Taylor Swift

The great free jazz drummer has passed. Here’s a clip of him in possibly my favorite jazz band of all-time, Last Exit, with Peter Brotzmann, Bill Laswell, and Sonny Sharrock. This clip really features Jackson’s work.

I know after watching that, everyone is ready for a nice smooth mellow evening, just like after listening to a little Kenny G. I love Last Exit so much because for all the craziness, Jackson still grounds it in a big blues-rock beat that drives the music like a hammer.

Check this out too:

Mr. Jackson was born in Fort Worth on Jan. 12, 1940. His mother, Ella Mae, played piano and organ at a Methodist church and his father, William, was the proprietor of Fort Worth’s only black-owned record store and jukebox supplier. The saxophonists King Curtis and David (Fathead) Newman were relatives; among the musicians who preceded him at I. M. Terrell High School were Mr. Coleman and the saxophonists Dewey Redman and Julius Hemphill. Mr. Jackson played his first public engagement, with the saxophonist James Clay, at age 15, then worked with Ray Charles’s band in Dallas. In 1966 he went to New York, where he enrolled at New York University. That year he made his first recording, with the Charles Tyler Ensemble, and joined Ayler’s band. His work with Ayler is documented on two roughly recorded but urgently played volumes of “Live at Slug’s Saloon.”

So the same Fort Worth high school produced Ornette Coleman, Julius Hemphill, Dewey Redman, and Shannon Jackson. Huh. Whatever was in the water out there was pretty potent.

Platform: Javascript — It's baaaaaaaaaaaaack... aniwey's smash-hit original webtoy/wonder machine gets a sequel with even more content to discover. Allow this little game to run by itself in another tab or window and you'll quickly discover that there's a lot more to it than just a rising number of candies. Tagged as: adventure, aniwey, browser, fantasy, free, game, javascript, linux, mac, rating-g, rpg, simpleidea, unique, webtoy, windows

random filtered Street View imagery and dream reports into an arthouse montage [via] 

...["Duh"] is generally understood to be an extra or paralinguistic symptom of discourse's pause or failure-- something akin to Aristotle's "mere voice" or an animal phone. It is not a word per se since it references the unavailability of discourse proper...or that which is obvious ["duh" or "no duh"].

..."Duh" is evocative, calling up, as it were, stupidity's rich tradition and within this tradition "duh" stands the ground of refusal. Refusing "duh" means resisting stupidity, and its double, a "refusing duh," conjures up a break between discourse and the world. This duality of "duh", the evocation of stupidity and its refusal, also elicits a response from knowing, stupidity's reciprocal and necessary condition.

..."The temptation," Ronell writes..."is to wage war on stupidity as if it were a vanquishable object....Stupidity exceeds and undercuts materiality, runs loose, wins a few rounds, recedes, gets carried home in the clutch of denial- and returns."

...Stupidity is "essentially linked to the inexhaustible...[it] is that which fatigues knowledge and wears down history." Stupidity is heavy, dull, and slow, with no interest other than to have no interest....no thinking....only to advance procedure and format, ending in the perpetual violence that is the ineluctable status quo.

..."stupidity itself remains to a large degree absent from the concerns of contemporary inquiry. No ethics or politics has been articulated to act upon its pervasive pull. Yet stupidity is everywhere."

...Stupidity is amorphous-- sometimes it appears as a pathogen suspended in droplets over the entirety of life. It enters into life, spreading throughout the world. It is there and it is here, which makes stupidity in many ways the ontological condition of all thinking, since all thinking misses something. Ronell charts stupidity's clinical presentations and records her suspicions of its sub-clinical imperceptibility. The question arises, Who shall report it? Who can see stupidity-- enough to say, there it is?

...The degrees of stupidity are endless, since no one can ever completely miss something or completely get something. It is Flaubert, for Ronell, who sees not the essence of stupidity, but the force of stupidity-- its trace: "Stupidity is something unshakeable. Nothing attacks it without breaking itself against it. It is of the nature of granite, hard and resistant."

...The difficulty with stupidity...is that the subject of inquiry escapes explanation. Stupidity, inherently, occupies a non or pre-discursive space-- a space not under the dictates of cognition...Stupidity has a brute force AND a philosophical trace that can be associated with the Odepipal Father and the law of mimesis: "Incapable of renewal or overcoming, the stupid subject has low Oedipal energy: he has held onto ideas, the relics and dogmas transmitted in his youth by his father."

..."The stupid are unable to make breaks or breakaways; they are hampered even on the rhetorical level, for they cannot run with grammatical leaps or metonymical discontinuities. They are incapable of referring allegorically or embracing deferral..the stupid cannot see themselves...and this invisibility allows stupidity to pass imperceptibly across the world."

-excerpts from Refusing Theory: Avita Ronell and the Structure of Stupidity by Victor E. Taylor

San Francisco Bay Area based Cahill Wessel, who's submitted some great gems in the past, emailed over another great illustration this time entitled "Justin Bieber and the Golden Pussy", 18"x 24".

http://www.cahillwessel.com/

France based Jon Fox emailed over some recent oil paintings, abnd they're wonderful. He's currently showing at France's SpaceJunk through out all of France till April 2014.

This is what his work looks like in installation view.

Read more...

A retrospective of the Umihara Kawase series, including Agatsuma's Sayonara Umihara Kawase, featuring an extensive interview with series creator Kiyoshi Sakai.

These Are Not Real Cars, Just a Mind-Bending Optical Illusion Professional model maker and photographer Michael Paul Smith spent the last 25 years making miniature vehicles and photographing them, set in a fictional 1950s American town called Elgin Park. His models are so detailed that when placed in miniature dioramas and photographed using forced perspective, you'll think that they are real vehicles.

I just learnt of the passing away of Ronald Shannon Jackson at the age of 73: He was suffering from leukemia. I saw Shannon Jackson twice, first with the Decoding Society in my home town and then with Last Exit at the North Sea Jazz Festival in Scheweningen in 1987, just outside the Hague. I also bought several Decoding Society records back in the 80s and I believe they can still be found easily.

Much later I found out that the NSJF gig was videotaped and parts of it also appeared on "Cassette Recordings" out on the Enemy label the same year. So what I can offer here in memory of Shannon Jackson is a little over 40 minutes of Last Exit at the NSJF.

RIP

This week’s FACT mix comes from Mella Dee,  one half of Mista Men and a UK garage and bassline house disciple making some of the best dance music around.

When it comes to UK dance music, there’s a distinct lineage – or, you know, continuum – which Mella Dee is clearly committed to. Speaking to FACT about garage last year, he explained that “for sure it define[s] our sound, it’s kind of on purpose. I really felt like keeping a distant from the whole ‘future garage’ thing with our sound, just wanted to make it have that rudeness. There’s been a lot of garage or garage-influenced stuff that doesn’t work for me lately, too many dull pads and chords.”

Mella’s also incredibly influenced by Sheffield’s bassline house sound, and has collaborated with Checan in the past as South Yorks Slugs (released on Unknown to the Unknown). His ‘Ctrl’ 12″, meanwhile, released last year on Coyote, looked to 8-bar grime for inspiration. You should get the picture by now, it’s rough and raw without ever losing touch with what makes dance music work (as Mella also explained to FACT last year, “it’s designed for people to dance to … if we cant achieve that then its not really dance music at all for me”), and it’s very UK. Pile in below.

Tracklist:
1. Pedestrian & Jasperdrum – Kalakuta
2. Palace – Astral
3. Steve Huerta – Adrift
4. Funk Butcher – Blue Drop
5. Squarehead – Curve Appeal
6. Lakosa & Rick Grant – Core
7. RS4 – All Around
8. Tony Lionni – Take Me With You Ft Rachel Fraser (Copyright Remix)
9. Trikk – Prime Time
10. Anaxander – My Aniseed Lollipop
11. Catz Eat Dogz – Where House
12. Mella Dee – Cut Em Off
13. Mella Dee – Things Don’t Change (James Welsh Remix)
14. Citizen – Situation (LDN Warehouse Dub)
15. Kry Wolf – Nightmode (Pedestrian Remix)
16. Mak & Pasteman – Brown Bread
17. Mella Dee – Feel It Out
18. Mella Dee – Vibealite

[7.75], then, is practically perfect…

[Video][Website]
[7.75]

Daniel Montesinos-Donaghy: Melt-Banana make pop music. The only reason it doesn’t register as such is because their steez is to leave the hooks to non-traditional means. (It may also have something to do with how their discography sounds like it’s being performed at warp speed through a vortex, but still.) Look at oldie “Sick Zip Everywhere”, one of the catchiest songs to stay in rotation through years of 120 Minutes reruns (the UK edition): guitars impersonate fire alarms, there’s a slap-bass solo, vocalist Yasuko Onuki performs deathgrunts at the highest pitch possible. “The Hive” is yet another example of the band’s compulsive invention and out-of-nowhere accessibility. Onuki is still yelling bubblegum-grind over Ichirou Agata’s intricate chaos, which would be standard-issue if it wasn’t for sojourns into skate-punk with Morse code backing vocals or laser-guided melodies over amp fuzz or youth crew choruses. Melt-Banana make pop music, but their pop music thrillingly can’t stay still for one moment.
[9]

Anthony Easton: How do you review this? It’s a Melt-Banana song. It sounds like every other Melt-Banana song that I have heard. If you like Melt-Banana, you will like this. I am glad that it is 2 minutes, though — not because I can listen to it more than that, but because it has a perfect intense concision. 
[7]

Brad Shoup: After gigging their asses off for lo so many years, burning Radio 1 to the ground, and releasing splits with any broken amp that asked, Melt-Banana has 1UP’d by going pop. Maybe it’s safer to credit the gap between studio LPs: the similarly hooky Bambi’s Dilemma featured the kind of rangy, melodic rock one creates after repeatedly driving a van across America in the ’90s. And Yasuko’s genial, opaque peep was, from the jump, an ice-cream enema compared to the pigfuck vocals of trad grindcore. But “The Hive” has a hiccuping squeal straight out of “The Fox” and a chopped’n'sequenced guitar bit that becomes an EDM death ray. The sense-resistance of their spazzy glory days have given way to a middle-aged sense of urgency. Canny or not, it’s a good look.
[8]

Alfred Soto: They’ve spent twenty years defining their squall, and the electronic effects act as a high pressure ridge confining its size but enforcing a path. To go from Descendants to Read & Burn-era Wire — as the break at the 1:38 mark signifies — is an accomplishment to savor.
[7]

Patrick St. Michel: On a typical weekend, you can walk around certain neighborhoods in Tokyo, primarily “the birthplace of Japanese punk” Koenji and the slightly more polished Shimokitazawa, and find a handful of frantic rock bands playing some small bar, music house or recording studio. They probably are loud, energetic and not particularly popular among many Japanese listeners outside the immediate ‘hood. They all owe Melt-Banana some love for being one of the Japanese bands at the forefront of this all-over-the-place rock movement — or maybe they don’t, because Melt-Banana are still putting off wild songs like “The Hive,” powered by metal riffs and lead singer Yako’s yelping vocals. It sounds pretty similar to what the duo have been doing since the early 1990s, complete with a great twist midway through, when everything locks in and the singing gets an extra glow around it.
[8]

Jessica Doyle: I was standing still as I listened and yet somehow it still felt as if the scenery were rushing by me.
[7]

Iain Mew: In Holborn tube station, the air flowing around occasionally conspires to all rush through one small passageway against the flow of people, suddenly turning a routine walk between platforms into an enjoyably epic struggle against howling wind in your face. “The Hive” and its blasting chorus comes pretty close to replicating that feeling.
[6]

W.B. Swygart: I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve forgotten how to live, but no song has made me feel this fantastic in… I actually do not know how long. Noise and movement and velocity and texture and THOSE FUCKING DRUMS and I have to fucking shake and flay and shudder and thrash along with it every time I listen to it (first listen three hours ago, think I’m on my seventh or eighth now, had to listen to Laura Branigan to calm down in the middle), which makes me fear I’m forcing it, but no, press play again and the ultra-ultra-tight beats wham straight into the neurons and we’re off again because it just feels so incredibly right and I wish there were, say, 500 other people in the room and we’re all flying about to this, and it’s just because it’s what we were bloody built for, you know? I feel so light, so fast, so alive again. They really are very, very special.
[10]

Rather than wallowing in the meandering, abstract realms of this noise techno clique, Container (aka Providence, RI’s Ren Schofield) seems intent on being very, very direct. His latest, the killer “Glaze,” illustrates this perfectly. Snotty-as-fuck bass pulses beat the heart into oblivion. Static developments seethe with a reckless but purposeful style. DAW-enhanced sculptures of pretension are abandoned in favor of something furious and fun.

In some ways, we’re still waiting to see where Container’s sound will fit in with the greater story of techno, dance music, and noise. He’s still one of the new class’s brightest students, especially his casual references to the classic sounds of Drexciya, et. al. Schofield manages to be both brash and subtle within the limits of a single track. He succeeds at exposing those elements of dance music we didn’t even know we wanted. “Glaze” might be his best yet – keep your eyes on Liberation Technologies for more info soon.

The post CONTAINER – “GLAZE” appeared first on The Boston Hassle.

One of hip hop’s greatest man-behind-the-boards remembered by those who knew him best.

If you’re a fan of late 80s NYC rap chances are you’ve heard Paul C‘s work. The producer and engineer had his life tragically cut short at the age of 24 in what remains an unsolved murder and one of the greatest losses in hip hop history. For those unaware of who he is let’s just say that without him the likes of Large Professor would perhaps never had made the impact that they did on the music.

Over the past 13 years, English documentary maker and hip hop activist Pritt Kalsi has been documenting the legacy left by Paul McKasty, speaking with the likes of Rakim, Ultramagnetic MCs’ Ced Gee, TR Love, Moe Luv, Pharaoh Monch and more. Originally intended as a chapter for his film The Men & Their Music, the story around Paul C grew such that Kalsi felt it worthy of its own film.

Just this week he released footage of the movie, in two parts, totalling around 50 mins. This is still a work in progress, due to various reasons, and Kalsi is hoping that by sharing the footage as it stands he might attract enough attention and interest to be able to finish the project. For all the changes the media industries have witnessed, independent documentary making such as this remains a notoriously difficult ground without financial help.

Watch part 1 | Watch part 2

Head over to Kalsi’s site for more information about the story behind the footage, and look out for a third part which should be online tomorrow. [via Ego Trip]

USgamer reports on Apple's iPhone personal assistant Siri's ability to identify Pokémon thanks to its Wolfram-Alpha connectivity.

when hack days meet standup comedy; also great: MyRealPuppy.com and Clickstrbait  

Woah, what have I wandered into here? What abyss was this toxic electronic semi-solid drawn from? Good lord above, nasty satan below please explain to me the nature of this viscous music, this industrial thudding, ambiently dense, pulsating techno thing that Ian Dominick Fernow’s HOSPITAL PRODUCTIONS was real enough to glop along my internet superhighway route.

Some mystery seems to surround the person(s) behind RAINFOREST SPIRITUAL ENSLAVEMENT and that is the only way it should be. I don’t want to look into any human’s eyes and truly believe that they made this music. I’d rather think about the bottom of that abyss and life flowing through the crud and of how the soundtrack to that life finding a host is this, is found here in this relentless and dank joining of the rhythmic and the ambient.

“Black Magic Originated In Nature” comes from a recent EP called FOLKLORE VENOM. A cassette companion release called THE PLANT WITH MANY FACES is also out now and is something we will hopefully talk about pretty soon. Has to be some of the coolest electronic sounds I’ve heard this year.

The post RAINFOREST SPIRITUAL ENSLAVEMENT “Black Magic Originated In Nature” appeared first on The Boston Hassle.

Barbara Kasten, Construct VI-B, 1981
Polacolor, 10” x 8”

Prince has invited us round again.

The pint-size pop hero held a gig at his Paisley Park mansion-slash-studio recently, and it went so well he’s doing it all over again this weekend. This time round, though, fans have been instructed to come in their bedclothes.

‘The Breakfast Experience Pajama Dance Party’ will see Prince performing with his band 3rdEyeGirl and partying from 2am “till the sun comes up”, according to the invitation. The concert is open to the public for a donation of $50, but fans are instructed to “dress 2 impress” and “keep it classy” when selecting their nightwear.

If you’re in Minneapolis, it’s an opportunity not to be missed – the party takes place this Saturday, October 19. In the meantime, if you’ve not already glimpsed its magnificence, check out the artwork for Prince’s new single, ‘Breakfast Can Wait’, and watch the accompanying video, featuring a female Prince impersonator in a fetching moustache. [via CoS]

Here’s the invitation:

Raise your hand if you never get pizza right when you make it at home — that the dough doesn’t rise in the time the recipe says it should or it’s impossible to roll out; or that you get it rolled out but once baked, it tastes less like a good pizza crust and more like a tough cracker. Or maybe the opposite happens, that it’s so thick and bready, it reminds you more of a bagel, and sadly, not in a good way. Raise your hand if it never resembles the stuff from you favorite wood-wired pizzeria, all bubbled and crisp but stretchy within, with charred spots throughout and slices that don’t flop like overcooked spaghetti once lifted, sauce and cheese sliding away from you just when you need them in your mouth the most.

Me, me, me, me, me. I suspect that all home cooks have a few demon dishes, things they make a million times and are never fully satisfied with, but are still so obsessed that they can never resist a new angle or tactic that promises to bring them closer to their ideal. However, they’re usually normal things, common plagues like roast chicken, perfect buttermilk biscuits or brownies. I realize that it’s entirely possible that you can’t believe I’m talking about pizza again. But I can’t help it. I’ve been cheating on every pizza recipe I’ve made before and I think you should do the same.

... Read the rest of lazy pizza dough + favorite margherita pizza on smittenkitchen.com

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© smitten kitchen 2006-2012. | permalink to lazy pizza dough + favorite margherita pizza | 481 comments to date | see more: Photo, Pizza

The Rollie Eggmaster is a “vertical grill”. What this means is that you crack an egg down into this thing and put a stick in the liquid egg, and then you pull it out and it’s an egg popsicle. Which doesn’t sound that delicious, but boy, when you look at that egg popsicle, it…

…hmm, okay.

Download "Sexual Re-assignment Surgery Blues" from Wot by Mike Donovan (2013)

A look at how top Pokémon competitive players expect Game Freak and Nintendo's new Pokémon X and Y Versions to affect pro-level play.

The first time we met ex-Popcap developer Edward Brown, he was showing us his first game as an independent dev, the excellent iOS Picross-style puzzler Paint it Back (which, by the way, is out later tonight).

Brown’s first job is done, and done well: the game itself great, as I and lots of other PTers (he let some of us have a go with advance copies of the game in the previous comments thread) have told him. But after years of development, the hardest work is still to come: selling the game. Making a great product isn’t enough in the shark tank of the App Store, as the developers of Outwitters can tell you.

Over at Gamasutra, Brown has posted a very frank piece discussing his struggles to arrive at a price point that will make money without alienating fans. We’ll find out pretty soon if he made the right call.

Owen Faraday
What would you pay for Paint it Back?
Pocket Tactics
Pocket Tactics -

Neneh Cherry might still be best known for 80s school disco classic ‘Buffalo Stance’, but she’s been plying a neat trade in leftfield pop ever since.

Her latest album is of particular interest, not least because she signed up one Mr. Keiran Hebden (aka Four Tet) to work on the production. It’s not the first time Hebden’s used his estimable production talents to help out artists in need, only recently he sprinkled magic dust on Omar Souleyman’s Wenu Wenu, and not so long ago he tangled with U.S. weirdos Sunburned Hand of the Man.

The album is also set to feature an appearance from alterna-pop pinup Robyn and frequent Four Tet collaborators RocketNumberNine, and it’s due for release on Smalltown Supersound in early 2014.

FACT came up with Four Tet’s ten best deep cuts you might have missed, you can check the whole list here.

Walter Dexel, Ohne Titel, 1969

Caught this band live with my own eyes and ears for the first time @ our New England Underground Music Fest from a few weeks back. Was blown away. I’d heard tunes from them before, and got them on the fest based upon that but man… what a live band! I would have to say that DOWNTOWN BOYS easily put on one of the most exhilarating sets at the NEUMF.

Hailing from Providence, and full of bi-lingual piss and vinegar and saxophones, they come off sounding like some genetic splicing of X-RAY SPEX and some ape shit hardcore killers of yore like CONVERSIONS, OLD SARUM, RAISE THE CURTAIN or the like. It’s more the energy and the shrieking of singer Victoria (she doesn’t just screech, but when she does she does it well) that brings to mind hardcore though, as the band never really hits the tempos associated with most of that genre. Victoria’s in between song rants on the ills of this society we all live in also take this to a political punk zone that one does not usually find paired with music as fun to listen to as DOWNTOWN BOYS’ music is.

This band’s self titled record is hardly new, but it’s new enough to me, and we haven’t written about before so let’s do it! Out of the 10 songs one finds on the record my favorite has to be “Car Boys”, a male and female vocal back and forth with a bouncy punk energy that I haven’t heard in a while. Bringing saxes into the punk rock mix is a dangerous move, but the dual sax attack employed by DB really adds to the overall, making this stew of high energy punk rock, and wild woman singer all the more interesting. Vocals pass from Victoria to guitarist Joey and then onto full band shouts seamlessly as the rhythm section charges on and the saxes play it cool. And that’s every song, but it never gets boring because the approach is continuously switched up, and the arrangements are pretty weird. This band and its music feels like a rolling ball of energy and fury, set to go off the rails at any moment, but somehow, someway it continues to barrel ahead smashing into your brain and spreading it’s infectious energy and enthusiasm throughout your body, shooting it right on out of the tips of your fingers and toes. Double bill of DOWNTOWN BOYS and FUNERAL CONE anyone?!

The post DOWNTOWN BOYS – s/t appeared first on The Boston Hassle.

I have to admit, I walk by the displays of brightly colored and oddly shaped winter squash in the grocery store and just assume that most people use them for decoration. Well, here’s one good reason to eat them!

Do you remember those nom-a-licious Glazed Pork Chops from a long time ago? It hit me the other day that the same spice rub that I used for the chops would probably be pretty awesome on winter squash. I was right. This recipe is SO easy, but SO tasty. Get the squash started before you begin making the rest of your meal and you’ve got a delicious and elegant side dish ready to come out of the oven when the rest of your food is done.  I think they’d be really good to serve alongside Maple Dijon Chicken or even Baked Barley with Mushrooms for a vegetarian meal.

You can use pretty much any type of winter squash for this recipe. I used a little variety that looked something like a cross between an acorn squash and a pumpkin, called a Golden Nugget. Ha! Anyone else amused by that name? Anyway, you can use acorn, buttercup, butternut, pumpkin, turban, or whatever. They’re all good and they’re all good for you. You can’t go wrong.

Spice Rubbed Roasted Squash

 

 

Step by Step Photos

I used these cute Golden Nugget squash. They are a bit stringier than acorn squash, but they still have a fantastic flavor. I bought two, not realizing how much they would make. Each serving for this recipe is 1/4 of a squash, which ended up being quite a bit. This is 2.5 lbs of squash. Begin by preheating the oven to 400 degrees.

Remove the stems, then cut them in half. Use a spoon to scoop out the seeds and stringy flesh, then cut each half in half once more so that each squash is now in four pieces. Place the squash in a casserole dish in a single layer with cut sides up.

Combine the brown sugar, cayenne pepper, garlic powder, smoked paprika, freshly cracked black pepper, and salt in a bowl.

Stir in the oil (this will help keep the squash from drying out) and just enough water to make a spreadable paste (1-2 Tbsp).

Spread the spice paste over all of the cut surface of the squash (don’t rub it on the skin side). Place the squash in the preheated oven and let it roast for 45 minutes to one hour, or until…

Until the edges are golden brown and the squash is soft and easily pierced with a fork. Yummm.

I added a little parsley for color contrast, but it was purely for the benefit of the photo (orange & green are complimentary colors don’t you know).  The squash is unstoppable even without the parsley’s help!

 

The post Spice Rubbed Roasted Squash appeared first on Budget Bytes.

Today Jane asked, as we walked toward the park to meet up with her friend from school, "When will all the people go?"

"What, our friends who are coming for dinner later?"

"No! ALL the people."

"All what people?"

"ALL the people!! When will they GO?"

"Go?"

"Yes, like before there were any people at all. When will they go?"

Oh. You mean the extermination of the human race. Of course. How silly of me.

"Well, no one knows, but probably not for a long time."

"Why not?"

"Well, there are a lot of people."

"They could get eaten by sharks."