Saturday, June 16, 2012

Down the stairs it came

A still and potential album cover from my band The Forest Children (formerly known as Darkness Brings the Cold).




Saturday, June 2, 2012

Liars - No.1 Against The Rush (Official Video)

Say it ain't so WEEN...


I spent much of the week disconnected from the world at large and after a particularly rough Friday, June 1st I succombed to the medicine of sleep at an uncharacteristically early 8 PM and slept the deep, restorative sleep of the over-worked. When I awoke this morning I logged into the virtual world and toured around my usual sites in an attempt to see what I'd missed over the last several days. It was on one of my favorite of those sites – a marvelous blog entitled Heaven is an Incubator – where I came across the news that one of my all-time favorite bands, Ween, had called it quits.
Not a good way to start the day.
It's no surprise really, and although it saddens me deeply I must say that if this is what Aaron Freeman, aka Gene Ween needs to do at this stage in his life, then I am happy he made the decision and support it fully. Still... it's been five years since WEEN's last album proper – La Cucaracha – and I would be lying if I didn't admit that there is a very large part of me that really wanted one last record before this finality which, if I'm being honest, is really not that much of a surprise.
If you're a music lover and you don't know WEEN I implore you ...

read the rest on Joup...
                                                                                          

Monday, May 7, 2012

RIP Adam Yauch

Three days ago the world received the news that one of the founding members of the Beastie Boys, Adam Yauch – better known as MCA – died after a long battle with cancer. I’ll not lie, it’s been years since I really followed the Boys’ music, however it was very important to me in my teens/early twenties and as musicians I will always respect them. Paul’s Boutique and Check Your Head will forever be modern masterpieces in my book, even though as I grew older (and so did the boys) I lost the ability to identify with aging men who gesticulate wildly while they throw out rhymes. Well, that’s not really fair to them because the fact is I just kinda lost the ability to identify with most rap, period. Nonetheless, last year about this time I went through a big revival with the BBoys for a few weeks and during that time I gave careful consideration to their 1992 masterpiece Check Your Head and came to the realization that if I was put on the spot to pick the album that I think best encapsulates the “alternative boom” of 90′s popular music it would probably be Check Your Head, an album that transcends their rap/hip-hop roots and really stretches the ideas of musicianship, creative process and good ol’ fashioned FUN (K).




My heart goes out to Mr. Yauch’s family, Adam Horowitz, Michael Diamond and the millions of people he affected with his music, and later his film production company Oscilloscope Laboratories. Below is a re-posting of the article I wrote about Check Your Head‘s place in musical history for Chud.com. I’ve tidied it up and expanded the piece, as MCA’s death has put me back in a state of contemplating his legendary band’s career.

Read the rest on Joup...



Friday, April 13, 2012

Godflesh - Slateman (live)

David Lynch 'Good Day Today' (Official Video)






I'm waaaaaay behind on this but kudos to director Arnold de Parscau and cinematographers Jonathan Bertin, Antoine Bon - not to mention the actors - for the winning video. Very nice