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As ThunkTank continues to inject itself into all pop culture like a prion from outer space, it was inevitable that we would begin to take over holidays. This Tuesday happens to be a holiday, a holiday in which you puny humans express your affections with heart-shaped pieces of flavored chalk imprinted with slogans—everything from “Pitch Woo” to “Fax Me.”* And so we have created Thunk Tank Conversation Hearts but, being Thunk Tank, ours are enormous: Eating one is like putting your entire fist into your mouth.
In his book Retromania, peerless cultural critic Simon Reynolds spends an entire chapter talking about a particularly "Japanese sensibility": "the way that [they] would curate, assimilate and reprocess Western popular culture.
"According [journalist W. David] Marx, in Japan style is not personal, a matter of cultivated quirks and differences, but impersonal, an external standard to which you have to measure up."
While Reynolds was used the above points to frame his discussion of Japanese music and its tendency to reflect back on sounds and ideas from the American and European counterparts, they just as easily port over to another facet of Japanese youth culture: bosozoku motorcycle gangs.
These teenage bike enthusiasts first sprung up within the country during the 1950s, the same time that
Cinema, spirits and soul! Monica opened her show with a set that included Niobe, Spiritualized, The Stylistics, and Nino Rota.
Sharon Van Etten recently played her entire new album, Tramp, at the Mercury Lounge. She and band mate Heather Woods will be on Jeffrey Davison's Shrunken Planet this Saturday, February 12th from 6-9am. Last week, Jeffrey played "Ask" from the album.
Jeremiah Lockwood, whose father was a cantor, grew up steeped deep in Jewish Music, but also enjoyed country blues guitar. He mixes the two in his band, The Sway Machinery. Marty McSorley played their track, "Youba" Rob Weisberg will have the group on Transpacific Sound Paradise, also on the 12th, from 6-9pm.
From Jewish-influenced country blues to black metal, Chris M. played Mutilation Rites on Imaginary Radio. The Brooklyn-based band will be his guest this Sunday, February 13th from 3-6am. From 6-9am, Kelli will have New Zealand's Labretta Suade And The Motel 6 on Beastin' The Airwaves. Kelli played their "Mean Mouthed Mama."
Liz Berg played music from Bob Bruno, followed by Dustin Wong, who creates "one man symphonies" using a guitar and loop pedals. Dustin will be on Liz's show on Monday, February 15th, from 9am-Noon.
The Old Codger will fill in for Mac on Tuesday, February 16th, from 8-9pm.
It's dismaying and bittersweet that the week in which we celebrate the birthday of celebrated hip-hop producer J. Dilla (February 7th), we also have to reconcile the fact that it was only a few days later that the legend passed away from complications related to lupus (Feburary 10th). In the years since his death at the maddeningly young age of 32, Dilla's cult has grown significantly, but this posthumous appraisal is definitely not without good reason. It was even while bed-ridden in a hospital suffering from the disease that would take his life that Dilla crafted the exquisite opus Donuts, a superb statement that focused on Dilla's rabidly growing innovations as a beatmaker and a forward-thinking master of craft who's artistic career was cut infuriatingly short. Thankfully, Dilla left behind a strong body of work stretching back into the 90's, one which has been evaluated in the ensuing years as one of the most distinctively consistent and inventively soulful in the pantheon of hip-hop. Like his friend and colleague Madlib, Dilla was one of the most visionary of the post-90's golden age of beatsmiths, with both using their worship of giants like Pete Rock, Large Professor, DJ Premier, and the DITC crew (Diamond D, Showbiz, Lord Finesse, Buckwild) as a starting point for a distinctively original and personal sonic template that shined as the obvious progressions from this revolutionary era of hip-hop. His drums and his basslines have a legendary funk that made his singular work a perfect fit not only for many MC's within the hip-hop community, but also for a good handful of soul and R&B; acts as well. Dilla was one of the last great hopes for hip-hop in a period marked by an increasingly commercial crassness, where big business and trend-chasing began to stifle the progressive spirit set forth in years past. His passing was beyond unfortunate, but thankfully, a strong backbone of fans indebted to his work keep this genius's body of work visibly lauded for what is sure to be years and years to come.
Below are some highlights, many overlooked, from Dilla's 90's career (then producing under the name "Jay Dee"). Part 2, looking at the 00's, will follow next week.
1st Down - "A Day Wit The Homiez" (1995)
Although the Payday imprint was responsible for such cult hip-hop classics as Showbiz & A.G.'s Runaway Slave and Jeru The Damaja's first two albums, they seemed to drop the ball when it came to the early careers of some eventual hip-hop legends (see also Mos Def's trio Urban Thermo Dynamics having their solid 1995 album for the label scrapped in spite of two singles being promoted). 1st Down was the duo of Detroit stalwart Phat Kat and Dilla himself (then going by the pre-Jay Dee moniker of John Doe), who saw this 12" pressed on the label and then....nothing. It's a shame as "Day" is a wonderfully smooth lost gem with Dilla making deft use of both a loop of Joe Sample's familiar "In All My Wildest Dreams" (most famously sampled on 2Pac's "Dear Mama") and some added flavor from The Brothers Johnson's "Tomorrow." An early notable glance of greater things to come.
"That's probably the hardest I've worked on any project," says Avi Spivak, the illustrator behind Norton Records' recent issue of Kicksville Confidential. And if you've seen Kicksville, released this past October, you'll understand what he means by "hard work" -- the Brooklyn-based artist's painstaking renderings of Norton stars are as detailed as they are funny, and they're clearly the toil of someone with a deep interest in u-ground comics and gutsy r'n'r alike. In Spivak's enthusiastic scrawl -- part Kaz, part MAD, part G. Panter, part urban daydrunk stupor -- some of the Norton stable's more colorful tales come to life, and we see, for example, Hannibal's fabled ride through Midtown Manhattan on an elephant, a Screamin' Jay Hawkins/Esquerita street-level fistfight and Hasil Adkins's rural shootout.
Spivak's resume prior to Kicksville is no less impressive. In addition to commercial art and various other projects, like the mural he painted outside of the now-defunct Mars Bar, he's contributed to Maximum RocknRoll, The Scientist, Vice -- and Al Goldstein's SCREW, for which he illustrated a cover in 2006.
FOOD is a short film directed by aritst/photographer Robert Frank about Gordon Matta-Clark and Carol Goodden's conceptual restaurant. Founded in 1972 in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City, FOOD brought together many factors of the local community, artists and otherwise, becoming a space for dialogue and conversation as well as a living piece in it of itself.
Tony Coulter here, with a critical audiovisual update for your mental operating system. Click your way past the fold, and you will find music and videos by three groups I've already blogged about here on BotB. This is the stuff I should have/ would have/ could have included the first time around. Better Nate than lever, no?
You may continue to use your computer during this essential update.
Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) is a physical sensation characterized by a pleasurable tingling that typically begins in the head and scalp, and often moves down the spine and through the limbs.
Most ASMR episodes begin by an external or internal trigger, and are so divided for classification. Type A episodes are elicited by the experiencer using no external stimuli, and are typically achieved by specific thought patterns unique to the individual. Type B episodes are triggered involuntarily by an external trigger, via one or more senses, and may also involve specific thought patterns associated with the triggering event. Both types of triggers vary between individuals, but many are common to a large portion of ASMR enjoyers.
Common external triggers:
Exposure to slow, accented, or unique speech patterns
Viewing educational or instructive videos or lectures
Experiencing a high empathetic or sympathetic reaction to an event
Enjoying a piece of art or music
Watching another person complete a task, often in a diligent, attentive manner - examples would be filling out a form, writing a check, going through a purse or bag, inspecting an item closely, etc.
Close, personal attention from another person
Haircuts, or other touch from another on head or back
My pal Mark Houston stumbled across an assortment of clips meant to induce this state of mind, and we couldn't stop watching them. I posted it to a friend in Australia who used to be driven mad by things like people who chew cereal loudly, and even she was oddly lulled.
After our hopeful words last week about an attempted comeback at The Vault, it appears (for now) that this mighty Everest of music sharing has been reduced to rubble. Adding to the misery in blogland this week was the apparent demise of the enlightened pages at Weird Brother, but an outpouring of appreciative comments at the site has led erudite host, Y Brawd, to consider giving it another go. (We were all set in this post to link to an historic Fluxus audio collection at WB, but the link went dead as a DCMA doornail.) Please cross fingers—and maybe send a few encouraging words—to help inspire this vital cultural resource to find a way to keep calm and carry on!
Pick Hit: "Laugh and Dance" "Hailing from Kansas City, Missouri in the late 1970s Omer was running a mobile disco that ended up using live instruments. It incorporated a spectacular stage show with smoke and light effects. Along with other stage props, including a spaceship styled car, the stage attention inspired him to create his first solo album in the early 1980s under his moniker 'Starship Commander Woo-Woo.'" (Uncredited bio posted at Discogs)
[A friendly hint from your Miner: Do NOT sleep on this one!]
In July 1948, Caryl Chessman, also known as "The Red Light Bandit," was sentenced to die in the California gas chamber after being convicted on 17 charges of robbery, kidnapping and rape. Chessman's residence on death row was somewhat anomalous in that his crimes did not involve the taking of a life. However, the fact that he was convicted of kidnapping with bodily harm enabled the state of California to charge him with the violation of the Federal Kidnapping Act (sometimes referred to as the Little Lindbergh Law), which was regarded as a capital offense.
It's been a minute since a concept record got released in NYC. Talibam! used to be known as a chaotic, skronky free jazz group. In the past years, they've been working on a rap album which they performed at the final show at Issue Project Room's Can Factory location. Now I'm hearing this even less explicable Discover AtlantASS, which will be released in a couple weeks. The concept opera comes along with a 25 page comic that details some events of the story, which is about something like a teenager who gets kidnapped by jazzfish or something. Dunno. Just listen!
Apropos of nothing but to get the police off the streets by nine o'clock, here's sixty-six minutes of The Originator, Bo Diddley, seen here with friends Jerome Green, The Duchess, Chuck Berry and himself, Bo Diddley:
As part of Thunk Tank’s bid to expand our global media empire, this week we’re moving into the lucrative world of daily horoscope readings. Every newspaper prints these things, people go online to read them, the Zodiac Killer is beloved by millions, it seems only natural that Thunk Tank should provide horoscope readings in order to attract more listeners. Thunk Tank being Thunk Tank, however, we have decided to forgo the traditional horoscopes provided by either Western or Eastern traditions, and instead provide our own system based on a person’s date of birth and a corresponding Monopoly game piece. And so, without further ado, we present:
When I was 22, I was lured to Provincetown (once a thriving hotbed of underground artists and cultural revolutionaries, now home to condominiums and dogs in strollers) by the promise of relatively easy money and the opportunity to meet my favorite living director, John Waters, who spends his summers there. When the film festival brought Jane Lynch and Gael Garcia Bernal to town, I kept my eye on the prize: a man whose own twenties were spent living in a treehouse and having sex in the town cemetery, activities that seemed to have been replaced by the current crop of twenty-somethings with shopping at Marc Jacobs and fucking in the gym.
While the money never came that summer, a chance to speak with The Pope of Trash did. One balmy evening, he and his boyfriend were sitting on a bench in Town Square while I walked by on my way to
