SONGS FOR BABY ANIMALS WHO ARE GETTING MASSAGED

TRUNK TUMBLIN

WE BE TUMBLIN

NOBLE DESTINY

CANNED COD LIVER

The other day I purchased a can of cod liver from a Scandinavian grocery store near my house. Today I tried it, and it was delicious. Imagine a super-rich and delicate canned tuna. I made it into a sandwich with a little bit of cumin and some avocado and a little bit of mustard from the same Scandinavian store. I put the avocado in it to tone down the richness of the cod liver, just like when they use dynamite to put out an oil fire. Eating that sandwich felt really good.



As an aside, canned octopus is also quite delicious.

BARKLEY, SHUT UP AND JAM: GAIDEN

One billion b-balls dribbling simultaneously throughout the galaxy.
One trillion b-balls being slam dunked through a hoop throughout the cosmos.
I can feel every single b-ball that has ever existed at my fingertips, I can feel their collective knowledge channeling through my veins.
Every jumpshot, every rebound and three-pointer, every layup, dunk, and free throw.
I am there.



THIS CHANGES
EVERYTHING





PLAY IT.

FORBIDDEN KINGDOM//RED WALL//THOUGHTS

There are currently two major films in production which are based on classics of Chinese literature that should have broad appeal in the West.
One is Forbidden Kingdom, which teams up Jet Li with Jackie Chan for the first time. The movie appears to be about a little white boy who gets sucked back in time to Ancient China and has to save the Monkey King, and is loosely based on Journey to the West.
Trailer:



After the success of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, one would expect there to have been more American productions like this. Instead, Miramax quickly gave theatrical releases to older films they held distribution rights to such as Iron Monkey, and snapped up rights to other wuxia style films produced in China or Hong Kong such as Hero. As far as I can tell, this is the first movie since then that is actually an U.S. production with an American director (Robert Minkoff, director of The Lion King and Stuart Little). I wonder why it took eight years to get a film made that follows the tried and true formula of a Caucasian Male who becomes part of an exotic culture and becomes, you know, the best one (see Dances with Wolves or The Last Samurai or even that Chronicles of Narnia movie).

It is too bad they didn't get Stephen Chow to play the Monkey King. A Chinese Odyssey was the bomb!

The other movie based on a classic of Chinese literature is John Woo's Red Cliff, based on events from Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Not only will it be John Woo's first Asian production in 15 years, since Hard Boiled, it will be his first martial arts/historical drama type film in nearly 30 (assuming his last was Last Hurrah for Chivalry, did he make any after that? I do not believe so, but I may be wrong.).

This movie looks totally epic.



Chinese director Zhang Yimou has mentioned in several interviews ( here is one) that the reason he has made so many high-profile, epic martial-arts style films in the last few years (Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Curse of the Golden Flower) rather than less kinetic drama such as Raise the Red Lantern (a perfect film), or the more recent Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, is that it is difficult to get funding for any other types of movies, and he wants to make profitable movies in order to keep the domestic film industry in China alive and well for the new generation of Chinese film makers.

Hopefully these high profile films will aid Yimou in his cause, and increase interest in Chinese literature and history.

Incidentally, Yimou is going to be co-directing the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Olympics.






This is a man who knows color and spectacle. It should be awesome.

SHAMELESS INDIANA JONES PLUG

CHECK OUT INDIANA JONES SHOP AND STORE TO BUY COOL INDIANA JONES STUFF (FROM AMAZON)

NEWS FLASH

VERSUS


I have become addicted to flash games.

I am going to start blogging about flash games.

Here is a sweet flash game to play that mashes up Mega Man and Ghosts 'n' Goblins. I belive that it is based on the Mega Man 3 Mega Man because he has the ability to slide, something not present in Mega Man or Mega Man 2. The boss is Arthur but I have not been able to reach him. I am actually really bad at this game.

CHECK OUT MEGA MAN V. GHOSTS 'N' GOBLINS


Do you want to hear a sweet jam?

All Saints are a girl pop band from the U.K. I have never heard them before but check out this ultra keen Kissy Sell Out mix of one of their jams I nicked of off Good Weather for Airstrikes:
All Saints "Chick Fit (Kissy Sell Out's Excellent Adventure)"

Last week when I played that song at Ruff Gemz everyone started doing this crazy circle dance all at once. It was quite breathtaking. Speaking of Ruff Gemz, we have a very patriotic 4th of July celebration in the works and a total life-changing Glass Candy set later in the month.

poster by kendra..buy her shirts!

little party's baaaaaaddddddaaaaaaassssssssssssss business

LITTLE PARTY AND THE BAD BUSINESS are the cutest/hottest things to come out of Seattle EVER! They are a dancetastic two-piece with keyboards and the like. There album is going to have lots of guest musicians and a horn section and everything. The party is large and the business is bad and wholesome at the same time.
Check out their upcoming shows with yours truly at the Old Firehouse (5/12), and the Vera Project (w/JAPANTHER!!!!!! OMG) (5/24).
CHECK OUT THIS JAM
Little Party and The Bad Business "The Fire"

Rock N Role Play

Most non-gamers are familiar with the basic concept of table-top role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons. Characters advance in levels, gaining wealth, experience, notoriety, and power. The character can die, and can either be revived or the player must start anew with a different character. There are other ways for play with a particular character to end. Perhaps an evil wizard entraps them in a magic crystal and then shrinks it down to a microscopic size and buries it in the desert. Perhaps, like my old character, the bardic bear, Poseidon, they become so entranced with the lawful-good plane of Elysium they never want to leave, and wander off one night into it's beautiful forests.
However, there are other role-playing paradigms. One example is Call of Cthulhu, based on the writing of H.P. Lovecraft. CoC presents a world so terrifying and so outside the reach of normal human understanding that your character will typically end play not by dying, but by going completely insane.
With that in mind, please listen to this track by John Peel favorite and well missed hometown heroes, Teen Cthulhu. This track, "Crystal Castles," appeared on a split with Cream Abdul Babar and was released close to the end of their reign. I picked it both because it totally rocks and because its title is "Crystal Castles." They are blowing up.


Teen Cthulhu "Crystal Castles"

leave the sealings alone

There is a new Yeah Yeah Yeahs song, "Sealings." It is on the Spider-Man 3 soundtrack. Give it a listen here. What the fuck? What the hell kind of song is that anyway? "I want out?" I want out, Karen.
Poor Nick Zinner. He needs to take his Spider-bucks and take off up the wall.
Where should he go? His remix of The Blood Brothers' "Lazer Life" is an improvement over the original, and that Head Wound City EP which featured Nick, some Blood Brothers, and some Locusts was a lot of fun as well, aaannnnddd I saw them all hanging out at the Cha Cha once, so maybe Nick should just become a Blood Brother. Post-Johnny Marr joining up with Modest Mouse, would it really be so strange?
Listen to Head Wound City
Blood Brothers "Lazer Life (Nick Zinner Remix)"
From the "Set Fire to the Face on Fire" import single. Find it at a local independent music seller near you. I hope this song is what the end of the world sounds like.

still rememberin'

photo by jason

Bloc Party "I Still Remember" (SebastiAn remix)(from goodweatherforairstrikes.com)
Bloc Party "Two More Years" (MSTRKRFT remix)
Here are two great, great remixes of just kind of alright Bloc Party songs, one a year old, and the other brand new. MSTRKRFT and SebastiAn substitute the plaintive guitar strums and playful bass lines of the originals with a much more driving, heavier bass sound and drums which stomp where the original merely shuffle awkwardly. They excise dodgy lyrics, like "You've cried enough this lifetime, my beloved polar bear" from "Two More Years," and bring pretty vocal parts from bridges and refrains to the forefront.
Both of these songs are about love lost and regret and memory and all that. Dance music gets a rep as shallow, but by filling these tracks out with energy and swagger it makes them more relatable, and easier to get drawn in. Furthermore, this isn't "just" dance music. These tracks are as crisp and raw at the same time as any great rock number. But this is rock and roll for those of us who find solace in moving our feet, and catharsis in hand claps, and not listening to sad British boys who have been basically repeating themselves for 40 years.

TIC ROX/ Fuck Me U.S.A. 2: Mannequin on the Move?

Wow, I just spent all this time writing a post and then blogger deleted the whole thing. I can't type it all over again. INSTEAD I AM GOING TO YELL IT AT YOU.
HERE WE GO AGAIN
MAYBE THIS ONE WILL BE BETTER ANYWAY
IN SHORT:
TIC ROX
AWESOME COMP
NIC HUGHES FROM CHANNELS 3 AND 4 AND SHEARING PINX COMPILED AND RELEASED IT
24 TRACKS
24 BANDS
BUY IT HERE. IT IS REALLY GOOD.
BANDS FROM PORTLAND (HUSLTER WHITE, WET CONFETTI, SLEETMUTE NIGHTMUTE)

BANDS FROM OLYMPIA (JOEY CASIO)

BANDS FROM SAN FRANCISCO (DEATH SENTENCE: PANDA!, DENVER (THE LAST DINOSAUR) YELLOW SWANS, WAIT MAYBE YELLOW SWANS IS FROM PORTLAND)

BANDS FROM VANCOUVER (CHS 2,3,4, ETC..., FUCK ME USA, BAKELITE)

BANDS FROM SEATTLE (there aren't any bands from seattle on this comp)

Why? Seattle sucks. More on that (and some Seattle bands that don't suck) in a couple days.

HERE ARE SOME SAMPLE TRACKS
(GO TO LINK ABOVE AND BUY THIS CD AND ALSO CHECK OUT ALL THE DIFFERENT ARTISTS ON THAT LABEL)
LATEX BRIDE "PUPPET HEAD" (from CA)

ZEUS "BOULDERS OF OLYMPUS"(from mt. olympus)

CHANNELS 3 x 4 "MEDS INSTEAD"

FUCK ME USA "WAR PIG (LIVE)"

Whoo. Let's take a breather. Apparently there is another band that just started up in the UK also called Fuck Me USA. That is mostly a big case of whatevers. The band name comes from a Gang of Four song, and FMUSA (CA) broke up before they ever put anything out, save for a limited split 7" w/ Chs. 3x4. I don't know much about this FMUSA (UK) fellow, save for his website claims he is playing Glastonbury festival this summer, so before this new band implants itself in everyone's mind as the only band called F.M.U.S.A. I want to remind the people what went down in the middle part of the first half of the first decade of the 21st century, when some kids started up some band, to open up for Glass Candy, or something, in Vancouver, or Victoria, or somewhere.
FUCK ME USA "INFINITE SLOPE"
FUCK ME USA "TAN THIGH"

THIS GUY MIGHT PUT OUT THE LOST F.M.U.S.A. (CA) ALBUM.
MAYBE HE IS TOO BUSY PUTTING OUT RELEASES BY SOME OF THE HOTTEST BANDS IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE RIGHT NOW. (And maybe it is all just too 2003)

ANYWAY, BUG HIM INTO PUTTING THE ALBUM OUT. I WANT TO HEAR IT REAL BAD.
TELL 'EM PARTY ON INFINITE EARTHS SENT YOU.

(Sorry about the Z-sharing, one day I'll get the hosting properly sorted.)

Forme Potatoes ou Bien Frites

I just peeped the video for the song "Je Veux Te Voir" from Yelle on Big Stereo.


Cute graphics, cute shorts, and clever/cute French lyrics fool you into merely being mesmerized. Then the last thirty seconds drop with a Bubble Yum, mutant Hi-NRG, flying keytar rainbow explosion and you realize that nothing will ever be the same again.
One benefit of having the lyrics scrolling on the bottom of the video is that when you play the song out everyone knows the lyrics and its easier to bring the house down:


La New Shit have the Disco D remix of this track.

Are you there God, it's me, Party On Infinite Earths

My name is Sam. I DJ every Wednesday night at Ruff Gemz in Seattle. This is my music blog.

Let's get started.

I will be posting some actual jams soon but first, let's try a little exercise.

When I first watched the following sweet video of some live Slayer footage set to an 8-bit/chiptunes cover of some Slayer I felt like I was playing a version of Excite Bike that was really sped up and played with a special controller that would shock you if you over-heated your engine or crashed.

Like that game James Bond plays in Never Say Never Again. Which I've never seen, but I am familiar with the meme, you dig?

LET'S TRY AND WATCH 8-BIT ANGEL OF DEATH VIDEO AND AN EXCITE BIKE VIDEO AT THE SAME TIME.




How did it feel? I feel good.