Since I posted this cover of my 1999 m:lls CD compilation on Flickr, I’ve had some requests, so I’ve posted the 2-CD set to Megaupload. Feel free to download the mix and check out some still pretty good tunes from nine years ago. (148 mins in total, 31 tracks, 160kbps.)
Track list is here:
Month: May 2008
I made Fleshbot, and I didn’t have to get naked
I know, *phew*, right? Anyway, I don’t usually blog the porny stuff, so when I found this very WTF (and NSFW) video on YouTube…and then found 18 of the same thing, I sent in a tip to Fleshbot.com. And waddya know, they ran with it. First, BoingBoing, then the New York Times, and now Fleshbot, the number one adult blog on the web. I’m everywhere, folks. Excerpt:
A very confused tipster writes to us asking for an explanation of the following YouTube video. It starts off innocently enough, with footage of a random girl-on-girl makeout session: nothing confusing there, but then things take an abrupt turn when the show is interrupted by footage from late-70s schmaltzfest “Eight Is Enough.” Then it’s back to the lesbian makeout, accompanied by some adult contemporary/soft rock background music. Then you see the opening credits for CSI: NY. Then back to some more Dick Van Patten, then it abruptly ends. In other words, it’s a big heaping spoonful of WTF?
When the boss isn’t looking, click through to the link to see the clips. You know you want to, especially with that hot Van Patten action going down.
3 Cities: 3 Choreographers
I went to Center Stage Theater to review the dance recital “3 Cities: 3 Choreographers” and encountered the choreography of S.B.’s Misa Kelly for I think the first time. What’s even cooler (in lieu of my review that I am still writing as on this post) is that a lot of the work is online. Used to be that dance was impossible to see outside the live experience, but YouTube changed that.
Gypsy Dreams by Misa Kelly. Erika Kloumann danced this tonight instead of Shari Brookler in the video. Same idea though. Music by Iva Bittova.
Nadar Sabe Mi Llama el Agua Fría (Part One)
Nadar Sabe Mi Llama el Agua Fría (Part Two)
This was danced by Kaita Lepore this evening. I don’t know who that is in the vid, but it may be her.
Le Jardin Rouge by Misa Kelly. Anaya Cullen danced tonight instead of Gwenna Devries.
I couldn’t find any vids by choreographer Kerstin Stuart, tho’ I’d love to see her dance with Ana Flecha set to Massive Attack’s Teardrop, which was brilliant. However, I did find the above rehearsal vid of Louie Cornejo’s Weathering. But its’ very hard to see what’s going on and it’s not very representation of the finished piece.
Kelly’s work is great, though. My job is writing about dance…not always the easiest of things.
You gotta have Seoul!
In 1995, I went to Seoul, Korea, with this new friend I’d met in Japan called Jonathan Crow and another English teacher called Katy. The full photoset of all five days (well, three main days) is now up on Flickr for your perusal.
Colin Hay live at SOhO, 05.22.08
Men at Work was the first concert I saw back when I was a wee lad. Tonight at SOhO I got to see Colin Hay play solo and I got a photo with him at the end. Cool! In this setting he’s very funny and tells a lot of amusing anecdotes. For a sample of what that sounds like, check out this mp3 of a TV interview with him on Andrew Denton’s Enough Rope show from ABC Australia.
Set List:
Going Somewhere
What Would Bob Do?
Who Can It Be Now
Melbourne Song
Conversation
Norwegian Wood
Get Over You
Maggie
Death Row Conversation
Beautiful World
Looking for Jack
Down Under
Overkill (yes! my favorite!)
Are You Looking at Me?
Waiting for My Real Life to Begin
Only 15 songs, but understand that with all the storytelling, this was a two hour plus concert. If you get a chance to see him play in this kind of setting, I highly recommend it, even if you’re not much of a Men at Work fan.
Santa Barbara makes CNN news with Cat, Dog, and Rat guy
This guy on State Street has trained a rat, and cat, and a dog to sit on top of each other, in that order (well, the dog stands on the ground, but you get the point.) And now CNN has the video. It’s good that we’re known for something other than unaffordable rents.
It’s not porn
Porn photos hastily Photoshopped to not be porn. Some of the choices are hilarious.
By way of Fleshbot.
What a Day That Was
Time for some music. This here’s the version of “What a Day That Was” from the Talking Heads’ “Stop Making Sense” movie. Bela Lugosi lighting, powerful performances, transcendent. Everybody in the band is in top form and the group funks out as one big unit. I especially like the sideways glance Tina Weymouth gives somebody (David Byrne?) at 2:25.
Searching for that easy-to-find/rent/buy video, I came across a rarity: the Heads performing “My Big Hands Fall Thru the Cracks” from a 1982 UK doc. I saw this once on UK TV in 1984 and never saw it again. I thought I knew all their songs and I couldn’t find a studio version. Turns out both this and “What a Day…” are from the Catherine Wheel Soundtrack. Goddamn if this isn’t a beauty of a version.
Here’s another version of the song attached to somebody’s homemade Kenneth Anger-esque experimental movie. The song is from the 1982 Montreaux Jazz Festival. Feel that funky bass!
Will Elder dead at 86
Will, or “Wild Bill” Elder died today, so I feel I must note this, as he was one of my main inspirations for drawing comics and, along with the Pythons, informed my sense of humor when I was growing up. His work for the early Kurtzman issues of Mad blew my mind when I read them at 8 or 9 years old (the reprints would come in Mad’s “Super Specials” that I could find at the supermarket, as well as some of the trade paperbacks). Unlike Wood or Davis (or Kurtzman, when he drew), Elder gave you the biggest bang for your buck, filling in every nook and cranny with visual gags, word play, running jokes, and none of it beholden to physics or linear narrative. More than any other comics that I was reading, this was art that you had to go back and study. For the uninitiated, check out this reprint of Dragged Net, a parody of the TV show Dragnet. It’s chock-a-block with goodness, and shows the difference of the early Mad parodies (all written by Harvey Kurtzman) compared to the flat and dull ones that they’ve done since.
After Mad, Elder’s main art was devoted to Little Annie Fanny, that ran in Playboy from 1962 to 1988. I wasn’t a fan so much of these, despite how dearly I love breasts. The panels are not as crazy, and the jokes–obviously because of its subject matter and its venue–are mostly sexual based. But I have to admit, look at the beautiful work in the above splash panel. Elder didn’t work in such painterly color in Mad, and his use of a weird perspective, distortion, color, and weight (Annie’s voluptuousness changes in the gravity of the water) are masterful for the medium.
You can look at my own (very few) comics and see where I’ve stolen from him, sometimes blatantly. So rest in peace, Mr. Elder.
UPDATE 05.16.08: Fantagraphics have posted a link to a once-banned (copyright infringement) Kurtzman/Elder parody of Archie/Playboy that appeared in Humbug, post-Mad.
Holy Freakin’ Shite!! Byrne/Eno reunion
[Spit take of my morning coffee]Whaaaaaaaaa????
Yes, David Byrne and Brian Eno are making music together, and an album is set for the end of the year. Ooooooh!
Speaking at an event in New York, Byrne revealed that the duo had rekindled the relationship they formed in the late 70s/early 80s which resulted in three Talking Heads records and 1981’s classic My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
“I’m finishing up a record with Brian Eno, a musician that I worked with 30 years ago,” Byrne said following an appearance with Paul Simon at the Brooklyn Academy of Music on the 9th of April. “We did a record together of songs, and that’ll come out.”
I have to say I was very disappointed with the last batch of songs from Eno, Another Day on Earth, so even though I must now clean the coffee off my keyboard, I will be cautiously approaching this release.