My neighbor was relating to me last week how he and his girlfriend and her family, eating at a popular Italian restaurant just under Viktoriapark in south Kreuzberg, spotted Quentin Tarantino - who's been living in and prowling around Berlin these days (Zitty sez Bergmannstraße and Mehringdamm), shooting his new movie with Brad Pitt - lunching alone in a booth nearby. My neighbour said that the locals, dining there, acknowledging QT's presence in knowing whispers amongst themselves, left him alone, in peace - everyone except for his girlfriend's Croation dad, who immediately after being informed of [...]

The Displays, Ain't Gonna Put Us Down (Self-Relesed, 2008) MP3 : Don't Need You You could knock Detroit's kid rockers the Displays ' for being slightly derivative of D-town rock of the past - namely the Sights, the Dirtbombs, and all the jean-jacketed grease monkeys that came before them - but what is the fun in that? While some might choose to look at Ain't Gonna Put Us Down as a trite tribute to an era [...]
Paperrad is what happens when your brain pukes inside your skull. The Pittsburgh and Providence-based collective specializes in video art, doom drone, and head lozenges. When on tour, they perform in three parts: two different groups including Extreme Animals and Fortress of Amplitude (both of which have that great Load Records style free spazz psych free-for-all), and their collections of unequivocally, deliciously deranged music videos / cartoons / installation art. There's no real way to describe a Paperrad video installation other than what it would be like to watch children's shows while frozen in carbonite. [...]
Paperrad is what happens when your brain pukes inside your skull. The Pittsburgh and Providence-based collective specializes in video art, doom drone, and head lozenges. When on tour, they perform in three parts: two different groups including Extreme Animals and Fortress of Amplitude (both of which have that great Load Records style free spazz psych free-for-all), and their collections of unequivocally, deliciously deranged music videos / cartoons / installation art. There's no real way to describe a Paperrad video installation other than what it would be like to watch children's shows while frozen in carbonite. [...]
I've realized, over the last twelve months, that Saturdays and Sundays are pretty much useless as far as content is concerned, because my readership drops over 100 visitors per day on the weekends. That's what Saturdays are (and always will be unless something amazing happens following Friday's post) world news stories, and Sundays are (for now) going to remain Sunday Mix Tape day. If you want to curate a Mix Tape, all you have to do is put one together, archive the files (.zip or .rar) and use MediaFire to upload it to the Internet. Send me a link to [...]

Let's all just choose to forget about yesterday's shameful post, okay? I'm sorry for embarrassing myself so thoroughly; I don't know what I was thinking. Maybe if we all concentrate really hard we can wipe the memory of that-which-we-do-not-speak from our collective consciousness. Instead, I'm going to talk about live music. I have a pair of tickets on hold to see Spiritualized open for Nick Cave in September at the Hollywood bowl. It's been almost exactly ten years since I first watched Jason Pierce and Co. open for Radiohead at Radio City Music Hall. It was one of [...]

Following a brief break in April, FRICTION returns with two shows we're totally stoked about in May, one at The Mercury Lounge and a second at Music Hall of Williamsburg. 5.5 @ THE MERCURY LOUNGE There's no better way to celebrate Cinco de Mayo than with Bristol, UK's experimental noise machine, Fuck Buttons . The fiery duo will be coming back to New York City for one last U.S. date before heading to Europe to play All Tomorrow's Parties. Brooklyn trio, Sightings , who have been dubbed "the [...]
American Princes (from Other People ) "Real Love" This Is Ivy League (from This Is Ivy League ) "London Bridges" Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds (from Dig Lazarus Dig! ) "Bring It On" [...]

Bear-Wolf vs. Human tracks A "Casino insider" has opened up to...Computerworld (of all the possible media outlets?) about casino security and the various ways that major casinos attempt to lure winners back onto the gaming floor so that they can recoup their money. "If you show up and don't tell them who you are, and play at one table and then move to another, and then move to an entirely different area of the casino...[and then] you go to your room and change and come back, they're obligated to try and track you through all of [...]

Riprendiamo a regime, finalmente. E lo facciamo con un ospite d'eccezione, Stefano Isidoro Bianchi, fondatore e direttore di Blow-Up, magazine di riferimento per l'Altra musica in Italia. Con lui cerchiamo di capire cosa significhi essere direttore di una rivista musicale oggi, e come sia possibile trasformare in lavoro e responsabilità una passione viscerale per la musica e per la scrittura. Saggio e illuminante, Stefano ci racconta le sue opinioni su passato e futuro dell'editoria di settore, senza dimenticare di analizzare lo sviluppo telematico della critica musicale. 1) The Magnetic Fields " Too Drunk To Dream " [...]

Sightings Through The Panama (10.2007, Load) Verdict = Superb Sound But No Heart Sightings previous excursions in free form no wave have been destructive to say the least, however, on Through The Panama the band has pulled out all the stops delivering their most coarse material to date. Completely drowning out contemporaries like Clipd Beaks and Liars in the noise category, Sightings take their version dance punk deep into the vast swamps of their grinding past. In doing so Through The Panama [...]

Hello babes. It's been a long week, but the new mix tape is finally ready to be birthed into this uncertain world of ours. It will stimulate your aural cavities and bring you to climax. Unless, of course, you don't like good music, in which case I strongly advice you point your browser to another website and never return here. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have something else to do. Probably. The above picture was taken Tuesday afternoon when Fawn and I took some of her former students Christmas shopping at Target. As I stated before, she [...]

Sightings Through The Panama ( Load Records , 2007) NOISE-ROCK / EXPERIMENTAL Cada vez me parecen más evidentes los síntomas de estancamiento creativo del rock independiente norteamericano más ruidoso, al menos los de sus cabezas más visibles. Con la fórmula olímpica Citius, Altius, Fortius agotada, como era de esperar, tras sólo un puñado de referencias, y por tanto desahuciada para el impacto y la sorpresa, resulta difícil encontrar la aguja que llame la atención entre la sobreabundancia uniforme del género, al mismo [...]

DOWNLOAD: Sightings - Perforated (MP3) Sightings came out with their sixth album on October 28th. "Through The Panama" was released by Ecstatic Peace (Thurston Moore's label), and was produced by Andrew W.K. Download a track from it above. Here's who's playing @ Cake Shop in NYC tonight (Nov 9, 2007): 1st: VIZUSA (Caitlin and Calder, ex Excepter) 2nd: METALUX 3rd: SIGHTINGS record release party 4th: ANDREW W.K. (solo keyboard [...]

Sightings - Through the Panama (Load 2007) Sightings - Through the Panama / Load What's interesting about music is how disorienting it can be to your senses. Some groups play music that sounds "happy" or upbeat or great to dance to or exuberant when the subject matter may be the complete opposite. It may be about death or loss or fear or impending doom. But sometimes musicians are disorienting for the exact opposite reason: They disorient your senses simply by loading them to the brim and letting you [...]
Akron/Family : "Ed Is a Portal" [mp3] from Love Is Simple Akron/Family : "Phenomena" [mp3] from Love Is Simple other Akron/Family music blog posts: @lhb @hype @elbo.ws Beirut : 2007-10-03, KEXP [mp3,ogg,flac] "A Sunday Smile" [mp3] other Beirut music blog posts: @lhb @hype @elbo.ws [...]

A lot of articles lately about the Brooklyn, NY based band Sightings have noticeably pointed out the bands latest album Through the Panama due out on Load (CD) and Ecstatic Peace (LP) on Oct. 28th just happens to come out right before Halloween. I honestly didn't think much of that at first, because whenever I think of the Sightings all I ever picture is ungodly amounts of distortion played at the highest possible volume in hopes of causing hearing loss to anyone that dares put it on the stereo. While [...]

STUART- Movement! Signal's clean. He pans the scanner. Stops. The range display reads out, counting down. STUART- Range twenty meters. STEVEN (to Juan)- Seal the door. Juan picks up a hand-welder and moves to comply. STUART: Seventeen meters. SCOTT: Let's get these things lit. He hands one flamethrower to Steven and begins priming the other himself. It lights with a muffled POP. Steven's lights a moment later. Sparks shower around Juan as he begins welding the door. Stuart's tracker is beeping like mad [...]
Yeah, we've been tough on Billy Corgan and Co. for selling smashed guitars and sleepwalking through pointless contests , but have to hand it to them for the array of official free Pumpkins bootlegs -- starting from '88! -- that popped up at the official site. It's a great Pumpkin treasure trove. Just click here . Don't worry, we figured there had to be a catch, but so far all we've found are great recordings from back in the day (and later). Wanna hear "Silverfuck" from Paris '92? Not a problem. [...]