ShortWaveRockin

Sometimes when I’m band hunting, I’ll have a few myspace pages up and I toggle their off/ on buttons along with starting/stopping my music player playing the album I’m currently hooked on. Lately: Pink Flag, Repeater, anything and always Love, and the new old classic Death- For The Whole World To See. I have to listen to music all the time because I’ve developed a condition where lack of noise causes my ears to ring and the ringing builds so much I get a headache. My head’s like an amp with a superfuzzedbigmuffed guitar standing up against it building noise. I’m afraid if I don’t block it out, my head will blow up.

So there it is. I tire of music very easily and so I listen to a lot of new bands, and also, its my job as an intern to find/listen to/go see/dissect new bands and write about them. its a sad, but sadly one of the only, ways in. And I want to be in. So I’ve started listening to Nouns by No Age which came out last year. They are 2 guys from, not LA anymore, Brooklyn. They came here because of: a. the scene b. the snow c. they are stupid or d. to get closer to their obvious GOD Thurston Moore. I hope it’s to infiltrate and tear down a., which would mean they have to be the opposite of c. and this can be done in any weather, so back off b. (d was added afterwards when I realized I’m writing about a NYC noise rock band and didn’t mention anything SONIC YOUTH)

Needless to say, with all these myspace pages playing their hearts out, as well as my own music playing from the computer, sometimes two bands play at once and sometimes I don’t even notice for a while. Sometimes, it sounds good, and I’ll think, WOW! listening to this band must have been what it was like first listening to Captain Beefheart, though its never very very good, only good because its weird. So when I figure out its 2 bands and not 1 and both bands suck even more individually.

This is not the case with No Age. While listening to Nouns recently, I have THREE TIMES pressed the pause button on the record just to make sure all the music coming out of the computer is them.  There’s a lot going on and my brain cant get it all…so I press stop and all the sound stops. they sound like 2 bands at once, or more importantly, they make more noise with 2 guys than any 2 man band that doesn’t start with lightning and ending in bolt. So the first thing I thought was, overdubbing? I watched a couple videos and, even though they probably do overdub for their record, they can still make a lot of noise for 2 guys, or, gods, or better yet, noise gods. Yes, they have a lot of help from a lot of pedals, see above, but at least the input energy seems about equal to the output energy. And behind it all, the songs are good. They’d probably all still be good on acoustic guitars, though, for my condition, I like the fuzz.

I think that I am exhausted but I do not think that I am awake

Fugazi means Fucked Up, Got Ambushed, Zipped In. Nam slang is what Wikipedia says. Says its a backronym, meaning it was a word and then the letter by letter labels were applied to it. Its not like SCUBA or FEMA, more like GOD standing for Gentle Obese Dentist. Well, Wikipedia wasn’t alive when this video was filmed, so lets get off that tangent. This video I found in the torrent world, which I have learned is very different than the blogworld. The two don’t really hang out that much. They should, though, because together they could bring down empires, or more exactly, the music empire that just got stronger today with the merger of Live Nation and TicketMaster. The new entitty is to be called the Fourth Reich. The THUMB. Or, less evil: Your Muzic God.
I am a purist and I think the music is GOD no matter how hard industries and commercials and un-creative owners try to take it and stow it away into nice neat little piles. The Music is God, but there are demigods and false gods and some that are as hallow as the wooden cross or the totem or tiki. In a sense Fugazi is a step-god, because it is the child of a long line of other bands, most immediately Minor Threat. In another sense, Fugazi is a titan, and all the little gods are those fuckers up in Seattle, and those 90s alterna-punk sing my emotions out bands…resulting in emo? possibly? but i’d never call them gods, they are more like sheep.

Let’s see where was I? Right…Fugazi playing the 3rd consecutive May 20th at 924 Gilman Street way over the left coast in 1990. I have been listening to the last 2 songs over and over now for a few days: “Song Number One” and “Blueprint.” Guy goes completely nuts at the end of #1, barely able to spit out sounds. Its great to see a band that can go so crazy and still play great music. Its intricate. Intricate noise. The guitars and his vocal chords make crazy sounds. When “Blueprint” comes on its hilarious to see the kids try to mosh, but its a slow slow beginning so they are just slowly bumping into each other like a pack of drunks, tho they are probably not drunk, its a Fugazi show, dammit!

Never mind what’s been selling
It’s what you’re buying

These final moments of the video are perfect for my above rant on money and music. Things should be done the Fugazi way. A Band’s economics should be modeled after Ian’s way of doing things. He’s militant in ways, but he’s in complete control of the $$ of his music. I see a war starting. A war between the LiveNationTicketmaster way and the other way. I hope the other way can survive…

Fugazi-Live May 20, 1990 at 924 Gilman Street. 35:49.

Thank you to whoever put this out there and added that nice title in the beginning.

I’ve never had a ghost follow me onto a train nor have I ever seen one on a train. There have been late nights riding the PATH train back into NYC that I feel as if the car is haunted because of the flickering lights that would completely shut off as the train comes to a halt for no apparent reason somewhere between New Jersey and New York underwater.

I’ve imagined myself on the 1 Subway Train platform at 238th street watching an infinite train,  which I stare inside of to see myself sitting and staring back and as the train moves I am in the same seat in each car, always staring back at myself on the platform as the train speeds up to the point that I no longer notice the train cars passing between and it is as though I am just sitting in a train car looking at myself looking at myself.

After a recent snow fall I returned home from work to a white driveway and steps that had to be dealt with. My dad and I grabbed shovels and attacked. It was about 8:30 at this point and after much of the shoveling had finished I wanted to clean off the steps leading up to the front door so the mailman/woman wouldn’t be pissed off the next day and refuse to deliver our mail again. My dad joined and while cleaning off the stairs I happened to look back to our drive way. There was a figure, gray, opaque, wavy, dreary and tall, staring back at me. I tried to let my eyes focus out of curiosity of an unknown figure but the specter was just as I saw it. A gray face with shadows for its eye sockets, nose, and mouth. Its body was mostly shadow but with gray outlines that described some sort of covering. I couldn’t see its legs and I’m not sure if it had any. It appeared to be floating in its place but its whole bottom half was covered by a flower garden. Isn’t that just the perfect placement? My eyes were on the possible creature for no more than three seconds before my head told me to quit dilly dallying and get back to shoveling. As I turned my head back and saw a pure white blanket I realized how stupid it was to look away from whatever it was that was looking at me. As I turned back the entity was gone. Maybe it was just my eyes playing tricks on me but I have had far too many ghost encounters recently. Maybe it’s my mind finally deciding that it’s going off on it’s own. I don’t really mind it but I don’t know how the rest of the world feels.

In honor of my recent super natural encounters I decided to download the F.E.A.R. 2 demo on X-Box Live. If you haven’t played the first game, you are a member of an assault squad with time slowing abilities who is stuck inside of a Japanese horror movie with plenty of no face / no name bad guys running around with some of the most intelligent AI I have seen in a game. And F.E.A.R. 2 is no different: same squad, same power, same little dead girl haunting you whenever you turn your head. You never know what is going to happen to you next in this demo: as you walk down a seemingly safe hall (that’s always how it starts right?) the screen / your vision begins flashing to a different scene in the same room. The room is now covered in blood and entrails plus there are ghosts coming after you. Continue on the path long enough and you will exit the room and the vision to surprisingly be jumped by a few of the high AI baddies that the game is known for. This sort of continues and I would imagine it’s more of the same throughout the game. The visuals are stunning, from the city torn apart to the explosion of blood when you blow off an enemy’s head at close range with a shot gun in slow mo, I didn’t expect my screen to handle the game as well as it did but that is just a testament to the amount of work that went into the art design of the game (or maybe my screen isn’t as terrible as I thought it was and I don’t need to upgrade yet…).

I think that part of the reason you don’t know what’s going to happen next in the demo is because it is not one fluid level, or at least that is what I heard on (I think) Listen Up! recently. The developers strung together a bunch of different levels by blocking off certain ways to go and creating a path that just seem like the level was built that way. I hope that’s right because if this is just the first level I don’t know how they will top it. Walking through a desolated town, killing ghosts, killing evil soldiers, jumping in and out of a horror movie at a moments notice all to culminate at the end by jumping into a mech suit and destroying the fuck out of everything around you. Eat a dick RE5.

That’s right. The Cramps are dead. Chalk ‘em up on the board.

I only started listening to the Cramps a few years ago and Songs the Lord Taught us is still one of my most frequented albums…which judging by the most times I’ve played an album in the last 3 years, would make it in my top 10.  My favorite part of the Cramps are the songs they cover. They do some of the best covers of any band and they do a lot of them. If you haven’t already tracked it down- get the 3 disc box set called Songs the Cramps Taught Us. It’s a compilation of every known song the Cramps covered with everyone from Slim Harpo to Beefheart to the Sonics. They introduced me to a few bands and early 60s rocknrollas.

Here’s a bootleg I got a while ago from someone in the blog universe, but I tried 2 links and they were both dead, my apologies if this was your original posting.

The Cramps Totally Destroy Seattle

They cover “Sometimes Good Girls Don’t Wear White” and add this line: “Sometimes good guys wear Ramones t-shirts…They can wear anything.”

http://www.sendspace.com/file/0o2ihp

Wait, wait, no! I’m still alive and well. I know my last post was almost a month ago, on January 12th, oddly enough the same day I started interning for the New York Press. What a fuckin’ sell out, right? I wanted to write a post callee RIP Adam because Tigs said he was going to and I want to steal his thunder. I was also going to write a Skate or Die 2 review and get it in before his, but I was too busy blogging about ticketmaster or other such nonsense I love. Screw this writing thing.

I feel like pictures. Let’s take a look at what I’ve been up to and listening to recently in pictures:

After watching Instrument with Mike I’ve been listening to and playing guitar a lot like FUGAZI. I also have been experimenting trying to write like Fugazi plays music. All attempts thus far have failed.

Internship begins

Discover Maui Tacos: GREATEST PLACE ON THE PLANET

Start listening to Wire’s Pink Flag and have listened every day for the last 10 days

Outer body experience with Evelyn at the Bodega for Cerebral Ballzy (combination of too many free Colt 45s and insanely awesome show)

Try to steal Cerebral Ballzy’s bass drum. Fail.

Discover Death, the greatest band that no one has ever heard about. How did we miss this? A band from Detroit from 1974. Drag City is re-releasing (but kinda first time releasing since the first run was self released 500 copies) in two weeks. A hidden gold mine! Easily the best release of the first 1/6 of the year. (I won’t get all pitchforky on you and name a best album of the year already…fucking animal collective)

That’s about it. Some failures and some successes. Overall, a damn cold month.

Only advice I have to give is listen to Death.

Death is awesome.

Adam

more of mike’s pictures here

This is a long one, sorry.

I haven’t played a sports game in a long time. I used to pick them up occasionally: Madden one year, NCAA Football the next, sometimes NHL… maybe play it for a day or so and then move on to the next game. Replayability was never about difficulty for me, not to say that all sports games boil down to AI…but that is kind of the way I see it. It’s playing the computer while you have to rely on the other members of your team, which are being controlled by the SAME computer! Well I just don’t trust it. Maybe I suck at (sports) games, but it is also possible that my offensive line is taking it easy on the defensive line because at the end of the day I’m not a part of their virtual world. Those bastards plot against me all the time. I didn’t write the code for the AI of my team therefore I cannot trust it. Right Ken? This is my problem with any NPC co-op segment in a game. But there is a special place in my gaming heart for the Tony Hawk and SSX series. Me vs. the virtual world! To conquer the mountain or the streets!  Where I can pull off moves that I, nay no one! could ever pull off in reality. Better than all of the other computer players. Did I say other? I mean…

Never having played Skate1 before the controls took me a while to adjust to. If you’ve ever played a Tony Hawk game than you know the feeling of instant gratification that those controls give. Hit X, Ollie. Simple as that. In Skate the design is that on the right control pad you kind-of-sort-of-not-really-but-there-is-only-so-much-you-can-do-with-a-controller-before-it-becomes-to-difficult-or-long-a-command-that-it-is-seen-as-ridiculous-or-to-esoteric-to-enjoy

ollie, which translates to a down->up motion. Then other flips tricks are executed with a similar motion on the control pad. Simple enough? I had an extremely difficult time adjusting to the controls. It seemed that no matter what I told my skater to do he would do something else. After a few days of being frustrated with the controls I picked up the controller to play and everything was fluid. Once the controls are comfortable for you skating around the city becomes cathartic. It’s not like actually skating but it does require much more effort to pull off a trick than just tapping a button, making tricks more rewarding when you hit them.

I almost gave up early on, but the game consistently and constantly drew me back in. It had nothing to do with the story, which is terrible, but it was never meant to be good. It’s not what drives you to play it. You just got out of jail and your skating again… I think that about sums it up. I probably would have written something like you’re on the run from a traveling salesman who is posing as your dad but is really the resurrected corpse of King Tut who knows that you hold to key to unlock the power that visitors from (Pluto? no not Pluto because it’s not a planet anymore… Mars is just too cliché… same thing with Venus… let’s go with) Mercury left behind last week at your birthday BBQ that they crashed, and to make up for gave you this key and a bunch of skateboarding knowledge and skills that you use to…well just become a bad ass skateboarder. But that’s why I don’t write.

The setting is amazing. A giant city to skate around in, full of moveable objects to create Rube Goldberg-esque skating platforms. While you can step off your board it is far more enjoyable to skate. The only times I ever found myself walking were:

1) To move an object

2) To climb up stairs

3) I was stuck and couldn’t move on my skateboard.

Of course whenever I was stuck and tried to step off my board I would almost always fall and reappear still on my board, which is giant pain in the ass

I still enjoy the hell out of it, though. My favorite aspect of the game is that I don’t have to sit down and devote my life to it. The story progresses when you want it to, there are no hour long cut scenes to sit through before the next save point or anything of the sort. If you don’t like the challenge you’re attempting at the time it’s not a problem, just quit it and try something else and come back to this one later. It couldn’t be easier to do because you can warp to any available challenge simply by opening the menu, which means you can spend less time looking for challenges and spend more time skating around enjoying the city and then performing a challenge whenever the urge arises. If I come home from work at 11 and just have this urge to play a video game, I’ll throw in Skate 2 so that I can play something just for 10 or 15 minutes and feel like I’ve accomplished something in the game.

This isn’t to say that playing Skate 2 for hours is impossible. I’ve found myself drowning 5 hours straight into the game. There’s never a moment where I become too frustrated with the game (after I got the controls down, that is). Just last night I was waiting for some friends to sign onto X-Box Live for our weekly Left 4 Dead game and decided to throw in Skate 2 for about an hour before they signed on. Before anyone signed on and I was pretty much done with Skate 2 for the night I ran to the fridge to calm my case of the munchies. With my corn chips and dip in hand I was ready to play again when I started to hear three voices in an otherwise dark and empty room. The only voice that I think I understood was of a female whispering the word "whisper" over and over again. The other two were either in languages that I didn’t understand (you know anything other than English) or were greatly manipulated sounding English. One of the other voices seemed to be a male, much deeper than the other two, like an overdriven bass, but so quiet and droning that I couldn’t understand anything. It may have been slowed down speech but I couldn’t tell. The third voice was also a woman, but completely unrecognizable. Maybe it was because all three were speaking at the same time but nothing she was saying was comprehendible. I tried to talk to them but they did not respond back to me. Maybe they didn’t hear me or they ignored me. They weren’t in the room I was in; they were one or two rooms away. I couldn’t tell how far but I didn’t want to go and find out either. When I left the voices did not follow me and by the time I was back in my room I couldn’t hear them anymore. Maybe they are confined to that one room, something might have happened there to make them attached to it. Or maybe they were just having a party and I crashed it. Maybe the reason that they didn’t hear me when I spoke was because I wasn’t in the same room, or maybe I just have the ability to hear them. Whatever it was, I’m going to check again tonight and see what happens.