This Makes Me Hungry!

This fabulous painting by Abbey Ryan of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is making me incredibly hungry!

Don't Ask...

Sometimes it's better not to ask.

More Video Maddness

It's been a while since I've posted anything, so here goes nothing/something. The following artist have dominated my listening sessions.


Silver Jews




Comets On Fire



Dead Meadow



Darker My Love

Music Video Goodness

Just a few of my favorite videos, from some of my favorite bands.

They Ain't Trash...

I've screwed up. I was convinced sometime back that Jon Spencer was past his prime. I mean, I respected whatever he put out, but his music had lost that kick in the ass (that and they're a million similar sounding groups). But Heavy Trash came along and I just about lost my shit. I'm sold. I have a crooked grin stretching from ear to ear. If you don't understand check this out:

13 Songs

Sometime during late 89/early 90, I discovered Fugazi. The album was 13 Songs and it was hanging on Rhino Records new release wall. I purchased it, took it home, and never looked back. The angst that Fugazi produced was neither silly or artificial. It felt real, in your face, the way angst should feel. Nearly 20 years laters, these LPs still pack their punch.

Magik Markers

I know very little about the Magik Markers. About all I know is that they're on Ecstatic Peace records, the label founded by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, and have been around for sometime.

It turns out that the Magik Markers are a noise rock band from Hartford, Connecticut. They're a two member band, consisting of Elisa Ambrogio and Pete Nolan. The one thing I'm certain of is that I can't seem to get enough of their song Taste. The song continues to bounce around my skull.

Tindersticks

As far as I'm concerned the Tindersticks should be bigger than what they are, at least outside of the UK. This Nottingham, England band has been turning out great music since 1992. Their music is both moody and soulful. The lyrics, are often sang in a low mumble, adding to the complexity of layers that the music is constructed in. If you're a fan of either Scott Walker, Nick Cave, or Mark Lanegan, I'd highly reccomend the Tindersticks!

The Legend of Cargo Culte

This blog really has no direction, aim, or purpose. I created it to coincide with my Blip.fm account, allowing my fellow blippers to get to know a little more about me. After some thought, I’ve decided that I’ll use this platform to promote some of my favorite artist and albums. I have an endless list of albums and artist I like, love, or obsess over.

I thought I’d start off with the LP I’m stole my user name from. Cargo Culte is a track off of Serge Gainsbourg’s LP Histoire De Melody Nelson. Most of the songs are sung in a raspy loud whisper. This concept album is based on a “Lolita-esque pseudo-autobiographical story, where the middle-aged Gainsbourg unintentionally colliding his Rolls Royce Silver Ghost into teenage nymphet Melody Nelson's bicycle, and the subsequent seduction and romance that ensues.” Basically Serge sings dirty and inappropriate things in French. The album itself has a slow funk sound, with some drawn out blue-esque guitar. I highly recommend the album be accompanied with some low lights and at least a half a bottle of wine running through your system.

Serge Gainsbourg - Cargo Culte

Welcome to Jamdown, poor people a dead at random

History Lesson Part II

From the Minutemen documentary, WE JAM ECONO.

"our band could be your life
real names'd be proof
me and mike watt played for years
punk rock changed our lives"

"You're in a system where they flirt with disaster
Tongue kiss death, have mass murder orgies 'til there's no one left
They're finger-fucking Lady Liberty under her dress
And since I didn't say this under my breath
I might be under arrest"

The Coup - Shoyoass

Bad Kids

Kids like you and me...



The Black Lips - Bad Kids

Portland to the MLS!!!

So I'm enjoying a Guinness in celebration of the Portland Timbers being promoted to the MLS (Major League Soccer)! The announcement by Don Garber nearly brought me to tears. The Timbers are one of Portland's better kept secrets. Things won't kick off until 2011, which is some time off, but hopefully it'll fly by. Until then, I'll continue to attend the Timbers in the USL.

Rose City Till I Die!!!

It's Saturday

I should probably stop being a lazy bastard and do something before the day comes screeching to an end. I'm taking it easy, listening to music, and puttering around the house. At the very least, let me share some music with you!

Poison 13 - My Biggest Mistake



Mike Carroll and Tim Kerr of Poison 13

The Neon Signs of Los Angeles

Even though I insist I'd never move back to Los Angeles, having grown up there, I do miss it from time to time. I came across a great photo set of pics on Flickr via Digg of neon signs from the LA area. Here's a preview:

The Frolic Room

A lot of time and debauchery was spent at the Frolic Room. It was a great place for cheap beer and outlandish LA types. I worked right next store to this great establishment.




The Hat




I must have gained a good twenty pounds eating at The Hat. They have some of the best pastrami sandwhiches in the LA basin. They also have some killer chili fries, which they'll top with tomatoes and pickles!

Long Time No Blog …

I’ve been a busy boy. I’ve been preparing for a 5K run, which happens March 15th. If that goes well I’ll be attempting an 8K run in April. My goal is to run a half marathon. I’m not sure how willing I am to run a full marathon. I’ll revisit that at some point in the future. In the meantime, I’ve been watching what I eat, cut out the booze, and exercising as hard as I can. I’m trying to go big. I’ve been a lazy SOB for the last six months.

In addition to that I’m trying to learn Spanish. Life however has other plans, and is being the obstacle it can be. If there were only a way I could sleep less. Bleh. I will gain an hour each week as the 5th season of Top Chef has concluded. I will have to resort to other means of stalking Gail Simmons.

I did manage to read Black Flies by Shannon Burke. It was quite good, and short. I’ve now picked up a William Gibson novel, but it’s moving along slowly. Anyways, I thought I would post my pathetic excuses to justify why I’m not making updates.

Gail Simmons

Blip.fm

Blip was having all sorts of issues this morning and spewed out the following message, which I found humorous.


Blip.fm OS...
c2008 Fuzz Artists, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
User agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.6) Gecko/2009011913 Firefox/3.0.6
Browser: Netscape
Vendor:
Platform: Win32

Initializing boot sequence...
System check...OK
Diagnostics...
Goodness...PASSED
Betterness...PASSED
Awesomeness...OFF THE CHARTS
Warp core...ONLINE
R2-unit...SEATED
Flux capacitor...1.21 GIGAWATTS
Snack break...............BACK
Reading failblog...LOLZ
Summoning the power of Greyskull...I HAVE THE POWER
Jettisoning the kernel...
Starting AJAX...
Pinging Blip.fm...ONLINE
Loading music search...LOADED
Scanning blipstream...STOCKED
Resuming session...OK

The Coolest Thing I've Seen This Week!

Not So-Close Encounters

It has been sometime since my last update. Embarrassingly enough, I have nothing to brag about. Life is just like you'd expect it, boring. Work, and all the things you do in the evening to prepare for another day of work.

I did manage to read Crooked Little Vein by Warren Ellis. This is not the musician Warren Ellis, that started the Dirty Three with Jim White and Mick Turner, and Grinderman with Nick Cave. No, this is the extraordinary graphic novelist responsible for such titles as Transmetropolitan and Planetary. Crooked Little Vein was a very entertaining read, and introduced me to the concept of Godzilla bukkake (don't ask!). It's one of the more offbeat novels I've read in a while. I'm following Crooked Little Vein up with Black Flies, by Shannon Burke, which has the potential to keep my off beat travels going.

Being the music junkie I am, I can't end this entry without blabbing about what it is I'm listening to. Tonight, I've been in a blues mood. Now the blues can mean many things, and can mean something different to everyone. For me, it has meant some tunes by "The Lion of the Blues," aka Bobby Blue Bland. Bland has a voice that could and will knock one on their ass. If you don't believe me, check it out for yourself!

Bobby "Blue" Bland - I Lost Sight Of The World

¡Holy Tapatío!

I had no idea that Tapatio came in single serving packets. I was at a local eatery today looking for mustard and noticed that they had Tapatio! I love hot sauce, and more often then not food is just the vehicle that delivers my hot sauce needs. I'm so tempted to order packets so I have them when when I'm on the go. You never know when you might need some hot sauce.

Music Junkie

I felt it necessarily to explain my random blippings to my fellow blip.fm users. More often than not I choose a theme and run with it. This morning I was on a 90s indie blip kick. Other mornings I wake up and am really feeling the funk, and head in that direction. My appreciation of music goes far and wide. I listen to a lot of different genres with the same attention of detail. When I like something, I end up spending countless hours researching and exploring. Music is the one place in life that I do not limit myself. Please understand, like anyone else, there are definitely types of music that I dislike. Music I generally dislike is usually what one would hear on commercial radio. Growing up, my musical taste centered on alternative and rap/hip-hop. I definitely have a split personality when it came to music. I would spend countless hours at my local record store sifting bins. I tried to keep track of labels, some which released certain types of music (4AD, Factory, Tommy Boy, Sub Pop), and more often than not guaranteed a solid release. With the creation of the internet, my exposure to music has grown by leaps and bounds. I no longer have to rely on labels (although it’s sometimes is a good rule of thumb). I can easily listen to samples or track down individual song by that artist I’m interested in. I no longer have to special order LPs/CDs through my local record store; most gems are a click away. With the help of the internet I have been able to hunt down those records that were used as samples in those hip-hop songs I’ve always dug. This has opened a whole another world for me. I have learned that reggae is much deeper than Bob Marley and Peter Tosh (although these two are truly mighty). Country music didn’t always suck, there was a time when country was rowdy and fun. Rock music isn’t limited to the United States, it can be found on six of our seven continents. Jazz is not dead, truly amazing artist can still exist. Although it sometimes seems like music is dead or stagnant, there are artist or genres of music from other parts of the world that worth the digging. One could spend a portion of their life just exploring the music of Brazil or Africa!

Blip.fm is the first social networking site that has really captured my attention. I've tried many, but quickly grew bored with them. It's the music that has keeps me blipping. I feed off the blipsters, and hopefully the feed off me. It allows me to live out my multiple music personalities.

If you have the slightest interest in music I highly suggest you explore outside your comfort zone. Fly your freak flag without shame.

Little Beaver

During my blip frenzy today, I dropped a massive tune by the mighty Little Beaver. Little Beaver, whose real name is William Hale, is guitar legend in the funk and soul world. Little Beaver has collaborated with greats such as Betty Wright and Timmy Thomas. Jay-Z sampled "Get Into The Party Life," which was used on his "Party Life" track from the American Gangster LP. Little Beaver has been capable of unleashing some incredibly funky guitar. His grooves are laid back and quite deep. If you haven't heard him personally, check him out here.

Ip Man

Last night I was lucky enough to see Ip Man (aka Yip Man). Yip Man was the first Sifu (aka martial arts master) to teach the Chinese martial art of Wing Chun openly. Bruce Lee studied under Yip Man from 1954 to 1957. The film stars Donnie Yen as Yip Man, and the martial arts in the film are nothing short of spectacular. It's been a while since I've seen a martial arts movie of this caliber. I would rank it up there with Fist of Legend. In the wake of weak American taylored kung fu flicks from Jet Li and Jackie Chan, Ip Man is a nice change. There was more than one occasion where I said wow in reaction to the ass beating Donnie Yen delivers. The choreographer is the legendary Sammo Hung, who has worked and directed other Chinese film legends (Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, King Hu, Stephen Chow and John Woo). I highly reccomend this flick! If you don't do subtitles, you'll have to wait for the American release (currently available on a Chinese DVD release only).





Twitch Films has a review of the movie here.

Holy Taco!

This picture from Holy Taco cracks me up. Isn't she pretty in pink?

Boogaloo!

I love the boogaloo, it's that simple. Don't tell me you've never heard of the boogaloo! According to Wikipedia "Boogaloo or Bugalu (shing-a-ling, popcorn music) is a genre of Latin music and dance that was very popular in the United States in the 1960s." It doesn't matter wether or not that description is accurate, because most importantly, boogaloo has a groove that makes one want to shake their ass!

Boogaloo is one of the many music scenes/genres born out of New York city. Artist such as Ray Barretto, Eddie Palmieri, Pucho & His Latin Soul Brothers, Joe Bataan, and George Guzman have recorded many impressive LPs over the years. Dusty Groove has a great selection of these records.

This morning on the blip.fm, I located a great boogaloo track by Coco Lagos y sus Orates called "Guajira Boogaloo." The drums are tight and the groove is massive. The track is worth the listen. Let's Boogaloo!

Update - I just noticed that the The Funky 16 Corners blog has a great posting on Boogaloo featuring The The TNT Band.

Hitting The Wall

I'm having one hell of a time deciding what to Blip next. My mind is shooting blanks. Everything I think of is somewhat bleh in my minds eye. I am completely lacking any imagination whatsoever.

Here in the Pacific NW the skies are overcast and moist, and the temperature is pretty cool. 47.7 °F to be exact. The weather could be affecting my musical perkiness. I miss Joshua Tree and the mild So-Cal winter.

This was snapped at the end of December.