Short Attention Span Theatre

Arcade Fire, eat yer hearts out! 

Nobody does 'The Boss' like Ben Stiller. Thanks T.D.! 


Midnight Star "Freakazoid"

A friend and I were saying how the animation in the beginning of the video looks eerily similar to that of the creating "Lisa" a.k.a. Kelly LeBrock scene in the movie Weird Science (a film near and dear to our 80's-lovin' hearts!). Also one of the dopest early electro tracks known to man. Flapjack, where are you? 


Gonz goes nuts, Coconut(s)Records

Who else but Mark Gonzales could do circus tricks on a long-board as the basis for an art exhibit at a German museum? Nobody, that's who.

Adidas: The Left Right Project

Sometimes we may seem like we've abandoned you, don't feel like that-- S.I.M.R. still loves ya! It's just we've been busy is all... One of the projects we recently worked on was facilitating some music for the above film, The Left Right Project, for the 25th Anniversary of the iconic, Adidas Superstar! It's not everyday you get to work on something this fresh, and we are forever grateful! Check out the film which showcases the talent of two of the world's greatest art collectives, Surface to Air and Upper Playground. This project was a blast, and how amazingly cool to work with one of our favorite and most revered brands on the planet! Check it out, and spread the word!

Hunted: Caribou

Melodic Caribou=Beasts On Drums

On the late freight, never the less, thought I'd check in. Got to see Canadia's Caribou at the Culture Room in Fort Lauderdale last week. Mathematically-inclined indie hippie types mingled with the hipster contingent and all nodded in unison during the percussion fest. I was quite impressed, especially whenever it came to the dueling drummer segments of the show. Evidently their regular drummer broke a wrist and they were almost forced to cancel the tour, which came as a surprise because the guy who filled the void was absolutely fucking insane. Quite impressive, I must say...

Caribou- "Melody Day"

Portrait of the Artist...

The graff(itis) starter kit.

That's right motherfucker, your subculture just done been co-opted! Is nothing sacred anymore...?A fine municipality in Southern California whose name shan't be mentioned is using this as some sort of public service warning to absentee parents of artistically-inclined, firesuit-clad youth. This is gonna totally tip these parents off! These kids used to be able to use the, "yeah mom/dad, we're going paintballing" excuse, but alas, after this picture drops, that excuse is motherfucking null and or void, yo. I say fuck it, just outlaw bandanas, hoodies, gloves-- hell, while you're at it, get rid of all writing utensils, seriously-- these miscreants cannot be trusted! Additionally, alongside Pokemon, Dora the Explorer and Harry Potter, this costume will no doubt be showing up at a Safeway, Thrifty or Walgreens near you, just in time for next Halloween!

3rd Bass- "Portrait Of The Artist As A Hood" (Remix!)

Three Little Birds...

tres.

The Postmarks’ Christopher Moll tells, “While the original is certainly a classic, Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” always hinted (to me at least) at something a little more paternal and nurturing then the upbeat original let on. We choose to take this in the direction of a hushed lullaby but with its darker underpinnings and almost mournful quality it raises the question…is “Every Little Thing” actually going to be “Alright”?…”

The Postmarks "Three Little Birds"

You Only Live Twice...

dos.

The Postmarks’ Christopher Moll tells, “From the James Bond film of the same name, John Barry and Nancy Sinatra’s original sweeps you away the minute it begins. It’s a complete coincidence that the first two tracks we choose for this series were made famous by Sinatra’s. We choose to maintain the epic quality of Barry’s composition while marrying it with a good dose of the dreamy and vaporous qualities of Nancy’s work with Lee Hazelwood. Now, if only we get the chance to write a Bond theme song Jon can die and go to heaven…”

The Postmarks "You Only Live Twice"

By The Numbers...

uno.

For those who don't know, Miami's The Postmarks have been staying quite busy between albums. In addition to a spot at Langerado and various club dates, the lady and gents have been working on a stellar series of cover tracks. "By The Numbers" will be twelve tracks in total, since I've been negligent in my duties however, I missed the first two installments. Don't fret though kiddies, you know S.I.M.R. does you justice, to that end and in conjunction with the release of the third in the series, I bequeath to you-- all three tracks! Read on...

"The Postmarks present… 'By The Numbers' – A free 12-part series of cover songs presented as mp3 downloads exclusively at eMusic. Inspired by the popularity of covers they’ve released over the last year (Ministry’s “Every Day Is Hallowe’en” and Astrud Gilberto’s “Dreamer”), The Postmarks launch a lengthy endeavor of re-interpreting some of their favorite songs with their signature lush arrangements. Every month of 2008, The Postmarks shall release a cover song with exclusive artwork relating to the number of the month. The first selection is available January 8th. For the 1st month of the year, The Postmarks apply their signature sound to “One Note Samba,” originally composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim and famously covered by Frank Sinatra.

Indeed an apropos selection to begin the series, as The Postmarks’ Christopher Moll informs us, “… Jobim’s work is the real terra firma root that bring us together. The first song we worked on together was ‘Vivo Sonhando (Dreamer)’ and while this song is nowhere near as beautiful as ‘Vivo’, it certainly has a playfulness as it moves between its droning verses and lighthearted chorus…”

The Postmarks "One Note Samba"

Escape to New York!

A little expedition, see y'all in a minute!

Cage "Escape to '88"

Rare Earth "Yesterday on Third Avenue"

Stezo "To The Max"

Sadat X "Escape From New York"

N.E.R.D.

Look At'choooo, At'chooooo!

A new jawn by Pharell and Co. A lil' frenetic for my tastes, yet, strangely alluring. I don't go out enough to know if this shit is bumping in the latest mash-up d.j. sets, however, I'm sure if it's not (I'm sure it is!) it's only a matter of time. Have yerself a listen, ya heard? Blizzard watch!

"Everyone Nose"

The Magic Number?

Portishead Update: Third time's a charm...

Interview courtesy of Guardian U.K.

Light in the west It has been 10 years since the world last heard from Portishead, when TV producers 'turned our sounds into a fondue set'. A stunning new album could even herald the rebirth of the Bristol scene. An exclusive interview by Ben Thompson

This is how the new Portishead album starts. A friendly voice says something vaguely introductory in Brazilian-Portuguese. There's a bit of subdued chatter in the background, and the reassuring plink of a distant piano, as if you're arriving at a half-empty Latin nightclub. Then a huge pummelling beat comes in (Geoff Barrow insists that he was 'massively unhappy' with this rhythm for many long months, but it sounds pretty unstoppable now). Sawing strings summon up a demonic echoing cowbell, before this in turn gives way to ominous slashes of spaghetti western guitar - the sort of thing you'd expect to hear just before a hired gun played by Lee Van Cleef accidentally shoots an innocent child.
Two minutes and 10 seconds in, the scene is finally set for Beth Gibbons's vocal to make its entrance. But however effectively the listener has been softened up for this momentous event, no one will quite be prepared for the pitch of ecstatic anguish at which her voice announces itself. 'Wounded and afraid inside my head,' Beth flails poignantly, as a Tardis seems to take off in the background, 'falling through changes ... Did you know what I lost? Do you know what I wanted?'

It's stunning stuff. And this is just the opening number. Later on, once Third (for that is the title: it is, after all, Portishead's third album - well, if you don't count the live one) is properly up and running, it features a run of five or six songs which are not just worthy of the records this band were making 10 or even 14 years ago, but feel like the sonic destination which they were always meant to arrive at.

Being amazed by the music of Portishead was not an activity at the top of many people's agendas for 2008. A couple of years ago, when this slow-moving West Country ensemble tentatively emerged from retirement by contributing a track to a poorly conceived English-language Serge Gainsbourg tribute LP, they sounded like a band on the verge of total creative exhaustion. When checking in with Barrow's blog in the run-up to December's comeback as curators of the more-underground-than-thou ATP festival at Minehead Butlins, the omens were no more propitious. 'This album has been like watching Lost,' he pronounced gloomily, 'a never-ending journey with few answers.'

'Wish we had more time,' he yearns poignantly at another juncture. And why shouldn't he? It's only been 10 years since their last record, after all. What you might call Bacardi advert time-frames have always been an issue with the music made in this part of the world, however vehemently those responsible might protest otherwise. And with Tricky and Massive Attack also poised to release new albums, perennial late starters Portishead find themselves in the unaccustomed position of being first out of the blocks.

Far from being unnerved by his band's decade-long shore leave, genially rumpled bed-head poster-boy Barrow seems to view it in an entirely positive light. 'Over that 10-year period,' he explains, 'the pressure to have successful records obviously dies. Which is really good, as then you can just do what you want.'

The home studio on the top floor of Portishead guitarist Adrian Utley's five-storey Georgian house in the classy district of Kingsdown supplies an abundance of circumstantial evidence as to how that decade might have been spent.

A lovely old harmonium Utley bought off eBay for £29 squats elegantly in one corner. In another, there's an ancient synthesiser signed by its designer, recently deceased musical pioneer Bob Moog. Anyone who has even a passing familiarity with Portishead's bespoke blend of antique futurism and ambient savagery would expect them to inhabit a world full of lovely-looking musical instruments. But there's an intensity to the atmosphere in this room which suggests it's home to a band who care about substance more than style.

'We've had some dark moments in here,' admits the usually ebullient Utley. 'Discussing things for hours to try and make the world around the music completely solid, then listening back to stuff and not liking it, and then not listening to it and talking for hours about biscuits.'
The vista that unfolds across the long picture window above the giant wooden mixing-desk - a breathtaking view down the slope to Bristol's notoriously unsatisfactory city centre (of which more later) and beyond to the green hills in the distance - would grab the attention of even the most sceptical observer. Whatever the precise explanation for Portishead's unlikely creative renaissance, it seems probable that the complex relationship between this panoramic backdrop and the essential privacy of the band's notoriously complicated recording process is going to be somewhere near the heart of it.

When a lot of exciting music emerges from one place at roughly the same time, it doesn't usually take long for the things people say in the hope of capturing this excitement to start looking foolish. Whether it's Newport being the new Seattle, or Sunderland being the old Sheffield, the onward march of rock'n'roll history soon tends to tramp down such proudly regionalist boasts into a kind of hyperbolic mulch.

In the case of the 'Bristol sound' of the early-to-mid-1990s, however, the idea that something special happened at that particular time and in that particular place has grown more persuasive rather than less with the passing years. This is partly because the music has lasted so well - listening to Massive Attack's Blue Lines, Portishead's Dummy and Tricky's Maxinquaye a decade and a bit later, it's impossible to deny that these are three of the most resonant and perfectly-formed debut albums to emerge in over 50 years of British pop.

The particular circumstances of growing up in that city in the Eighties - from the endless social ramifications of Bristol's historic connections with slavery, to the fallout from an especially euphoric punky-reggae crossover, the enduring influence of art-school polemicists the Pop Group, and the shared hip-hop heritage of the Dug Out Club and the Wild Bunch sound-system - helped shape a uniquely cosmopolitan culture which the rest of Britain recognised but could not hope to emulate. And at a time when the kind of sophistication a broadband connection or a nationwide Italian-style coffee franchise brings are equally accessible to everyone, the idea of such a distinct mindset now seems almost impossibly mysterious.

Yet speaking to all the major players in this story as it was unfolding, it soon became clear that what divided them was every bit as important as what they had in common. 'Everyone thinks we're all sleeping together,' Blue Lines's puckish featured rapper Tricky Kid murmured to me in 1994, before bemoaning the fact that while he was working on his first solo endeavour (a contribution, as it happened, to a benefit project for research into sickle-cell anaemia), all the full-time members of Massive Attack 'came back from the pub to take the piss'. And while acknowledging that his band represented 'the first generation of immigrants that grew up in England', in conversation Massive stalwart Daddy G was quick to emphasise that 'you can't say that living here has affected us all in the same way, because it hasn't'.

Perhaps inevitably, two of the clearest and most commercially successful paths through the Bristol scene's forest of inter-personal connections were trodden by white kids. Nellee Hooper jumped ship from the Wild Bunch sound-system to become first one half of Soul II Soul, and then (for a while at least: no one seems to know what he's up to at the moment) the world's most sought after record-producer. And Barrow - teenage tea-maker and tape operator at the Coach House studios where Massive Attack recorded Blue Lines - went on first to co-produce Tricky's solo debut, and then to start his own group, named (in classic hip hop-style) after the town he'd grown up in.

The fact that this place - Portishead - was neither an LA ghetto nor a suburb of New York but a no-horse satellite town of Bristol, clinging on to the edge of the Severn Estuary by its scabby fingernails, was a reality which Barrow has scrupulously refused to overlook from that day to this. In his quest to make music which was informed by the American hip hop he loved, but also true to the place it came from, he enlisted two somewhat unlikely allies. One, Beth Gibbons, was a singer-songwriter almost a decade his senior. The other, Adrian Utley, was a veteran jazz guitarist who was rumoured to have once played with Art Blakey.
Because it's simpler, people have tended to see the subsequent development of Portishead's music as a straightforward tug of war between rough-edged cut-and-paste merchant Barrow, and Gibbons the enigmatic chanteuse. In fact, the band's creative power-base has always been more of a triangle; the atmospheric sound-scapes don't really make sense without a proper understanding of Utley's contribution.

The great thing about this apparently ill-matched trio was that each person brought something to the table that the others needed: Gibbons's striking vocal and visual presence and old-school song-writing talent, Barrow's fan-boy grasp of the mechanics of hip hop, and Utley's musicianly chops.

'Because we came from such different worlds,' Utley remembers, 'what really got me and Geoff talking to each other first was Public Enemy. As I'd come from a traditional playing-with-other-people type of background, I didn't know how these records were being made. I'd never had a sampler - they were really expensive at the time - so I just didn't understand where these amazing sounds were coming from.'
'With samples, in those days,' he continues - 'Before time-stretching and all this Pro Tools tomfoolery,' qualifies Barrow, ever the home-schooled rap technician - 'you were actually forcing notes against notes, so there was a proper clash and everything was slightly out of tune. Because you want this riff to go over that beat and you've just got to make it happen, you end up with this kind of roughness, which is what made Public Enemy or Eric B so exciting.'

'For me,' adds the older man, 'finding hip hop was a huge life-changing experience - like having a baby or something'. Even as he says this, Utley's 14-month-old daughter is taking some of her first steps across the wooden floorboards of the downstairs kitchen. And just as this road-hardened jazz-warrior was first discovering hip-hop's 'whole world of fantasticness', he toddled into Barrow coming back the other way.
Years of immersion in the crate-digging one-upmanship of DJ culture were making the younger man increasingly uncomfortable with hip hop's 'trainspotting tendencies'. And what better way to transcend your disenchantment with 'people getting excited about the first two bars of some beat that sounds like it was played at Butlins' than by forging a new creative partnership with someone who might have helped keep that beat? When Barrow was holidaying at Torbay Pontins as a child in the very early Eighties ('We never went to Butlins - it was too posh'), Utley was actually playing in the band.

Portishead were painfully aware of the embarrassment that can ensue when white musicians try to appropriate black musical innovations wholesale - 'We didn't want to be Cliff Richard singing over a loop of "Funky Drummer",' Barrow almost snarls (Bristol's biggest venue, the Colston Hall, might still be named after a slave-trader, but that's all the more reason for the city's artists to eschew a colonial mentality). So they set themselves the challenge of incorporating a sense of that distance from their source material into the very fabric of their music. 'It can't just be like a live tape played by a load of musicians,' Utley explains, 'it has to feel like it's already a record of something, like it's come from a world.'
The band's determination to be true to this underlying principle has necessitated a uniquely painstaking process of artistic evolution. Each time they've proved a particular way of doing things can work for them, they seem to feel compelled to tear up that rulebook. Thus, when making Dummy, Barrow would record a combination of samples and live music, press them on to vinyl, then scratch-mix the results to make backing tapes for Gibbons to add lyrics and a tune to. But for 1997's Portishead this methodology was no longer deemed tortuous enough, so the band invested endless months in creating their own samples from, as it were, scratch. ('We couldn't just put the needle on a record and take someone else's music,' Barrow grins painedly, 'and besides, it was more fun to do it ourselves.')

At the time, Utley described this process as being 'like trying to walk with one Wellington boot full of concrete', but Portishead's endless labours received their just reward in the end. Not commercially (the second album sold less than the first), but in the loftier realm of kudos. When 'Over' was sampled by both Timbaland and Wu-Tang Clan's RZA, Barrow had achieved his ultimate objective of giving something back: supplying actual fuel for hip hop's hungry furnace.

Small wonder that Portishead - like their increasingly fractured and discontented peers Massive Attack and Tricky - were running out of steam by the end of the Nineties. Geoff Barrow looks worn-out even having to think about this stage of his band's history. 'After we got back and mixed the live album [1998's impeccably grandiose Roseland NYC Live - probably, strangely, the best place to start for people unfamiliar with their previous oeuvre] we didn't really get together for six years ... It wasn't that we weren't speaking. But Beth got ill and moved back to Devon for a while. I got divorced, and we all worked on a few solo projects.'

The smart money, at this stage, would not have been on Portishead's most sonically adventurous and exhilarating work still being ahead of them. And when they finally got back together, things - to put it mildly - took a while to get going. 'I bought hundreds and hundreds of records,' Barrow remembers, glumly, 'sampled them, looped them up and made backing tracks ... and it just put me into a massive state of depression, basically.'
Why?

'It just seemed so backward, and like something we'd done too many times. The songs sounded OK as instrumental hip hop, but as soon as Beth started singing, it was like "Oh man, no way". The idea of us just trying to be Gang Starr with Beth on top just was not really interesting to any of us any more - her included. We ended up going back to early hip hop drum machines, because they were the only things we could really stand listening to. The idea of classic breaks that had been chopped up was not really palatable any more.'

The roots of Barrow's allergic reaction to the sounds he once loved probably lay in the unasked-for ubiquity of his band's debut album. At some point around the time Dummy won the 1995 Mercury Prize, Portishead found that the music they had lovingly fashioned from scraps of Lalo Schifrin's old film scores had suddenly (when featured in the background on aspirational twenty-something TV drama This Life) become the soundtrack to a mid-Nineties media lifestyle fantasy.
'They turned our songs into a fondue set,' he observes, disgustedly, more than a decade on. The same anger was on public display in his recent entertaining blog-spat with Mark Ronson, in which he accused the well-connected New Yorker of making 'shit funky supermarket muzak', eliciting a pithy but intriguingly off-target response about Portishead's music no longer being 'popular enough to be played in supermarkets' (an eventuality which actually seems to be a great source of relief to the whole band).

Barrow and Utley seem to agree that one of Third's subliminal themes is the 'ridiculousness' of contemporary existence. 'You've got the surface world - the absolute unreal world that everyone is supposed to live in - and then there are the actual real things that are happening, and then there's this ginormous layer of media which divides the two,' Barrow fulminates sheepishly, as if conscious that he has expressed this dilemma more elegantly in musical form. It's a neat demonstration of the contrasting personalities which give the music of Portishead its light and shade that when the topic of This Life comes up while he and Utley are chatting to photographer Harry Borden at the OMM photo shoot, Beth Gibbons pipes up from the other corner of the room: 'Oh, I always quite liked that show!'

Under normal circumstances, this would be the only quote from the notoriously reticent vocalist that would be available to us. Happily, in the course of my previous professional encounter with Portishead, in late 1994, a sudden indisposition on the part of Barrow (who'd been hospitalised with a suspected ulcer) caused Gibbons to lift her lifetime ban on talking to British journalists for the only time. Far from the Garboesque recluse of legend, she turned out to be a genial, no-nonsense character, wearing glasses and speaking with a light Devonian burr rather than a tortured croak. After rooting through a cupboard in her small terraced house in the Easton district of Bristol, she unearthed a series of unreleased Portishead songs and played them back with a self-deprecating running commentary - 'This is where I tried to rip off Sinead O'Connor' - or 'Neil Young', or 'Tom Waits' or 'a black soul singer'. Yet it seemed the harder Beth Gibbons tried to copy someone else, the more she sounded like no one but herself.

Before giving me a lift back to the station in her elegantly battered Triumph, with a pre-release copy of Maxinquaye on the stereo, Gibbons said a couple of things which enhanced her band's air of mystery far more effectively than any long-term vow of silence.

The first was that even though in some ways the loneliness which had driven her to write songs in the first place had been intensified by sending that music out into the world as a commercial product, 'if you think of something like the mannequins in Blade Runner, they only think they're human because of the pictures they hold'. The second - rather less existential, but none the less intriguing - observation concerned her relationship with Barrow.

'It may be the age gap, but he never quite knows how to take me,' she said, of the musical associate she'd first teamed up with at an enterprise allowance induction day three years earlier. 'If you asked him about me, I don't know what he'd say.'

Fourteen years later, Barrow discusses their initial meeting in similarly uncertain tones: 'She was a woman, but I was still just a boy really. I mean, the lyrics she'd written for the first song we worked on together name-checked Gandhi! I just did not have the first idea of what she was on about.'

In the intervening years, the distance between Portishead's ruling triumvirate has greatly decreased. 'We're closer now than we've ever been,' insists Utley, 'and the lines between what each of us contributes have totally blurred.' The way the band works has basically turned inside out. And you can feel the ensuing emotional thaw in the music on Third. In place of the old demarcations, there's now the sense of a rush towards a shared objective.

Some of this extra momentum comes from the beats. Take the percussive thrust of the album's opening track, for example. 'The vibe I really wanted,' Barrow explains, 'was when Muhammad Ali fought George Foreman at the Rumble in the Jungle and James Brown played. I wanted it to feel like it had been recorded somewhere really fucking remote.' But there's a further source of additional energy at work, one which (for Geoff at least) comes close to matching the intensity of his earlier connection with the hip hop mother lode.

'If you look back at the ATP line-up,' Geoff enthuses, 'it's basically a list of the music that makes our album.' Given that this three-day event traditionally offers a bill of fare so ascetic that even hardened readers of the Wire magazine are inclined to want to listen to Diana Ross and the Supremes in the car on the way home, readers could be forgiven for feeling somewhat unnerved by the prospect of Portishead's new doom-metal direction. But listening to Third, the sheer savagery of the album's numerous sonic switchbacks seems to have also shaken free the band's melodic sense as well.

The first three songs are something like you'd expect from a new Portishead album. They're kind of the same, but different - like arriving at the airport and having to carry your toothpaste through passport control in a plastic bag. But then the record really takes off, and suddenly it's taking you somewhere you've never been before.
A tune called 'The Rip' starts out like an old English folk remnant but ends up in the enchanted realm of early Kraftwerk. Another amazing song, 'We Carry On', joins the dots between the ramshackle urgency of Sixties punk and the terrifying precision of Joy Division. And let's not forget 'Deep Water' (which Utley hates): it's the most touching Steve Martin-inspired close-harmony ukulele ballad in Portishead's entire repertoire.

Back up in Portishead's rooftop eyrie, Adrian Utley points out places of local interest through the window: 'Nellee Hooper came from Barton Hill, over there, which is not a fairytale place to live. Tricky was from Knowle, which is pretty grim as well, and Mushroom lived in Fishponds.' At this point, talk turns to Bristol's endlessly postponed city-centre redevelopment.

There's a school of thought which believes that Tony Wilson's Factory Records dreamt up the Manchester of the 21st century. Can either Barrow or Utley imagine a metropolitan hub inspired by Dummy or Maxinquaye
'I don't know what that would look like,' the former grins, 'but it would be fairly frightening, I reckon.' At this point, a courier arrives with a freshly remastered copy of Third, and Barrow sticks it into the CD player and strains his ears to assess the impact of another set of infinitesimal adjustments. If Massive Attack's and Tricky's forthcoming albums sound anything like as good as this one, well, Bristol just might be the new Bristol.

· Third (Island) is out on 14 April; Portishead also tour that month.

Seek & Destroy!

Destroy Cowboy, fucks shit up!

Payback time. Today, a new band... Birmingham, England's Destroy Cowboy. No Mexican stand-offs, ten-gallon hats, spurs, or cactus coolers (oh sorry, that's the Flinstones) nor do they need any stinkin' badges-- that we know of anyway. Wholly original and intense these guys are top-class, sort of remind me of another band I know and like quite a bit, NYC's Benzos. For some reason, they also remind me of blasts from the past, Ned's Atomic Dustbin. Frenetic, driving guitar work, swirling synths and vocals climb throughout the track "1000 Candles," and at the end, I kinda want s'more, true beast of a song... It's no surprise they've been supporting some bands you know pretty well: Tapes n Tapes, Cold War Kids, Stars, The Stills, 1990s and Tokyo Police Club over the past year or so. Give 'em a sincere whirl kiddies, just try not to kick up any shit, k?

"1000 Candles"

9 Lives, Cat's Eyes...

photo credit: e.hunter

Yes, he's real... Pictured above, the freshest cat I know, Cooper, photographed by his proud pops. In all actuality, he's still a kitten. He's loc'd after dark though, and he will leave your knuckles tore up. Cool cats, see below...

Cymande "Bra"

Illuminate The Grey Skies...

Yours truly doin' Amsterdammage...

First and foremost I want to heartily thank all the artists, bands and management that have been hitting me up on a near daily basis, some who've gone out of their way to send non-blanket, personalized e-mails, those are especially appreciated! I'm flattered really that even in my absence of the past few months, people are still checking in regularly. None of you are forgotten, and I'll be doing my damndest to get you all some shine herein very shortly...

I've had a queue of ideas and topics I've fancied musing about of late, now if I could only sort them out! I swear, If I'd been blogging the past month as much as I've thought about blogging in the past month, shit, I'd be like prolific again, or something. The end of last year with the holidays and all was just a total fucking wash and my intent is to start strokin' the keys on the regular here shortly-- no, really, I promise!

Recently I returned from a short jaunt to Amsterdam, where I went for a bachelor party for one of my oldest, dearest friends. The flight over and back gave me the first substantial time I've had in months to listen to some new music and actually absorb it in relative peace... Amsterdam and Antwerp are amazing cities, and although my trip was only five days and seemed much more like an 120 hr. blur, I cannot wait to do it again. Many, many thanks to my boy Adam for making that happen!

One of the songs I couldn't get out of my head, even when I was out my head, was "Morning Child" by Marc Mac and Dego, better known as the outfit 4 Hero. I've been quite fond of these guys for the better part of ten years now, and for good reason, their production is perpetually on point, no, better yet, it's fucking immaculate. In 1998, the duo released the album Two Pages which was an amazing, soulful journey that rested heavily on its groundbreaking drum & bass production, by both electronic and organic means. I still remember dropping thirty bucks on the import (sadly, probably the last time I bought an import from a mom and pop) based on the strength of the reviews and the fact that it was nominated for the Mercury Prize didn't hurt. To this day, a record that still very much amazes me.

A couple of months ago, and straight out of the clear blue, I was contacted by one of the reps at Milan records about posting some 4Hero tracks from their new Morning Child e.p. here at S.I.M.R. I was very much taken aback, and highly-flattered by this request. So, here goes... Hope y'all enjoy this one as much as I have. Check the remixes!

4Hero "Morning Child" (Radio Edit)

4Hero "Morning Child" (Daddy G Massive Attack Edit)

4Hero "Morning Child" (Landau Orchestra Mix)

Bonus Tracks:

4Hero "Les Fleur"

4Hero "The Action" w/Butterfly, Digable Planets (Shawn J.Period remix)

After these messages, we'll be right back!

You love you some Thin Lizzy, that's right you do...

Either You Got It, or You Don't...

John Cardiel will always have it...

Personal style, whether or not you strive to cultivate one, we've all got our own unique brand-- like it or not. It spills over into every aspect of our lives, whether it's subtly tweaking one's vehicle for sport, rocking your hair and clothing in a certain manner, espousing oneself to a particular type or types of music, or in the case of the video example above-- riding a skateboard. Just like any other form of art, there's an inherent, inseparable aesthetic component to it. For some it trickles, for others it oozes, and some, they downright swim in it-- again see the video above. You can't buy it, it doesn't happen over night, and when it's bad, it's glaring, and if someone's putting it out there really well, we sometimes wish we could bathe in it, credit must be doled where credit is due, of course.


Dondi, had it to spare...

I can only equate the development of style to things I know of course, or have an infinite understanding of, one of those being graffiti. When you're coming up in the graff game, initially someone must take you under their wing, show you the ropes,if you will. Initially, they'd take you to see some pieces, so that you may ascertain what style is. It's a process, whereby you learn and grow; that person would show you a couple of outlines to bite, a few simple, clean tag styles to mimic, and exponentially more important than what's good-- what's bad. The same goes for skateboarding, learning how to master a trick is only half the battle, if one cannot harness the style that must accompany said trick, then one can never truly never capture the true essence of what being a dope skateboarder is all about. There's nothing worse than seeing a kid who's got all the tricks down, but hasn't a clue how to rock them properly.

Many evenings during my comeupance, skating all over the West Side of L.A., I was witness to style of all sorts, from all angles, from seeing the first wave of true influential street skaters up close and personal, to learning how to bust one-liner handstyles on bus benches in Westwood. Those experiences, for better or worse are those that shaped and continue to influence my personal aesthetic. I was blessed to have a group of friends on both coasts who knew what the fuck was up in all aspects of style, from art and music, to fashion, to surfing and skating, and whatever else we did. If it didn't have style, it wasn't shit, and if it wasn't shit, I wanted fuck-all to do with it, bottom line.


Digable Planets, they most certainly had it...

To that end, one's musical taste is of course the quintessential root of all personal style, because when we're young, we all want to dress up like our favorite artists or bands, I very much thank the lord I was never into Lawrence Welk or Liberace or for that matter the Oak Ridge Boys. I'm not scared to admit that, for me, this of course changed drastically over the years... I had many style icons in my formative years, some good, some bad, yet all inextricably linked to my halcyon youth. Whether the crooning of Steve Perry with his sans-muscle tees when I was a wee lad, to the biting rhymes and style of the head to toe adidas-clad, RUN D.M.C. when I was getting old enough to know what was really up. From being a die-hard, underground/indie hip-hop head when it truly mattered, during the Golden Era(87-94)to making to the transition to downtempo and dub shortly thereafter, to rediscovering my love of great classic rock and heartily embracing the burgeoning indie-pop/rock scene some years later.

It doesn't come from a bubble gum machine, and it can't be aped via watching movies and T.V. or reading magazines. One has to be groomed to have style, it's a plethora of influences and stimuli that contribute to the end result. Simply having access to boatloads of cash won't do it either. If that's your angle, you'll always be a half- step away from being the next poser douchebag with white leather loafers, a lacoste shirt with a popped-up collar, J-Lo shades a Gotti kid blow-out and a really, really gay pair of jeans. Below, a smattering of tracks so stylish they hurt. They'll cut you, mang.

MP3: Dangermouse & Jemini "Knuckle Sandwich"

MP3: Budos Band "Budos Rising"

MP3: Midlake "Roscoe" (Acoustic)

MP3: Wintersleep "Oblivion"

MP3: Edan "Promised Land"

Tennessee, By Proxy...

A.K.A Count Bass!

I've been sick as shit the last few days, so what better time to purge, right? Riiiight! Okay, Saturday night the little woman and I went over to our friend Jesse and Brigid's pad-- who, by the by, are some way coolest mofos I knows, and they made a meeeean veggie lasagna (laah-zaag-naah) and some killer cupcakes. We drank tastily crafted beers, listened to some tunes, and generally shot the shit about his most recent trip back to Nashville from which he hails, amongst other thangs.

I always build with Jesse on musical happenings, first 'cause he's the homie, and second 'cause he's got phenomenal taste, and a fantastic scope from which to pick his brain. In that regard, he's like, "you gotta see this" and shows me a super-fresh Count Bass D hand bill (see above) that he ganked from a lightpost or perhaps it was a telephone pole (I was a couple, or Three Philosophers to the wind at that point, so...) I don't recall per se. To which I replied, "fuckin' a-- you certainly can't roll out of the crib down here and find some shit like that." Which as you all very well know makes me sad, quite sad.

Dixie Dirt Pieces of the World

Then he speaks of a band I've never heard, called Dixie Dirt and proceeds to play me a track called "Bad Lights" which henceforth and hitherto I've been totally fucking addicted to. They have a fantastic sound, and they're damn hard to peg, that being the case, I've lifted their quasi bio off their mywaste page, and it goes a little something like this...

"Dixie Dirt’s music has a bizarre intoxicating effect on people. Maybe because of their cult-leader-like talents, as of yet nobody’s been able to name their sound. “Appalachian art punk” was a favorite description from the Metro Pulse in Knoxville. Fans try to wrap their minds around it by saying "you guys are like Wilco meets the Pixies" or "a cross between Tool and Radiohead but with Chan Marshall singing". Or this gem, "you sound like no other band ever but somehow your songs are so familiar, its like I put them on mixed tapes in junior high." Awww, we love you too.

Dixie Dirt’s live shows are the only place on the planet where punks, hippies, metalheads, hipsters, folkies, professors and rednecks can all hang out together and still play nice. The shows are so completely mind-blowing, people actually lose time then bitch at them for playing "for like only 30 minutes, man", after a two-hour set with an encore.

Their fans are often compelled to do weird shit after the show such as give the band hair clippings, anecdotes from childhood, make strange obsessive comments about living on a mountaintop with them, give them the clothes they’re wearing, start crying or buy one of their albums: Pieces of the World, On Our Way Like We Never Met, Springtime is for the Hopeless and Other Ideas. If you missed them at Bonnaroo or Sundown in the City; fear not, they’re shopping a demo and will soon be in a city near you."

Bryce McCloud

Last but not least I was pointed to peruse the website for Nashville's Tag Gallery to peep the work of some of the city's up and coming visualists. And again, totally on fucking point. In particular Bryce McCloud, this dude has phenomenal type-sense, and sick grasp on color. I think I'd like to own just about every print he's got for sale. Art, for sale. Right, Count? It's great to get insight on a town you've never been to from someone who's plugged in. Totally makes me wanna take a visit, hopefully that'll be in the cards soon. 'Til then, thanks Nashville! Big up to Jesse for the virtual tour.

MP3: Dixie Dirt "Bad Lights"

MP3: Count Bass D "Blues for Percy Carey"

Shiny, Apple Peoples...

Postmarked Apples at the Aqueduct!

Almost a week's gone by but I'm on west coast time, so I have an excuse... Not really, I'm just slow, it's much easier on my constitution. Ne'er mind all that, did I tell you I went go to a gem of a rawk and roll show last Friday night? Homies, The Postmarks lead off and were rock-solid as usual, a years worth of shows, shows-- no pun intended. They flexed their road-tested muscle to a modest, yet mostly musohead crowd who were genuinely proud of the gang.

Batting second was Aqueduct and they were really, really good, my first time catching them; even though we were told their bass player bailed to Canadia (I hope it was Bampf!, I wanna go to Bampf!) or something for a wedding, though they liberally borrowed Bill from the Apples who seemed to do the trick, enjoyable set for sure. Who wanna rock with Aqueduct, yo? Errybody, that's who!

Hitting clean-up were thee Apples in Stereo, and they definitely didn't let the crowd down. I'd already heard from the previous gigs in Gainesville and Orlando that they were really dope live, and as such, I can attest they definitely did not disappoint. They ripped through tracks from various records in their catalogue, with a focus on the new album. Seriously, I don't ever think I've seen a band with permagrin the entire set, but they managed to rock it, literally and figuratively. Great to see an indie show where everyone's not taking themselves so fuckin' seriously.

MP3: The Postmarks "Dreamer"

MP3: The Postmarks "Everyday is Halloween" (Ministry cover, just in time for All Hallows' Eve!)

MP3: Aqueduct "As You Wish"

MP3: The Apples in Stereo "Seven Stars"

Ok, Computer?

Somehow, I've been nominated to post about the latest Radiohead doings, hmmm... Why? I cannot say with any sort of certainty that I'm even remotely sure. I mean, I'm a huge fan of two Radiohead records, those being The Bends and Ok Computer, beyond that-- they lost me. I know, I know Kid A was uber-genius at work, yet at the end of the day, I needed some melody, to me it was too cliche, weird for weird's sake. So, flash forward a tick, at the goading of my cousin, who's gaga(y) for them, I forked out hard-earned pellets for Hail To The Thief, only to be pretty fuckin' disappointed.

Ahhh, but alas, ahoy and lookie here... Thom and Co. say, I can have their new record, and pay what I like for it! That is rich, rich indeed. Y'know what, I just bought it too! Damn straight, I did it. In one fell swoop, Radiohead has a.) sought to turn the record industry on its proverbial ear (Camden said that, not me) and b.) reclaim and restore the rainbow to its uninihibted glory of yesteryear, or something. Yeah, with that, I'll leave the rest of this conversation to the people that actually know what the fuck they're talking about in this context. I'm too tired to get into some long-winded, post-Napster, new media, digital distribution diatribe, although I could, if'n I wanted ta!

I can't lie though, I am excited to receive my download code on the 10th. For some reason, I'm really optomistic that this record is going to be fantastic, a harkening back to glory days, perhaps? I'll report back on October 10th or thereabouts, along with the rest of the blogosphere and their gritty, gritty grandmas. In the interim, I say to you, and I say to Thom, in finest 80's, North Shore parlance, this is waaaay killer, bra. That's right, cheap segue, killer track.

MP3: Radiohead "Killer Cars"

MP3: Radiohead feat. Ghostface "My Iron Lung"(Remix)

Working With Sound...

"Later for milk and honey, get the money out this piece."

Whether or not they know it, most people have probably heard Los Angeles producer Hive (if you've seen The Matrix, you've indubitably heard him) although, few outside of D&B or Downtempo circles know who he is. I had a five year period, roughly 1995-2000 or so where I was listening to drum and bass in earnest, and from that time there are a couple handfuls of records that really stand out, and very few that I care to revisit-- Hive's 1998 effort Devious Methods being one of the former.

Alluding to himself as a futurist b-boy was apropos, as his hip-hop bent was front and center even as the bpm's increased. As such his production style was well-suited to mingle betwixt genres; from massive, cinematic and beat-driven to calmed, experimental and dreamy. Which brings us to why we're here... In early 1999, Hive released Working With Sound, a criminally slept-on,distinctly downtempo record-- rife with DJ Shadow-esque production, layered with latin stylings, obscure jazz samples and head nodders galore.

If you're a fan of good, late 90's downtempo a la Shadow, Cam, Amon Tobin, DJ Krush, etc... you will dig this record, and you will dig it the most, baby. It's not all too easy to stumble across these days, shit-- it wasn't all that easy to stumble across when it dropped, but once again, I am here, here to save you all. I highly recommend this as a great pre-bedtime listen, turn down your blankie, fluff up a nice cool pillow and let it rock your pajamas, don't lie-- I know you got the ones with the feet attached!

MP3: Hive "(All Over) The... Prelude"

MP3: Hive "Fallout"

MP3: Hive "Mood Swings (Act I)"

MP3: Hive "Steps Into The Light"

MP3: Hive "Sphaira"

MP3: Hive "Mood Swings (Act II)"

MP3: Hive "A Suspended Greeting"

MP3: Hive "Practice In Stillness"

MP3: Hive "Dreaming Belize"

 

It's Been A Long Time...

Interpol "Evil" live in Miami 9/18/07

Forgive me for being negligent, for I have not forsaken you. I've been super busy of late, not to mention tired, and beyond that I haven't had much in the way of new music to talk about. Not that it's ever stopped me before, I mean shit, a majority of what I post is older. Okay then, scratch all that, I've just been lazy. Happy now fuckers? What's been happening of late? Hmmm...Thanks very much to Camden, he had the connects for front row to Interpol at the University of Miami... I must admit to being merely a casual fan, I do dig them, however my girlfriend loves them, she thinks Paul Banks is quite the handsome devil-- so she was genuinely stoked to be ten feet from stage left. This is my second go 'round seeing them, and I was definitely impressed this time, they're super-tight as a band, the sound was phenomenal, all in all a great show, save for The Liars-- how they're touring with Interpol is anybody's guess.

MP3: Interpol "Evil" (Live in Boston 9/12/07)


Natas Kaupas 'Streets of Fire'

Natas Kaupas was an innovator of epic proportions in terms of street skating, and changing the direction of how the sport evolved-- much of that can be credited to the man in the video above. I stumbled across this old clip from Santa Cruz's 'Streets of Fire' in which Natas single-handedly destroys just about every obstacle, concrete, metal or plastic that the fine municipality of Santa Monica could offer up. One word can aptly sum this clip up, "wow." The track in the background is fIrehose's "Brave Captain."

MP3: fIrehose "Brave Captain" (Live)

That's all for now kiddies, just some randomness. Hope you are all fanfuckingtabulous. See ya shortly!

You Can Get With This...

One of the dopest 12" covers ever...

Or, of course... You can get with that! I mean after all, the choice was yours. Such were the options as we were implored by one Dres and Mr. Lawnge better known as the duo Black Sheep. I still vividly remember the two storming on the scene with their first single, "Flavor Of The Month," which absolutlely had me hook, line and sinker (see: platitude 1). At the time I watched both B.E.T's 'Rap City' and 'Yo! MTV Raps' religiously, and I seized every fucking chance I got to have a gander at the video, the song was just that good. The album wasn't out yet, so I was checking early issues of the Source to find out more about these cats, to no avail. Then strangely enough, one morning, my dad of all people brings me down a garment industry rag called DNR, opens it, points to an article and half mockingly says "do you know these guys?" To my surprise was a brief bio and pic of a nattily-clad Black Sheep, Dres claimed to be a clotheshorse.

Now, 1991 was a phenomenal year for rap releases, as a matter of fact, it saw the debut from Cypress Hill, the amazing sophomore efforts The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest, and De La Soul Is Dead by duh! De La Soul, and that's merely the tip o' the iceberg (see: platitude 2). So, for an album like A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing to come completely out of nowhere and capture my impressionable young soul, was pretty fucking impressive. It was also no mere coincidence that the Sheep fell into the company of the aforementioned, becoming a fixture as "cousins" in the "abstract/alternative" Native Tongue collective.

As a rap album, Wolf... it had it all, first and foremost was its undisputed clever factor, add to that the amazing golden-era production a la Mr. Lawnge, the impeccably sharp wit and flow of Dres, who had things sewn up from every angle; from concepts to flows, to wordplay unparalleled-- he harnessed all the aspects of the consummate emcee. More than anything though, this album had a personality unlike any other rap record I'd heard up to that point, and arguably any since. From it's light-hearted playful side, "Flavor Of The Month" to it's somber, introspective side "Black With N.V." (one of the most criminally slept-on hip-hop tracks of all time) all the way to its not afraid to lampoon your gangsta ass, "paging Dr. Dre" side, "U Mean I'm Not."

I was glad to hear that they'd reunited (cause it feels so gooood!) for the 2006 release of 8WM Novakane... only to be disappointed at the last minute to hear Mr. Lawnge had bounced due to issues with Dres's courting of outside production, shit, I couldn't blame him. The album was decent, a couple of standout tracks, although not what I'd hoped for. Upon his exit, Lawnge now Mr.Long, announced he'd release his solo album, The Class Of '88 which ended up being pretty dope, making me wonder aloud why Dres would have sought other beats?

Anyhow, I guess I've rambled a bit, perhaps more than a bit, not too sure how far I made it in getting to a point, so forgive me-- I'm a bit zapped and disjointed from new j-o-b responsibilities. Originally, I intended this to be a part of a larger Native Tongues post, which I will get to... In the interim, I just was thinking about that article my pops gave me like 16 years ago, and I started reminiscing, I suppose I just wanted to wax about one of my all-time favorite groups, I think I managed at least that much.

Dry & Heavy

While living in NYC there were certain record stores I frequented on the regular, one of those being the storied Jammyland on E. 3rd Street in the East Village, which, to my benefit, was conveniently located directly across the street from my best friend's pad. Heads in the know purchase their dub and reggae vinyl there, and whomever was/is working the counter was/is always mad friendly and more than willing to dole out a suggestion or two based on your tastes. One of the few spots you could hit, blindly buy a record by an artist you might or might not've been familiar with and invariably, arrive home and promptly affirm you'd copped a gem. Such was the case when I was turned on to Dry & Heavy.

Dub revivalists hailing from Japan, these guys and girl sling some heavy, heavy, heavy (that's really heavy!) dub plates, although at times they veer and successfully trod on very rootsy terrain. I fell in love with their 1999 effort One Punch and touted them quite heavily (no pun) amongst friends. I won't profess to know too much about them as a band because they're a bit enigmatic, however, the fact is that they're phenomenal, and if you dig dub in the vein of Mad Professor, Lee Perry, Scientist, etc... You will also dig Dry & Heavy. See below as I've nicked their bio from the home page for you bastards too lazy to backtrack the links. I've also upped a track for you to sample, if you dig it, below that is the proper album. I only up the whole thing as it's out of print and fetches a hefty price when it can be procured-- who loves ya?

"DRY & HEAVY, a rhythm section for a number of years though with great luck and little planning ( and 3 highly acclaimed studio albums supported by endless touring ) evolved from such humble beginnings into the fully fledged unit that we know it as today. Although originally intended as a vehicle for the powerful combination of long time collaborators, drummer and founding Audio Active member, Shigemoto Nanao and bassist, Takeshi Akimoto it was a natural progression as the focus moved more and more onto its two featured vocalists, Likkle Mai and Ao Inoue whose performances on such vintage Dry & Heavy singles as Mr Blueflame, Private Plan, Dawn Is Breaking, Radical Star and Love Explosion have come to the define the truly unique Dry & Heavy sound.

As would be expected from an act named of respect for the mighty reggae legend, Burning Spear, this tight-knit combination reproduce and refine that which they have learnt and love of the great roots reggae records reinforced by the experience of four years of constant touring and recording. As well as appearances on every major Japanese rock and reggae festival, the band have enjoyed great success with their own headline dates in Japan, England, France and Switzerland as well as highly acclaimed appearances at the 2000 Reading (U.K.) and Hanover (Germany) Womad festivals and guest appearances in Germany with Asian Dub Foundation and Buju Banton, Hong Kong with Primal Scream and Adrian Sherwood, their own highly successful Japanese dubfest, Echomaniacs which featured Adrian Sherwood, Andrew Weatherall, Dennis Bovell and 3 Head as well as dates in Japan with reggae legends, Lee Perry, Horace Andy, Jah Shaka and Mad Professor."

A Tale Of Two Scrittis

The other day I got to thinking about a song from me youth, when I was merely a young lad, wild in the streets. The song I speak of was Scritti Politti's "Perfect Way," and just the very thought of it allowed me to pinpoint about every single last detail of my youthful existence at the time-- I've got an uncanny ability to do that, that is to recall my life's events and travels by correlating them with song. Perfect way was a brilliant pop song, in my humble opinion of course; not that it was built for radio, it was more happenstance that it crossed over and found its way to #11 on the U.S. charts. After its requisite airwave life, both "Perfect Way" and its creator, one Green Gartside would fade into a cloud of pop music obscurity, poof!

Flash forward nearly fifteen years later to 1999, and to my surprise, Scritti Politti had risen from the ashes... Better yet, Gartside was now a beatsmith of high-caliber, serving up hip-hop production for none other than one of my favorite emcees, the mighty Mos Def. Wait a minute I mused, Scritti Politti, Mos Def-- really? I anxiously sought out the single "Tinseltown To The Boogie Down" from his album Anomie and Bonhomie and sure as shit, on the hook there he was, that unmistakable voice hadn't changed a bit. I really dug on that record for a hot minute, and just like that, once again Scritti Politti was gone.

Turns out that late last year there was another Scritti sighting, and this time the critics were paying notice, as his record White Bread, Black Beer was nominated for the esteemed Mercury Music Prize. I must admit it flew under my radar until just recently... After the critical nods, there was a subsequent world tour, including some of his first live gigs in nearly 25 years. Upon doing some research for this piece, I've found that it's well-documented Gartside was no one-hit wonder, he's had success in a plethora of music circles by his own vehicle in some form or another since the late 70's, and he's either collaborated or done production work for many notables. Turns out his next project will be a tandem effort with Hot Chip's Alexis Taylor, could be interestin'... Let's hope he becomes a bit more prolific in his later years, as it's quite good to have him back.

If It Ain't Broke...

Dude, dude... that's my leg.

For the past month or so I've been meaning to blog about The Broken West. So, here goes... Without getting too long-winded, all I can say is that I'm in love with their debut album, I Can't Go On, I'll Go On. I don't throw those sort of accolades around lightly either! It's a polished power-pop gem, chock full o' great melodies and spot-on harmonizing; it's straight ahead California, bright and sunny with candid moments of sincere introspection, see: Matthew Sweet. Standout tracks like "Down In The Valley" and "You Can Build An Island" are like cerebral molasses; sticky goodness-- sonic residue you just can't shake, sure to have you singing in unison after a mere couple o' spins.

It sucks to always have to compare bands with other bands, but I do hear the bits of Wilco, Spoon and Big Star references that others have hurled their way. Throw a lil' Pernice Brothers in on tracks like "Abigail" and the album's closer "Like A Light," and without going too far out on a limb, perhaps even a bit of pre-overexposed Strokes on "Slow." The feat here is they manage all this without being derivative, a difficult task indeed. I Can't Go On manages to touch a myriad of bases along the way, at times, straight-ahead, others mellow and vulnerable-- hovering on the outskirts of alt-country (a la Ryan Adams) without ever giving up its indie-pop appeal.

It's bands like The Broken West that you alternately root for and want to keep all to yourself in hopes the rest of the world won't find out about 'em. Unfortunately for me, and fortunately for you (and of course them) ultimately-- that'll not be the case.