE FOR THE SOUND SYSTEM TO HANDLE! SO HIS VOCALS JUST SOUND LIKE GROWLY STATIC*! Oh... I understand now... (if only....)



*NB: I know Siege is not technically grindcore, but they're sorta proto-maybe-innovators maybe? Please?

New Years and Bloom

Well this was certainly unexpected, but greatly appreciated. I do wonder how exactly this interview came to happen? It certainly isn't a coupling I would ever have imagined, but it's a surprisingly interesting interview, although one wonders if Bloom actually knew the context (i.e. Vice) in which he would be presented.

There is something overly reverential in the mode of presentation and questioning here (especially for Vice), but that's probably the only way to get Harold Bloom to talk this candidly and openly (is it just me, or does he seem a little paranoid about his standing in academia?). I have a sort of ambivalent relationship with Bloom anyway: I greatly admire his scholarship, and during that brief era of time people thought of him as part of the Yale School or whatever, his writings were up there with some of the best theorists and critics of all time (along with his colleagues, though I suppose we aren't supposed to like that dirty Nazi Paul de Man anymore, eh?#). But, as his writings increasingly addressed a wider audience (especially The Western Canon etc.) he seems to have diluted a lot of his previous work to a position of the ornery contrarian. And yet, those books are still a good read and very informative in their own way, so there you go. I just never thought I'd see an interview with him in Vice? Rereading it though, it makes more sense, as there is an attempt to present him as some sort of "rebel" (which Vice loves) but Bloom's too loquacious and quick to let the interviewer to present him as such. Oh well, interesting read, even after one gets over the incongruity in its placement.
Also, Happy New Year. Please give me a job.
# I suppose this is the kind of thinking which Bloom opposes in the interview. Kudos me! Also, I think it's about time we started reading de Man again. For serious.

Reissues and Kudos

So 2008 is almost over, and it was an all right year in some ways, but I just learned something that made it truly great: THEY ARE COMPLETELY REISSUING FLIPPER'S BACK CATALOG ON BOTH CD AND VINYL! So, essentially... good going 2008! Here are some pictures and videos of Flipper to make you as happy as I am:







On an additional music note (ha ha!) I've been listening to the newest Magik Markers releases. It's nice to hear that they're still experimenting after Boss but...I dunno what I think about it yet. Here's a picture to represent my conundrum:




And lastly, I hear that there are some holidays coming up or something, but how should I know? Oh? That's how I should know? My apologies, good sir.

LIST 2008

TOP 20 OF 2008

1. Excepter- Debt Dept.
2. The Hospitals- Hairdryer Peace
3. 1970's Algerian Proto-Rai Underground
4. Pocahaunted- Island Diamonds
5. Sex Vid- Nests 7"
6. Valerio Cosi- Heavy Electronic Pacific Rock
7. US Girls- Introducing
8. No Age- Nouns
9. Eric Copeland- Alien in a Garbage Dump EP
10. Ryoji Ikeda- Test Pattern
11. The Fall- Imperial Wax Solvent
12. Windy Weber- I Hate People
13. Cult Ritual-2nd EP
14. Emeralds- Solar Bridge
15. Lau Nau- Nukkuu
16. Growing- All the Way
17. Phantom Orchard- Orra
18. The Dead C- Secret Earth
19. Fucked Up- The Chemistry of Modern Life
20. Mary Halvorson Trio- Dragon's Head

Lepers and All the Rest

Man, I really don't ever update this blog anymore (this is not only an obligatory statement that one who maintains a blog must say at least once in the course of said blog's lifetime, but also the sad truth). I'm not sure why not. Mainly because of this: I don't have anything to say. So I'll just link to a bunch of YouTube videos that I looked at while writing this. Oh also, that picture is me making a leper pretty; I think I did a good job.

The end. Of everything. Ever. So many good videos though!

Crashes and Mix

This is a very special post because it is the first time I've used Photoshop instead of MS Paint (not something I plan to do often; me 'n the Paint gotz histories, I can't just turn my back on him now...) and because I am actually going to try and edit with HTML^! ZOMG ITZ 2 KEWL! Well, anyway, here is the playlist to a mix that I made the other day because I really don't have much to say.

---

MY MIX

The Misfits
Where Eagles Dare


The Saints (I'm) Stranded


The Dicks Dicks Hate
the Police


Bikini Kill Rebel Girl


Fang Money Will Roll


Black Flag My War


The Germs Circle One


Void Organized Sports


Big Black Kerosene


Wipers Return of the Rat


Flipper Nothing


Crass Do They Owe Us
a Living?


Reagan Youth New
Aryans


MDC John Wayne Was
a Nazi


Mars Helen Forsdale


Crime San Francisco's
Doomed






Huggy Bear Herjazz


Bad Brains Banned in D.C.


Crucifucks Hinkley Had
a Vision


D.O.A. I Don't Give a Shit


Stick Men with Ray Guns
I'll Kill Mother


Fugazi Repeater


Urinals I'm a Bug $


Necros Conquest for Death


Husker Du Indecision Time


Negative Approach Ready
to Fight


Alternative T.V. You Bastard


Feederz Jesus Entering
from the Rear


Minor Threat Out of Step
(With the World)


Pussy Galore Kill Yourself*


Pere Ubu Final Solution


Fear New York's Alright
If You Like Saxophones

If you guess the theme, you win a hug.

^Please don't judge me for being functionally retarded when it comes to using this...
$Starts at 3 mins, unless you want to reminded why barely anyone talks about 100 Flowers anymore...
*I took especial delight in placing this right after Minor Threat

Musings and Noises

Quitting is sometimes the best medicine.

Also, what's the deal with:
Glasses?
Baby Boomers?
Sarah Palin?
Balding?
Lower back pain?
Those wasps that lay their eggs in living insects in which the maggots eat host from the inside-out?
The Smiths?

I also quite enjoy the direction Merzbow has taken in the last few years. Who knew that animal activism would make one so adept at using beats?

Also, I'd like to comment that sometimes Outisde Agency is cool, but not when it is uninvited.


That is all.