September 2003

music and food

September 27, 2003

I’ve long been fascinated with what people eat and how they eat it — musicians especially, because it always seems to offer interesting insights into the music they make. When I interviewed Blixa from Neubauten the thing that stuck out most in my memory was him reaching into the fridge, taking out a thing of [...]

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edward said

September 25, 2003

The latest in a series of beloved punk rock icons (see also Stan Brakhage, Johnny Cash) who gave up the ghost this year: Edward Said died of cancer today. Professor at Columbia, dissident intellectual, author of Orientalism, impassioned activist for unpopular political causes, but also — and this part often gets overlooked — an accomplished [...]

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pink india

September 22, 2003

Matthew of TWANBOC is like the cool high school history teacher who makes every lesson come alive: his recent series on Indian music (complete with scans of far-out mindbending cover art) is terrific and I enjoyed it despite a lifetime of being at odds with Indian classical music (when it’s all the parents listen to, [...]

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kish kash

September 16, 2003

Best argument for Siouxsie Sioux’s continued relevance in the 21st century: ‘Kish Kash’ off the new Basement Jaxx, which proves her more than worthy — still! — of the electropunkstah diva mantle. Marcello does a great blow-by-blow rundown of the new Jaxx and the new Rapture too — check it out.

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strange dreams

September 15, 2003

Had a harrowing dream last night that involved being forced to play Can’s ‘Mother Sky’ on gtr for hours and hours and hours and hours until my fingers bled like fountains, while trapped deep in the dank catacombs of this Metropolisesque dungeon powered by motorik, all of us worker drones in this deranged factory orchestra [...]

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erase errata rules ok

September 13, 2003

Saw Erase Errata last night — SF-based female quartet that critics keep throwing words like ‘jittery post-punk’ and ‘no-wave’ around, though I think Erase Errata are just being themselves and probably think such labels are funny. But I can see a connection between, say, the tightly coiled ball of nervous energy in Contortions’ ‘Dish it [...]

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signs that the world is a more surreal place

September 10, 2003

-Posh Spice signs to Roc-a-fella! -Rumors of a Pixies reunion! -Adam Ant re-records ‘Stand and Deliver’ as ‘Save the Gorillas’!

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black is the new black

September 10, 2003

Totally jealous I didn’t get to check out the Lightning Bolt/Wolf Eyes show last week in NYC, when I was still in northern Cali. Wolf Eyes hail from Michigan — not the dead industrial backwaters of, say, Flint, but the leafy collegiate town of Ann Arbor. They’re hardcore Factrix-heads, their favorite band of all time [...]

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first annual report

September 10, 2003

Am I the only one who finds Throbbing Gristle kind of soothing? I was just listening to 1975′s First Annual Report, and far from being grated by boneshredding noise, I found it rather melodic and pleasantly droney. The disturbing lyrics (‘Ian Brady…very friendly’…’there’s been a murder’…) seem well, kinda funny, because you get the sense [...]

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sci-blog

September 10, 2003

Just received word from Tom Ewing that my science blog idea is a go! Starting in October, I’ll be editing Freaky Trigger‘s upcoming science-as-pop-but-not-pop-science blog, an idea that’s been brewing in my head for a long while. I’ve always wondered why the majority of science writing is so dull, when science really is so amazingly [...]

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