“Minute By Minute” – Girl Talk (download here)
from NIght Ripper (2006)
released by Illegal Art (buy)
“Naomi” – Neutral Milk Hoel (remix by Joe Beats) (download here)
from the Joe Beats Experiment Presents Indie Rock Blues (2005)
released by Arbeid
(files expire December 4th)
I’m certainly fascinated by the increasingly frequent crossings of hip-hop and indie rock, and what each brings out in each other. Neutral Milk Hotel even turns up in a few places, including Joe Beats’ complete remix of On Avery Island‘s “Naomi,” and a sampled “2-1-2-3-4” count-off from “Holland, 1945,” dropped in the middle of Girl Talk’s “Minute By Minute” (from the super-fun super-mash-up Night Ripper).
It’s nice that indie rock has been effectively pulled into the conversation, but it does make me wonder about the value of all these mash-ups. Girl Talk is a blast, an endless parade of pleasing hooks, but I’m still not sure how far it extends past novelty. Can a mash-up ever get to the point where I need to hear it, like I need to hear, say, “Two-Headed Boy”?
Though I react more instinctively to Girl Talk, I think I like Joe Beats’ approach a little better. His version of “Naomi” sounds like a complete song, the new beat somehow natural. It is something I could get into, beyond the initial shock of the new context. I’m not sure where the conversation is headed, but it’s most entertaining.
Have a yummy one.
See you Monday.
(Don’t even know if this is possible. If you or someone you know can possibly code this, do drop a comment below.)
Idea for art: an mp3 that changes itself with each copy. That is: a computer-generated piece of music that contains a mechanism/algorithm to alter its contents whenever somebody drags it somewhere. No two listeners would end up with the same song..
“Wizard’s Sleeve” – Yo La Tengo (download here)
from Shortbus OST (2006)
released by Team Love (buy)
(file expires November 28th)
The second post-Beat Your Ass b-side is from the soundtrack to John Cameron Mitchell’s Shortbus, and is really quite groovy: two minutes of sweetly wordless space age exotica that sound like they could’ve been crate-dug on some Numero release, possibly French. There are faint strings, but mostly just atmosphere and a nearby ocean (and likely a view from a stucco balcony).
Haven’t seen the movie yet, so maybe there’s some context there, but the title seems a conceptual sequel to the ironic anti-shock of Beat Your Ass and its contents. Or perhaps they’re just incidentally meme surfing: I think Borat uses the phrase to describe his wife.
“Alice’s Restaurant” – Arlo Guthrie (download here)
from Alice’s Restaurant (1967)
released by Warner Reprise Records (buy)
(file expires November 27th)
On one hand, the film adaptation of Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant,” directed by Arthur Penn, can be written off as a period piece. Starring a ridiculously young-looking 22-year old Arlo, there are confrontations between rednecks and longhairs, a dude playing Woody Guthrie in his deepest sickness, and a gaggle of super-stereotyped hippies.
On the other hand, though, it also shows remarkable foresight. Released in 1969, the same week as Woodstock, it is also brutal. There are overdoses, spotty runaway groupies, and domestic abusers. There is, in short, a complete collapse of the ’60s idealism that wouldn’t crumble on itself — at least in the fashionable terms of mainstream perception — for quite some time.
The story of the Alice’s Restaurant Thanksgiving Day Masacree — presumably what earned Guthrie the right to make a movie of it — takes up only a small chunk near the end. It’s great, for sure — it’s even got the real officer Obie as himself! — but it’s also quite striking how the song and the film hit totally different tones.
Anyway, it’s Thanksgiving week, and I figured people’d be searching for Alice. Here, once again, is the shitty-ass mp3 I downloaded in college. Enjoy.
The fifth in an ongoing collection of functional webpages and dork tools (excluding any/all Google programs).
o Lulu.com — Print books, hardcover or softcover, color or otherwise, with no minimum order. Quick turnaround, too. (Thx, MVB.)
o Zaba.com — People search. Remember when there was just, like, a phonebook? (Kaw!)
o DownThemAll — Download all the links on a page with this Firefox extension.
o ZipCar — The other night, I watched a friend arrange a ZipCar so he could pick up his cousin at the airport. Bloody amazing.
o Hype Machine — Besides aggregating the latest leaks, the search function is also an easy way to keep up with b-sides, radio sessions, and the like. If only it didn’t buffer so often.
(Short fiction, shorter increments.)
Looper in the Dark: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
The broken machine’s canister was deployed, Looper noticed. He followed the source of the sound. Kneeling, he saw a canvas belt that had stopped. A loose spring had sprung, and caught in its motion. A heavy rubber stopped caused the spring to vibrate against the cogs with a precise, metallic rattle. Looper glanced at an adjacent machine. There, the canvas belt moved slowly.
Looper pushed the rubber stopper back into place, freeing the gears. The belt began to turn again. Within seconds, the whole room evened into silent harmony. Stepping back, Looper noticed a pattern on the floor that reminded him of the tile fountain in the plaza near the factory. He left the flashlight in the secretary’s window and walked home. The snow fell through the buildings’ massive spotlights, which shot upwards and illuminated the top floors.
At home, he sat still. Soon, he found himself drifting in the perfect quiet he had long known. There, the apartment was all at once. It could bend in the dark, yes, but only in ways Looper knew: his wife drinking tea in the corner, the warmth he knew would await him when he returned from his cousins’. It could be any of these, at any time, and Looper listened. Around the city, the offness had lifted, Looper knew. It was gone. [END]
(Short fiction, shorter increments.)
Looper in the Dark: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
Looper lost count of the floors. They bore no correlation to the windows. He reached the top of the stairs. There, he found a space that opened across the span of the entire building. The streetlamp outside cast a familiar, buttery glow on the rows of machines. Looper turned off the flashlight.
Strolling cautiously down the aisle, he felt their humming. Their arrangement was methodical, if irregular. Looper felt as if he were in a garden. Each machine, he saw, had a glass tube emerging from it. The tubes shot straight out, before turning 90 degrees, and disappearing into the floor. Each tube had a copper canister at its bottom.
Near the room’s center, there was a plain metal desk. Next to the desk, there was a large open area. And, next to the open area, there was a machine that did not hum as the others did. Looper approached it. The machine cried quietly, wounded. Looper could hear a whirr coming from its back.
(Short fiction, shorter increments.)
Looper in the Dark: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
The factory was again unlocked. The lights were off, but the entry was no less inviting. Looper could not see the olive green walls in the dark, but he could feel them. A large black flashlight sat in the secretary’s window, like fresh linens for a houseguest.
The upper floors were like catacombs, Looper found. They did not conform to the blueprints Mr. Brown had shown him. On the fourth, Looper branched off from the main hallway. He passed through a series of telescoping rooms, one after another. The beam was strong. In some, there were cabinets. In others, there were shelves. Jars of screws and electrical parts filled them.
On another floor, Looper saw the machines Mr. Brown had described. They were under canvas, mostly. He imagined stuffed animals, dead fur matted, concealed beneath them. He let the light linger on one machine, tracing its shape. He could not get a sense of its whole. Looper sniffed at the air for dust.
(Short fiction, shorter increments.)
Looper in the Dark: no. 1, no. 2, no. 3, no. 4, no. 5, no. 6, no. 7, no. 8, no. 9, no. 10, no. 11, no. 12
Christmas fell on a Tuesday that year, so the city closed its offices the Friday previous. As usual, Looper would go to his cousins’ home east of the city for dinner. He did not see them often. This year, he looked forward to the three-hour train ride more than he had since his wife died.
The final straw came on Saturday night, however. Looper had called the cousins to remind him he was coming. He opened the window to admit cold air into the room to mingle with the radiator’s pleasant humidity. Instead, the offness filled his apartment, and he felt as if at the bottom of the ocean.
Looper had the sense to bundle up before he walked onto the street. He did not rush. It was late. The city was silent. He needed to surface. Looper again walked west on 79th Avenue. Soon, he would reach the plaza. And, on the other side of the plaza, he would emerge into the normal. It was only when he got there that he remembered how close he was to the factory.
