Triple Threat: GRMLN, Teen, Riff Raff.

Triple Threat: Fiona Apple, Aaron Ximm, Rainier Lericolais.

Triple Threat: Tag Cloud, Deniro Farrar & Shady Blaze feat. Haleek Maul, Guided By Voices.

This Beyonce Knowles thing I wrote was mildly humorous.

Triple Threat #6: Naked City Cinema, Ab-Soul, Eric Lanham.

Triple Threat #4: Kanye, Kanye, Kanye.

Triple Threat #5: Mike Bell, Juiceboxxx, Animal Collective.

Triple Threat #3: Sontag Shogun, Sharlyn Evertsz, Mayhem Lauren.

Triple Threat #2: Lantern, Mount Eerie, C.F.C.

"New God Flow"

5ingles is toast. Long live Triple Threat.

Triple Threat #1: Phil Julian, Meat Mist, Meek Mill feat. Rick Ross.

People love to cover the Reading Rainbow theme. May not be a good thing.

Do you have a Kindle? Do you have an iPod, iPad, or other device which can host a Kindle app? Have you ever read an alumni magazine? Do you have $1.59?

Then buy Class Notes.

This was supposed to run as a Village Voice music listing, but didn't due to a clerical error:

Celebrity DJs make the A-List for a reason, and the deceptively named Deadmau5 has earned his place there. The DJ born Joel Thomas Zimmerman may have committed his share of quasi-mortal sins – dating a Playmate without irony, assailing the etymology of his chosen profession in print, perverting the Disney logo fifty ways from Sunday – but there’s something quintessentially and universally euphoric about his brand of acid-trance that transcends race, economic status, and level of chemical dependency. Sure, Zimmerman’s fizz-tone beat-bounce prizes broad electronic strokes over ambient diffusion or convulsing-outside-a-rave nightmare, but in a compositional sense he excels at unspooling a good yarn, even if that yarn doesn’t go much deeper than the storyboard for a 30-second Mitsubishi advert.

Oh how weird; I didn't know this was out there online.

Introducing the decidedly D.I.Y. The Joy Of Cooking. Download it here. Thanks, Doug and Chris!

Jeff Mangum, Gang Gang Dance (again, in weird PDF format, doesn't seem to exist elsewhere).

Man Forever. (Somehow this wasn't digitized.)

And they seem to have established a page for these things here; note the Youth Lagoon and Black-Eyed Peas blurbs.

Yeah, I know, been a while.

I'm doing show listings for the Village Voice now, but for whatever reason on the site they don't (always) list the names of authors I'm just going to post the links here for my reference (and your enjoyment, maybe).

Olivia Tremor Control
Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr.

More Cowbell: March and April.

My interview with Religious Knives is up on Sound of the City, the Village Voice music blog.

Ben Schiek lives!

More Cowbell. I did some stuff on Rye Rye, Peter J. Woods, The Godless Girl, and Tape Deck Mountain, and hope to become a regular contributor - already have some assignments lined up for the next issue.

Holy shit.

I Pazzed, I Jopped.

Albums
1	Burning Star Core, Papercuts Theater No Quarter
2	Skullflower, Strange Keys to Untune Gods' Firmament Neurot
3	Katt Hernandez, Unlovely Ehse
4	Ascites, Caput Medusae Deadline Recordings
5	The Roots, How I Got Over Def Jam
6	David Dove & Lucas Gorham, Screwed Anthologies: Improvised Music Under the Influence of DJ Screw Cangrejito
7	Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti, Before Today 4AD
8	Fred the Godson, Armageddon
9	The Dead C, Patience BaDaBing!
10	Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy Def Jam/Roc-a-Fella
Singles
1	Autechre, "Y7" Warp
2	Waka Flocka Flame, "Hard in Da Paint" Warner/Asylum
3	Peter J Woods, "Corpse" Maxcorp
4	Avey Tare, "Ghost of Books" Paw Tracks
5	Telecult Powers (ft. Lala Ryan), "Freakout"
6	Asher Roth, "Muddy Swim Trunks" Schoolboy/SRC/Universal
7	No Age, "Aanteni Score Live at the Red Cat"
8	Nicki Minaj (ft. Eminem), "Roman's Revenge" Universal Motown/Cash Money
9	Juelz Santana (ft. Yelawolf), "Mixing Up the Medicine" Skull Gang/Def Jam
10	The-Dream, "Love King" Def Jam/Radio Killa

Finally this review runs online; man, am I sick of this guy.

Cashing in on the misfortunes of a couple thousand dead birds.

"NOW NATIVITY SCENES, MAKE ME NAUUUUUUUSEOUS..."

For reasons I''m still figuring out, I can't get enough of this song lately. Christmas-y!

YouTube: Atlas Sound, "Artificial Snow"

A little light-classic Christmas listening, for those of you who're in the mood right now: the Nutcracker Suite.

Happy holidays, everyone!

The Dead-Tree Shuffle, 12/22/2010

Got to big-up Burning Star Core in Williamette Week's year-end music whatever, got to give Bret Easton Ellis pounds in City Pages' Artist of the Year feature. Go me!

SURREAL BEYOND WORDS

David Bowie and Bing Crosby. Singing "The Little Drummer Boy." Together. No, seriously. Click here.

Oh, And

It's official. I have a new job, and I start Monday.

I know I'm behind on correspondence with some of you! Bear with me.

The Dead-Tree Shuffle, 12/08/10 Edition

In the San Antonio Current, a review of the new Jazmine Sullivan album, which I highly recommend.

In the Baltimore City Paper, my contributions to the Top Ten Local Music and Top Ten Books lists appear in today's Top Ten 2010 issue. We contributing writers didn't get to be a part of Top Ten National Music this year; the editors took a more local, less-crit approach.

For whatever it's worth, the lists I submitted are below:

LOCAL (BALTIMORE) ALBUMS:

1. Avey Tare, “Down There” (Paw Tracks) 18
2. Matmos/So Percussion, "Treasure State" (Cantaloupe) 14
3. Jonathan Badger, "Unsung Stories..." (MT6/High Horse) 12
4. Matmos/Lesser/Wobbly, "Simultaneous Quodlibet" (Important) 11
5. Dboi, "Paid In Full" (Varsity Entertainment) 10
6. M.Bassett/J. Graf, "Peradam" (Utech) 9
7. SPERMWHALES, "Bootlegs, Vol. I" (self-released) 8
8. Duce Wayne, "Punchlines & Polos" (No Label) 7
9. Solar Temple Suicides, “Sentinels of the Heliosphere” (Sleepy Records) 6
10. Twig Harper & Daniel Higgs, "Clairaudience Fellowship" (Thrill Jockey) 5

BOOKS

1. Bret Easton Ellis, Imperial Bedroom (Knopf)
2. Gary Indiana, Andy Warhol and the Can That Sold The World (Basic Books)
3. Jaron Lanier, You Are Not A Gadget (Knopf)
4. Martha Nussbaum, Not For Profit: Why Democracy Needs The Humanities (Princeton University Press)
5. Ian Frazier, Travels In Siberia (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
6. Rafal Kochan, The Encyclopedia of Industrial Music, Volume 1 (Impulsy Stetoskopu)
7. Steven Amsterdam, Things We Didn't See Coming (Pantheon)
8. Miguel Syjuco, Ilustrado (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux)
9. Francis Wheen, Strange Days Indeed: The 1970s: The Golden Age of Paranoia (PublicAffairs)
10. Gary Shteyngart, Super Sad True Love Story (Random House)

The Imaginations, "Santa Send Me"

Xmas Calypso Classic! Click here.

Big, bold, Voguing to Danzig props to Nodin, who is no longer using diapers or pull-ups - it's underwear all the way, now! Welcome to the Big Boy leagues, son!

Village Voice posted a Mannie Fresh mash-up/mix, in case you needed a refresher. (I totally did. For me, it was more of an introduction.)

Reminiscing about working "with" Michael Jackson, Fitty almost sounds...human. Wow.

And here I thought Leslie Nielsen would live forever. R.I.P.

Or, more generally, that I might as well not exist.

Don't ask me to get into specifics, but right now I feel like I don't exist.

I just want to note, again, that Thom Hawkins is brilliant.

Atlas Sound, Bedroom Databanks 1 & 2

My post about these albums is up here.

There will be at least one more, probably next week.

Ke$ha/Minaj reviews are up

Ke$ha in the San Antonio Current, Nicki Minaj in Clevescene.

Working right now on a long, involved thing for the City Pages music blog on these new outta-nowhere Atlas Sound blog releases; will post a link here when that's done.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Eight reasons to buy My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy today. There are probably a couple other better reasons.

Who will survive in Sarah Palin's America?

The new Michael Jackson single sucks eggs.

"7 Weekly Rap Series No-One Wants To Hear."

Pithy yet amusing.

BACK FROM THE DEAD

Jacko vs Lennon vs Brown*

Michael Jackson: Who’s the boogie man you’re thinking of?

John Lennon: The men from the press.

Bobby Brown: They say I’m nasty.

Lennon: It ain’t easy.

Brown: Spreading myself around.

Jackson: Everybody wanting a piece.

Brown: Talking all this stuff.

Lennon: They didn’t even give us a chance.

Jackson: Stalking.

Lennon: Eating chocolate cake in a bag.

Jackson: My obituary?

Lennon: Crucify me.

Brown: Why am I so real?

Jackson: Am I crazy?

Lennon: Two gurus in drag.

Jackson: On the screen.

Brown: Oh, no.

*Usually these mashups wind up on Splice Today, but this one's feeling too slight somehow, so I've posted it here.

It takes some clicking and scrolling to get there but I have an interview with Avey Tare of Animal Collective in the digital edition of the new issue of Cowbell Magazine. Click here to read it.

Checkers at Cracker Barrel - A Sunday Morning Tradition

New 8tracks mixtape! Haven't done one of these in quite a while, was in the mood.

Click here for unwanted workaday-procrastination assistance.

Really, Wal-Mart? Piping X-mas jingles over the PA in the first week of November? C'mon - I haven't even gotten all of my Halloween decorations down yet!

Fiona Apple and Quentin Tarantino, talking artistry, trash, haters, etc. Good stuff.

Lil Wayne to rap wherever possible while returning home from prison

Somehow, I didn't get around to seeing Mariah Carey's video for "Touch My Body" until today, and it was easily a thousand times more doofy than I ever could have imagined.

Carve A Pumpkin With Daddy Day, Stepping Stone School, Round Rock, Texas - 10/29/2010

Hired!*


*Very probably.

Memo to Kanye, Lupe, & Pharrell: Don't Stop Recruiting Rebel Child Soldiers!

I watched Kanye West's Runaway film so you don't have to.

It's criminal how hilarious I still find Stefan.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRPpvefxLCA&feature=related

This Zoe Saldana piece I wrote that appeared on Splice Today earlier in the week is drawing an outsized, if not surprising, amount of notice, probably because dudes will be dudes.

If you thought you caught this gem while watching primetime TV a couple days ago, no, your eyes weren't deceiving you.

Well Said, Keef

"It's can you hang, can you talk about this without any feeling of distance between you? Friendship is a diminishing of distance between people. That's what friendship is, and to me it's one of the most important things in the world." -Keith Richards, Life

I couldn't have put it better myself.

If any song sums up my mood right now, it's probably this one.

Nine Little-Known Facts About Waka Flocka Flame

Note: This ran in a slightly different form on Splice Today on Wednesday, but because the editors didn't use my second version, which I felt was slightly more amusing, I've decided to post it here.

1. Waka Flocka Flame’s rap cadence is classified as a lethal weapon in twenty-three states.

2. On Waka Flocka Flame’s tour-bus bookshelf: Travels in Siberia by Ian Frazier, Regarding the Pain of Others by Susan Sontag, The Birds of America by John James Audubon.

3. YG Hootie, Gudda Gudda, Popa Smurf, Bo Deal, and Slim Dunkin are among the slew of Waka Flocka Flame pals who guest on Flockaveli, the Georgia rapper’s 1017 Brick Squad/Warner Brothers/Asylum debut. Due to scheduling conflicts, microphone murder-row types like Soupy Fishscales, Joe the Plunger, and Flocka Khan were unable to participate, though Waka hopes to corral them “into the lab” for Flockaveli’s follow-up, tentatively titled Da Life of Flocki Gaines.

4. Among the many curiosities on display in Waka Flocka Flame’s Riverdale, Georgia penthouse is an elaborate, flamboyant headdress of indeterminate tribal origin, constructed entirely of dyed dodo feathers and coagulated human blood. The headdress - which Waka typically dons “when we doin’ shows, at the nail clinic, just wildin’” - was a present from conceptual feather artist Virgil M. Walker; the two became acquainted after Walker, under the misimpression that he was downloading a deconstructed amalgamation of Native American chants, found himself enthralled by the Lebron Flocka James mixtape. “Walker’s cool, he keeps it three-hundred,” Waka told ArtForum. “He bumps my shit, you know? He‘s down, he rides with Brick Squad, he’s devilishly pre-constitution with a certain post-ironic modernist/nativist sensibility.”

5. According to an interview with Gourmet magazine, “Fuck the Club Up” was inspired in part by outsized Food Network personality Guy Fieri. “Guy and I roll up in delis on the regular, just straight hungry, shermed out, on the prowl,” Waka explained. “And Guy likes to order club sandwiches, it’s just his thing, them club sandwiches. So the waiter or waitress be taking his order, a club sandwich, and then Guy smirks and waits a beat and he yells ‘FUCK THE CLUB UP!’ which in Guy-speak is code for ‘deep fry that bitch, pile some onions and chilis and tobasco and peppercorns up on that motherfucker,’ go out in left field, out in the boonies, make this some unforgettable Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives bullshit, feel me? Because Guy Fieri is not to be trifled with; Guy Fieri will cap a sucka sous chef.”

6. Waka Flocka Flame was born Juaquin Malphurs in Queens, New York; “Juaquin Malphurs” is an arguably more awesome rap name than “Waka Flocka Flame.”

7. As a personal rule, Waka Flocka Flame limits his consumption of alcohol to bird-related or -inspired spirits like Wild Turkey, Grey Goose, and Peruvian pisco, which he customarily sips from an amethyst-encrusted adamantium chalice - a condo-warming gift from fellow ornithology enthusiast Lil Jon.

8. While Waka Flocka Flame is contractually obligated to holler, blurt, or rhythmically pistol-whip his own stage name a minimum of fifteen times on each song he records, there’s some wiggle room available to him, some legalistic gray areas. Waka may, if he so desires, hit this ceiling by spitting his sobriquet whole, in pieces, or in a post-modern mad-lib style. A special clause stipulates that Warner Brothers executives will uncage three dozen mourning doves each time Waka refers to himself seventy times or more times in a single five-minute banger. Waka’s present self-referential personal best: a staggering fifty-five near-autistic shout outs.

9. Waka Flocka Flame is a licensed, accredited acupuncturist whose clients include Michael Stipe, Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes, Dennis Rodman, and Birdie the Early Bird.

Do you remember laughter?

If you can't stand to see Jesus rendered in various hues and sizes of plastic, by all means don't click this link.

"YOU'RE BLIND, BABY! YOU'RE BLIND FROM THE FACTS!"

Heavy D, right? May he live forever.

Think you know Bozo? You don't know Bozo.

Seriously: on a literal level, it's crickets out here.

Bring on your rah-rah/rally cap pep talks: I need all the energy and encouragement you can muster to not totally give up at this point.

Rakkasan CD review from Baltimore City Paper. Normally wouldn't link it here but for some reason the webmaster didn't index this article in the regular way, the result being that if I don't link it here and forget about it, it's kind of lost forever.

Two possibly interesting items of note:


1) A Frostburg State University Center for Creative Writing Q&A with Doug Mowbray.

2) The official Crucial Sprawl press release.

Serious question: is this, like, National Anti-Bullying Week or something? Because I can't seem to escape television/online stories/editorials on the subject of students bullying other students. And if it is National Anti-Bullying Week - if such a thing exists - why isn't it the first or second week of September instead? Why wait until after the bullies have settled upon and into a routine of zeroing in on new marks, roughing them up, shoving them into lockers, shaking them down for lunch money, etc?

Are you a fan of atonal collapsing-star noise? Then grab yourself some gratis To Live & Shave In L.A. here.

GLENN DANZIG SHOPS FOR GROCERIES JUST LIKE YOU OR I

Thanks to Thom Hawkins.

CRUCIAL SPRAWL HITS THE STREETS

YES.

As we were putting the final touches on Assembling the Lord, I began to wonder about the bounds of my ambitions. Excavating old prose and hammering out new verses felt, well, inspiring: after years away, I was a poet again. And as 2008 wound down, I resolved that 2009 would be devoted to another book of poetry. It’s title would be Stay Local, and therein I’d explore themes related - loosely and directly - to sustainability and entropy in my off-kilter lyrical voice, that boom-lowering sense in recent years of all things social and economic and personal drawing back for the sake of survival. Farmer’s markets over grocery chains, local bands over national pop heroes, etc. This felt like a capital idea, and one of the first poems I wrote for this collection is actually titled “Stay Local.” Then the downturn hit, and life soured, and the focus shifted further afield to fear, to dread, to discontent - and Stay Local became Crucial Sprawl, at first after the closing line of “The New Austerity” and later after a poem titled “Crucial Sprawl.” So consider this book a catalogue of apprehensions - everything falling apart without the benefits (usually) of rhyme - but be prepared for moments of tenderness and humor and wit, paeans to loved ones, cynical chortles, splashes of gruesome color. It’s the diary of an interesting year, one in which it seemed that I was perpetually on the verge of losing everything.

Go here to read some excerpts and/or buy a copy, if you're into that kinda thing.

NUTSHELLED: "Halcyon Digest"

Having graduated, by degrees, from conjuring seismic moods to writing proper songs, Halcyon Digest finds Deerhunter strip-mining new aural territory and tap-dancing along the fault line separating structure from abstraction. Opener “Earthquake” lowers a looping trio of sounds - a snare trill, a struck match, a tape-nose swipe - into a deep sonic chasm where legions of web-like guitars, seltzer-water sound effects, and dissolving vocals dominate. The persnickety synthesizer scaffolding erected early on in “He Would Have Laughed” loosens into a kaleidoscopic infinity, while there‘s just enough of a suggestion of melody in “Sailing” for the wispy, feather-light ode to not-so-lonely loneliness to register in memory. “Coronado” injects jaunty jangle-pop with saxophone honks - a surprisingly satisfying first for this Atlanta foursome. In this context, Digest’s more conventional fare - Beatles-esque mash-note-to-younger-self “Don’t Cry,” spectral, perpetually reverberating “Basement Scene” - feels, curiously, out of place. B

Recent Kanye, ranked.

For some reason this shit reminds me of the massive crowd photo from the cassette sleeve to Ween's Pure Guava album.

Ha! I just realized what the splashing piano hooks in Kanye & Co's "Good Friday" are reminding me of: Biz Markie's immortal "Just a Friend."

Get your hot Crucial Sprawl samples, here.

Dropping the first week of October.

"I'm doing this job/project/reality show competition for my kids" = "I'm actually a total narcissist"

"We/they really like you as a person, but..." = "...you'd better be prepared to hustle your ass on the street for some time long, because we/they will not employ you"

Everything happens for a reason.



























Right?

God, why do you hate me? Why do you hate my family?

I was actually out in the crowd during this 1995 Pavement set. Let me know if you see me.

I don't know whether to salute this guy or mercilessly ridicule him.

To clarify: possibly.

Maybe.

So unless I was hallucinating I think I just had my first encounter with a Texas scorpion. Neeko and I were nearing the mid-point of our walk this morning, this sort of circular court that borders a distressed, semi-chic concrete wall, and beyond that there's a rolling hill, then a lake, and I happened to look down and see this crustacaen scuttling along like la-de-dah, and I stopped and looked at him, and he paused as though he was regarding me with some concern, and I tried to figure out what he was, and at first I thought maybe some kid had thrown his pet lobster outside, or maybe it was a crawfish, but very suddenly I realized what I was looking at and we got the fuck outta there.

Nicki Minaj vs. Will.I.Am vs. Valerie Solanas, or something.

THE MONDAY INTERVIEW: SEBASTIAN BLANCK

There’s a day-glo, cartoonish ennui to Sebastian Blanck’s photo-realistic art; the native Baltimorean’s images feel pastorally representational, removed from precepts of everyday  actuality, like random stills plucked from Richard Linklaker’s film Waking Life. In sharp contrast to the abrasive, confrontational hardcore Blanck made as an early member of Black Dice, solo debut Alibi Coast (Rare Book Room), packs a punch similar to his gallery-ready canvases: gauzy, soft-focus melodies, strings-section mists, laconic chord progressions, and verses where syllables are routinely stretched like bungee chords. The album - which owes stylistic debts to maudlin, 60s/70s navel-gazing troubadors like Gilbert O’Sullivan, Simon & Garfunkel, and Harry Chapin - starts off with lead single “I Blame Baltimore.” Over incisive acoustic strum and evocative auroral pianos, Blanck’s rich, quavering baritone sets a scene of estrangement that begs the question: what’s Baltimore got to do with it? So in a late July email interview, we asked him.


Voguing to Danzig: “I Blame Baltimore” seems to be one of those songs that references a place in the title but not in the lyrics in a direct way, so the connection has to be personal. What’s the song about? Why blame Baltimore?


Sebastian Blanck: I grew up in Baltimore, and I wanted to pay tribute to my hometown. I  think it’s amazing how much setting can inform a story. I like the baggage that naming a city can give to a song. Baltimore has so much character; it certainly had a huge effect on how I see the world. I guess that’s what I really blame Baltimore for.


VtD: Can you tell me about the “I Blame Baltimore” video? It kind of reminds me, in a way, of Smashing Pumpkins’ clip for “Rocket.“ The idea of climbing into a rocket ship and leaving Earth and everything you know and everyone you love behind is a heavy one, sort of the ultimate in loneliness - it really underlines that message that “Baltimore” seems to project: that separation really hurts. Who came up with the concept, and where was it shot?


SB: I’m a huge science fiction fan; so is Ben Syverson, who directed the video. Ben came up with the original concept, and we sorted out the story together. We liked the idea of making a video for a road song and really exaggerating the distance that was traveled. Ben did all the CG effects himself. I was thrilled about the idea of going to space - even if it is just for a couple of minutes. The final shot of my wife Isca walking as I parachute down was shot at our house in upstate New York. I imagine that floating through space and seeing Earth from above must be the most incredible thing that anyone has ever seen. It  probably is lonely, but I imagine it is a magnificent, peaceful, and magical type of loneliness.


VtD: From what I understand, you’re an accomplished visual artist; Alibi Coast is your debut album. How did this album come together, and what were you inspired by? What’s the significance of the title?


SB: I have been showing and selling paintings since 2001. After a few years I hit a crisis point in my work. I felt completely blocked and  unsure of what to work on. I started writing songs in my studio instead of trying to think of what to paint. I was introduced to Jorge Elbrecht, of the band Violens (link: http://www.myspace.com/violens), and we started recording some of my  songs at his place.

Then, in 2007, my brother Toby died in a drowning accident. Alibi Coast was written in reaction to his death and my son Hudson's birth that same year. It was a very confusing time. I would  be giggling with my wife and new born baby one minute, and we would  all be crying the next. I felt compelled to try and understand what happened to him by writing about it.

The circumstances of Toby's death were kept from my family and me, so it was a way to piece together some narrative of what happened. The album doesn't have a  clear story line, but through writing the songs, I was able to picture him in the last few months of his life. It’s nothing more than a declaration of love for him. Alibi Coast basically means that distance is the best cover.


VtD: The songs on this album are really gentle and tender; in a way, they feel like diary entries or fragile menagerie pieces - things to treasure and keep safe. How has it felt for you to perform these songs before audiences?


SB: Since many of these songs are about the death of my brother it can be very difficult to sing them at times. However, there is something wonderful about performing music and playing with a band that can transform words of sadness into something positive - especially when other people identify with it. It lets you know that you’re not alone.


VtD: You were in an early lineup of Black Dice; do you keep in touch with those guys? Have you heard their last couple of albums?


SB: I do keep in touch with all the members of Black Dice, past and present; I just saw the Dice play a show in Brooklyn about a week ago. It was amazing and very different from their last album (2009‘s Repo). I think the music is taking a surprising direction; there seemed to be a lot more emphasis on singing which I thought was great. Hisham Bharoocha, who is now writes and performs as Soft Circle (link: http://www.myspace.com/softcircle), actually plays drums on my track "Answers"; I was trying to finish off the drum part and thought it would be fun to hang out. It was the first recording we worked on together in 10 or 11 years.


VtD: Are the Rare Book Room Records offices actually full of rare books?


SB: Rare Book Room's offices are filled with records and CDs. The RBR studio does have tons of old books and magazines in it; I think [producer/label head] Nicolas [Vernhes] was a philosophy major in college. I always end up looking at old issues of MOJO magazine when I’m there.


Alibi Coast is out now on Rare Book Room Records.

THE THURSDAY INTERVIEW: BEN CHASNY OF RANGDA

Voguing to Danzig: How and when did Rangda come to be?

Ben Chasny: We all have played shows with each other so it just seemed natural. We all liked each other's music.


VtD: The back cover of the CD case for False Flag has a very vintage look; it reminds me of classic concert LP covers. Is packaging, the way a recording looks, significant to you in terms of presenting yourselves to the world?

BC: We used that picture because it was the only one we had of us together, really. The whole thing came together pretty fast.


VtD: Tell me about how you decided on the cover art for the album, by Steve Quenell. It’s got a sort of brutal, visceral vibe to it that matches the music’s intensity and volatility - sort of a bouquet of Venus fly traps crossed with the “I’ll never be hungry again” scene from Gone With The Wind.
 

BC: That is actually a picture of a bug that is buried upside down in the ground with the legs sticking out of the ground. Steve has doen many covers for Six Organs so we thought he'd be the man for the job. As to why eh decided to use a bug buried in the ground, who knows. Maybe it was a play on the black flag roach killing spray? I never asked him!


VtD: As a name, “Rangda” carries a lot of mythical weight and power. What led you to chose it as the name of your band?

BC: Every other band name we came up with was used, like Led Zep, Avengers, etc.


VtD: Improvisation played a large part in the creation of False Flag. In a live setting, are you playing the songs you’ve written, or do you make time for off-the-cuff jams?
  

BC: We don't have any songs that are pure free improv. Everything is written to a certain degree, though some songs are much more structured. Some are more open to improv, but mostly they all have they're structure.


VtD: What is a “false flag”?

BC: It's a covert operations deal.


VtD: Each of you have very strong, very distinct musical personalities. To me, Rangda’s material is at its strongest when there’s a bit of a clash, a bit of chaffing; I’m thinking, specifically, of “Fist Family.” What were the rehearsals and conceptual sessions for False Flag like?

BC: Everyone sort of had their own songs and ideas and we all just worked on it all together. Fist Family was conceived of by Chris and we just went right into it. I think that one was a pretty smooth writing process. I don't know; the band has really gotten together pretty well, and we all like each other's ideas.

Happy fourth birthday, Nodin Ray Cummings! Our house looks "like Spongebob Squarepants puked all over it," in Alecia's words, but it's totally worth it.

Finally! Some promising interviews. Some potential. A chance that maybe we won't go broke deep in the heart of Texas.

NUTSHELLED: "Things We Didn't See Coming"

Sort of a Y2K-era Invisible Man, at least in the sense that the protagonist is continually reinvented (and repeatedly baptized by metaphorical napalm) while remaining essentially - at his well-meaning core - the same person. The author's gambit is revisionist future-fic - turns out the Y2K bug was real, after all - and he sends his narrator out into the unforgiving, ravaged United States, checking on his progress every few years. (Readers of James Howard Kunstler's World Made By Hand who wished Kunstler had shed some light on the fate of Robert Earl's absent, gone-to-make-his-way-in-a-fallen-world son may find some satisfaction here.) Every glimpse manages to be more harrowing than the last was. First he's a nine-year old, fleeing the city for the country on New Year's Eve, 1999. Then he's a teenaged thief, then a government employee tasked with clearing civilians from flood-zones, later a serially bamboozled cuckold, later a licensed embezzler.  (To say more would spoil things.) Amsterdam has a deft lightness of touch that prevents Things from straying into The Road/Mad Max morbidity, even though in some ways this book is a more horrific because the narrator allows himself a belief in the greater good and in the potential goodness of others. For all the ecological wreckage, relentless disease, and infrastructural rot on damning offer here, the lack of humanity is what lingers in memory; our hero almost would have been better off as the last man standing. Haunting. A+

Nevin Martell searches for Bill Watterson, doesn't find him, emerges from the investigative wilderness with what's probably the best Calvin & Hobbes autopsy we're likely to get, for now anyway (given the circumstances).