Month: August 2012

Pitchfork – Andrew W.K., “I Get Wet” (reissue)

I saw Andrew W.K. at Webster Hall this past March on his I Get Wet 10th Anniversary Tour— something I had wanted since I was 12 years old. Even though security would clear the stage between songs, the first notes of the next would call up a swarm of revelers from the crowd. There was non-stop frontflipping off the stage into the mosh. The audience contained more than three partymonsters wrapped in white jeans and matching tee, with stringy bacon-grease hair dangling down their backs when it wasn’t whipping in all directions. I got to sing into the mic during the show closer, jostling against His Partyness himself, letting everyone know that I, too, get wet when the party is dying.

While I would probably not ever think of Andrew W.K. as one of my favorite musicians, and I’m patently uninterested infollow-up album The Wolf beyond the three listens I’ve given it over the past ten years… I can sing along with every line of I Get Wet. Can’t do that with an Animal Collective album. Not quite there with either of Sleigh Bells’ releases. That statistic stands alone.

(That is, unless you want to count Girl Talk’s sets as albums, or if I’m discounting my own lyrical memory when it comes to My Chemical Romance. But it’s more partyful to believe in it this way.)

Pitchfork – Andrew W.K., “I Get Wet” (reissue)

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Neon Trees, “Everybody Talks”

Since I don’t listen to the radio anymore (not as a point of pride, I just can’t stand ads!) great pop songs that don’t have viral videos or thinkpieces on Pitchfork tend to slip by me. This came out five months ago and I don’t think I’ve heard it before in my life. In fact, I’m certain I haven’t heard it, because you don’t forget an earworm like this. The cheesy choreography of the video (hush-fingers to the lips during “it started with a whisper” and pounding-heart motions a little later,) keeps the momentum high for the snowballing of the lyrics and melody in the chorus, a chorus that feels like it takes up more than 50% of the song.

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
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Riff Raff, “Summer of Surf”

I met a guy named Sully on Monday. We chatted about Riff Raff (aka JODY HiGHROLLER) and Sully revealed that he had actually encountered the Riffster a couple weeks prior. He saw RR biking in circles near West Hollywood, and Sully yelled his name. Riff Raff pointed directly at Sully, said “yes,” and biked in the opposite direction as fast as he could.

Hip-hop needs some real weirdos right now, and the west coast is full of them. The important facet to Riff Raff’s posturing is his inclusiveness: check out all the folks dancing around and laughing, happy to be a part of some wack-ass rapper’s video, no matter that his beard looks like a heart rate monitor. The chorus here is perfect catchy, despite exclusively detailing swag and surf. I just wanna know why the man himself sounds so delicate. If his inflection was in line with his other tracks, this would be his number one by a long shot.

(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
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The New Yorker – “Personal Experiments with Mind-Altering Drugs” by Oliver Sacks

I do not enjoy reading drugged-out accounts of how “totally real everything felt;” unless an author can maintain a reporter’s instinct under debilitating doses, (see: Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Wolfe) there’s no point to the exercise and it comes across as simple rebellion. I’m also not much a fan of scientific-spiritualists, like Timothy Leary and crew. Trying to bring higher powers into the equation still reads as so much wanking.

This piece (which you probably need a New Yorker account to read, but this tumblr was never about you lol) hits the sweet spot. Oliver Sacks is a still-practicing neurologist with many well-written books of case studies on strange brain disorders and other topics in relation to the mind. He writes with a clinical eye, and writes to understand, but even with those hazardous angles of approach his work is readable for anyone. It looks like, despite a long-running history with drugs, he chose to write about every other way in which the mind might be altered until he was recognized as an established author/near the end of his life. This piece offers his background, and is likely good preparation for his forthcoming book Hallucinations.

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https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/57019418/stream?client_id=3cQaPshpEeLqMsNFAUw1Q?plead=please-dont-download-this-or-our-lawyers-wont-let-us-host-audio

Hudson Mohawke, “Cbat (Regulators ‘Gotta Be Fresh’ Remix)”

The chirping Dirty Dutch synth of this sounds just like the six police cars posted up on my street right now. The Workaholics theme song only makes me compare my casual weekend nights with that of their heroic tv show level partying. And the trap of it all only brings me back to the brutal beats pumping from hoopties outside my Atlanta basement. This is probably my favorite trap song thus far, but I’m still more partial to moombahton.

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thedailywhat:

Lights Out: Everyone loves making city time-lapse videos, especially as documentary filler footage — but NightFall, covering L.A. over a series of days and nights, stands ahead of the pack. 

It actually makes the smoggy hellhole look beautiful.

[nerdist]

I may just be delirious from my 17 hour workday but I feel very alive and lucky right now so this video is hitting extra hard. My new home~

(Source: http://player.vimeo.com/)
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