Telefon Tel Aviv >> Sometimes things just have a way of making themselves clear

Note: I originally posted this on May 10th, but it somehow got wiped out during the sitewide collapse that Blogspot had last night.  So here it is again, though I had to rewrite lots of it based on an earlier draft.

•••• Telefon Tel Aviv - "My Week Beats Your Year" ø ø ø ø

•••• (Hefty Records, 2004) ø ø ø ø

This song is really def in many ways, to say nothing of the fact that the beat is so bangin' that it literally should be used to test out the stereo systems of new cars.  First, the title, which sounds like it might be a taunt lifted from a bumper sticker, a Muhammad Ali press conference, or a tween t-shirt design.  Well, it's actually the last line of Lou Reed's liner notes to his infamous ambient noize room-clearer Metal Machine Music!  Definitely one of the coolest phrases ever, period.  I've used it as an AOL away message for many years.  For an example of the cool little sonic details that TTA employed, check out the "helicopter chopping" effect on the drums at the 2:38 mark.

I saw Telefon Tel Aviv at the highly anticipated CD-release show for this album, Map Of What Is Effortless, in March '04 at the State Palace Theater (R.I.P.) in New Orleans.  I guess TTA had already relocated from New Orleans to Chicago (much like a lot of NOLA's jazz superstars did decades earlier), but I could be mistaken.  I don't know if they played this song, which really annoys me, because one of my deals with going to concerts is to make myself vividly remember a band's performance of its best song.  Local newsweekly Gambit or Lagniappe did a long article on how TTA had been practicing really hard to perfect their new, "full band" sound, replete with female backup singers, and (I think) a live drummer; I have the article somewhere.  One of the opening acts at this show was a completely unknown local electronic drone duo called Belong, doing one of their first shows ever, or maybe even their first.  They shot to baffling internet hipster fame a few years later when their mediocre debut album came out.  For some reason they have refused to play here ever since this show, if I'm not mistaken.  Weird.  Another opener was excellently-named local dude The Madd Wikkid.  (I also saw Josh Eustis of TTA do an Aphex Twin-ish solo set under the name Benelli the previous month, opening for Texas dub/post-rockers Echo Base Soundsystem.  He used only an Apple laptop for this performance, and I recall that he literally never said anything or even looked up at the crowd.)

It is likely that my week, this particular week in March 2004, actually did beat your year, at least based on all the concerts I saw and the cool critters I added to the 90-gallon reef tank I just gotten.  Anyway, the vocals on this song are done by Lindsay Anderson of TTA's Hefty labelmates L'Altra.  I had been wondering this for 7 years, actually, and, in a way, I kind of preferred not knowing.  I liked thinking it was some random stoned teenager they recorded rambling after an all-night rave or something.  This song was released on 12" single and on promo CD-R, both of which featured the album version and an extended remix, plus the beautiful b-side "I Lied."  If anyone can send me the extended version, I would really love to post it on here.

Planets with similar climates: Dirty Vegas - "Days Go By" (2001), Fluke - "Atom Bomb" (1996), School Of Seven Bells - "Dust Devil" (2010), Moloko - "Day For Night" (1995), Pet Shop Boys - "Two Divided By Zero" (1985), Suzanne Vega & DNA - "Tom's Diner" (1987/90), Suzanne Vega - "Blood Makes Noise" (1992), Scala - "Naked" (1995), Lamb - "Cotton Wool" (1996), Monie Love - "Monie In The Middle" (1990).

Observe Fluke's incredible "Atom Bomb" video, which was made 15 years

ago but has better visual effects than most of today's Hollywood movies.

Brujeria >> I have to have... You don't understand

Brujeria - "Don Quixote Marijuana"

(Koolarrow Records, 1999)

Tijuana-based Brujeria had a shadowy membership, and I don't want to sit here and ruin it by listing which members of famous U.S. bands were (said to be) in this band, since it's more fun to believe the supposed backstory... And what if the backstory is actually true?  Koolarrow Records was run by Faith No More bassist Billy Gould, hint hint.  Brujería (with the little accent over the "i") apparently means witchcraft in Spanish, but this band's name lacks the accent for some reason.  This is a bafflingly out-there reinterpretation of their 1997 song "Marijuana," which was a spoof of Los del Rio's "Macarena."  Yup.  But normally they were a death metal band.  This song is from a compilation of Mexican rock/metal bands called Spanglish 101.  The movie Spanglish is one of the worst in cinematic history.  I haven't smoked weed since April '98, for what it's worth... I think it was the night I saw the band Low, but it might've been the following weekend.  I'm not against smoking up, or those who do it, but it just doesn't do much for me.

Note: The next song in my iTunes after this one is "Run To You" by Bryan Adams.  Hate if you want.  After that is "Summer" by Buffalo Tom, two by Burnversion, two by The Byrds, three by Cabaret Voltaire, "Worlds Apart" by Cactus World News, "Quattro (World Drifts In)" by Calexico, "Acceptable In The '80s" by Calvin Harris," "Luchini (This Is It)" by Camp Lo, about 20 by CAN, "Subplot" by Capital Eye, 6 by The Cardigans...  Before this song, working backwards, is two by Bruce McCulloch (of Kids In The Hall), "Nr. 7" by Brötzmann / Van Hove / Bennink, the album When In Vanitas... (incl. "Neither Yield Nor Reap") by Brise-Glace, 10 by Bright Channel, "Monster In A Wheelchair" by Brian Huskey, "By This River" by Brian Eno & Cluster, then a bunch of solo Eno.  I'm referring to my previous computer, a 2002 iMac, which has 4331 songs; my current computer, an '09 MacBook, has only 1355 so far.  I use the old one pretty much just as a storage depot for music and other stuff.  I use the same beach-themed screensaver on both of them.  It's so hypnotic that I sometimes just sit there for a while and let my eyes glaze over, and it's especially trippy to have it running on two adjacent computers.  I should take a video of that.


On a more serious note, please read the article about Dick and Rick Hoyt called The Wheels Of Life in the current (4/18/11) issue of Sports Illustrated.  I don't think I've ever been this blown away and humbled by a fellow human's devotion to his child.  Just read the first page and I dare you to not read the rest.  It's better if you read it in the actual magazine, so you can see all the photos of the father and son in races over the years.  Here is a video piece about them, and here is a shorter one set to a great song by Sigur Ros.


If you don't know how long an Ironman triathlon is, go look it up.

I know all these links make this post look cluttered and unprofessional, but I couldn't imagine culling any of them, sorry.  Can someone tell me how to make them open in a new window?

Planets with similar climates: Soundgarden - "Fopp" (Ohio Players cover) (1988), Mr. Bungle - "My Ass Is On Fire" (1991), Milk Cult feat. Mike Patton - "Psychoanalytwist" (1994), Whale - "Hobo Humpin' Slobo Babe" (1993), Negativland - "Car Bomb" (1987), Sonic Youth - "Master-Dik" (1987), Chrome - "Electric Chair" (1980).


Currently eating: Häagen-Dasz* Bananas Foster (limited edition) ice cream; Best Choice sweet peas (twice as big as any other peas I've been able to find); Campbell's Cream Of Celery soup; Winn-Dixie (Southern style, a.k.a. sweet, and with wheat flour as its first ingredient) cornbread; International Collection blood orange-flavored olive oil; Bolthouse Farms Amazing Mango smoothie.  Yeah, I have a fast metabolism.  *"Häagen-Dasz" is a completely made-up phrase which has no basis in any actual language; it was just invented by marketers to sound highbrow/pretentious.  For example, having an s followed by a z is not allowable in any known language.