Last night as I was listening to, and really really trying to like, T. Pain's latest over-produced and overly guest heavy new album Thr33 Ringz I quickly determined that Mister Pain is still painfully over-using that vocoder like voice altering program which I had hoped would have stayed back in the summer of 2007 when near every damn rapper had some digitally altered ear-piercing robot voice effect prominent in their sing-songy rap hit single/video. I thought or rather hoped the fad was long over. But I was wrong.

Apparently here at the end of 2008/cusp of 2009 this gratingly annoying vocal effect is still very much alive as proven by such current hits as the T. Pain featuring Lil Wayne single "Can't Believe It" --  found on the R&B singer's aforementioned recently released new album.

But let's leave T. Pain alone. Even more painful to these hip-hop loving ears is Kayne (the artist formerly known as a hip-hopper) West who recently, in an interview about his rap-free new LP, announced that "hip-hop is over for me" and who dedicates his heartbreakingly-hard-to-listen-to entire new album (808s and Heartbreak) to (like T.Pain) singing through the vocoder like autotuner effects. Jeesh. I guess his hanging out with Daft Punk just rubbed off on him way more than anyone could have ever anticipated. Below is a clip of Kayne performing a track off this new album on Letterman earlier this week. Disappointing? Hells yeah and not coz the autotuner is a bad piece of musical recording/performing equipment. But like anything in music, as in life, it comes down to how you use it, or rather don't use it (3 words Kayne: "less is more").

Saturday November 29

Vanity Insanity Triple Feature!

3 Action Packed Films Starring Vanity!

Never Too Young To Die 8pm
dir. Gil Bettman, starring John Stamos, Vanity, Gene Simmons, George Lazenby

John Stamos is Lance Stargrove, star gymnast & son of top secret agent George Lazenby. Gene Simmons is transsexual singer / evil-doer Ragnar out to poison the Los Angeles water supply. Throw in Vanity as Stamos' love interest (you'll never eat an apple the same way again), Peter Kwong (one of Big Trouble In Little China's elementals) as Stargrove's fun-loving computer nerd pal and a plot to retrieve a mysterious computer disc and you don't even have half the "I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS MOVIE EXISTS" that is NTYTD.

Action Jackson 10pm
dir. Craig R. Baxley, starring Carl Weathers, Vanity, Craig T. Nelson, Sharon Stone, Bill Duke, Robert Davi

Craig R. Baxley (stunt coordinator for tv's The A-Team) directed one of the last truly-80s action films that showed that Carl Weather (Apollo Creed from the Rocky movies) could & should have been one of the great action stars of the decade. As Detroit cop Jericho Jackson, Weathers battles evil auto magnate Craig T. Nelson (take THAT bailout plan!) with the help of Vanity & a seemingly never-ending stock of one-liners.

The Last Dragon Midnight
dir. Michael Schultz, starring Taimak, Vanity, Julius Carry

Motown records founder Berry Gordy produced only one Martial Arts / R&B epic and this is IT! Trainer to the stars Taimak (playing Leroy Green aka Bruce Leroy!) searches for his inner master, meets-cute with Vanity and battles the Shogun of Harlem (Julius Carry in a career defining role, RIP) to pulse pounding sounds by Debarge, Rockwell, Stevie Wonder & more! This may be your last chance to see this in the theater before the remake hits in 2010!

Ever since recently receiving word that film director David Lynch would be visiting Amoeba Music Hollywood today (6:30PM but get there a little early) for an in-store signing in celebration of the release of the recommended new nine disc DVD box set collection David Lynch The Lime Green Set, I decided to do a little digging in the crates and host my own personal David Lynch film fest: going back to re-watch many of the living legend's classic creations, most of which I hadn't seen in many years.

I watched several episodes of the early nineties show Twin Peaks (which was executive co-produced by Lynch along with Mark Frost), Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and Wild At Heart  -- all of which combined, I know, really only scratch the surface of this fine film-maker's body of work. But still it was enough of a refresher course to give this Amoeblogger a proper dose of the heart and soul of the artist behind these brilliant works.

I guess in retrospect what is foremost so striking about the 1990/91 ABC TV series Twin Peaks, to which the 1992 David Lynch film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me was a sequel of sorts, is the fact that it even made it onto network TV in the first place, and managed to last two seasons at that. It was not your typical mainstream TV fare by a long shot but like any of the best TV shows it was addictive viewing for those who got it. I guess that is the key to all of Lynch's work: you have to appreciate all of his nuances and to fully dispel everyday reality & allow yourself to submerge deep into Lynch's world -- typically a slightly surreal parallel universe that summons up the place of dark dreams we've all experienced at sometime --  to really get and to fully appreciate the magic David Lynch manifests on the screen. 

An album made entirely in one’s bedroom is no longer a foreign concept. In fact, it has become the norm. Digital sampling and recording programs such as Pro-Tools, Reason, Cubase and Digital Performer have all become the norm for most musicians. Why pay studio costs and mixing engineers for what you can do on your own your own computer?

The unfortunate result has been that as the need to record in a pricey recording studio has become a thing of the past, so has analog home recording. There is something a bit different from home recording made from analog forms (cassette or reel to reel recorders) rather than digital. Most arguments made on digital versus analog have to do with sound. My argument has to do with creativity. Although you still have the ability to overdub parts in analog recording, there are no quick fixes. You cannot instantly quantize bad timing, edit mistakes, cut out background noise or automatically tune vocals that are off key; all which you can do on the most basic digital recording programs. Instantly the mediocre can sound like the professionals. But what if some mediocrity is part of the charm? Honesty captured onto tape, with background noise, slightly off key vocals and poor recording techniques that captures a song in its purest form. It's no wonder fans of Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix used to pay top dollar for bootlegs of their home demos. There is purity to their songs that got lost once they made their way into a professional recording studio. The same thing sometimes happens with digital recording. The options are limitless, so much so that the end results sounds nothing like the beginning.

The Lo-Fi movement of the late eighties/early nineties exemplified this. Artists such as Daniel Johnston, Sebadoh, and The Mountain Goats didn’t just record onto four track for the sake of purity, it was also about economics. A Tascam 4 track recorder was affordable. Many studios were selling their outdated eight and four track reel-to-reel recorders dirt-cheap as well. In a bedroom, garage or in a practice space, you were left to your imagination to create without the restraints of paying a studio an hourly rate.

Thanks to user Navelgazer at community blog Metafilter, I was turned on to this interesting story recently published by the New York Times about an all-female Saudi rock band called The Accolade, most probably the first one of its kind ever. There are no photos of The Accolade because they are forbidden from posing for them. They have a MySpace page though, where you can listen to their first single, "Pinocchio." It is the sound of cultural awakening.

I am a big 1950’s sci-fi film fan and aficionado of the scores of these classic and occasionally not so classic B-movies. The fact is, more often then not, the music will be oddly brilliant. Another inevitable universal truth is the lower the budget, the better the soundtrack. Some of the very best ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ scores were composed by Irving Gertz. He died on November 14th in Los Angeles at the age of 93.  

The youngest of eight children, Gertz was born in 1915, in Providence, Rhode Island, where he learned to play the piano, clarinet, upright bass and tuba as a kid. He studied composition at Providence College of Music and privately with composer Walter Piston. In 1938 Gertz was hired by the music department of Columbia Pictures, but left to serve during the Second World War. After his tour of duty, he studied with legendary composers Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Ernst Toch before returning to the industry.

Throughout the 1950’s and until his retirement in 1968, Gertz contributed music to more than 200 films, often without screen credit. One of his most recognized early works is the music for the 1955 western Top Gun, but his most notable musical efforts are in the Sci-fi world. Some of his soundtrack work includes The Alligator People, The Leech Woman, The Curse of The Undead, and The Creature Walks Among Us. Gertz also worked extensively with Jack Arnold, the first certified genius of the low budget 1950’s sci- fi genre, scoring films like It Came from Outer Space, The Monolith Monsters and The Incredible Shrinking Man. Gertz also worked extensively in television, composing for Land of the Giants, The Invaders and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

Beatles fans take note: in recognition of the 40th anniversary of the release of The Beatles' White Album (in actuality their self-titled album), "the producers, engineers and technicians who worked on the LP recall their contributions" in a recommended documentary special by the BBC in celebration of the double LP set that was originally released on November 22nd, 1968 and was the fab four's ninth studio album.

Click here to check it out. Note that you will need Real Player in your computer. Meantime, check out some White Album related video footage (including some rehearsal/recording sessions) of John, Paul, George, & Ringo down below the track listing & YouTube album audio medley (immediately below). Luckily I found a copy of the album for just a dollar in the used vinyl bin at the Amoeba Music Berkeley store some years back (a numbered copy and in good condition too!). It is also available on CD-- both new and used. Get it if you don't already own it. And buy it at Amoeba!

THE BEATLES' WHITE ALBUM TRACK LISTING:

SIDE A:

I'm currently hooked on 椎名林檎 (Shiina Ringo), aah-gain. This recurring addiction happens from time to time and, for me, always with the same kind of artist: preternaturally gifted, flawed but beautiful ladies with an unconventional way of expressing themselves though the kind of music that appeals to ears hungry for one-of-a-kind singer/song writers-- you know, the Tori/P.J./Bjork/types (I suppose you can replace Tori for Kate if you must). Shiina Ringo is the J pop equivalent to these select "raisin girls" of too-bold-for-Lilith Fair powerhouses of 90's female alt-rock superstardom. Not only has she been compared to each of the above ladies in one respect or another, she has also aroused Courtney Love's attention because of her song "Gips" ("Plaster Cast") in which she sings, "You always want to shrink away/and that makes me happy/because it's like Kurt/and that would make me Courtney;" she's a huge fan of Janis Ian, and many folks mention Shiina Ringo and Alanis Morrisette in the same breath, claiming that her voice sounds Alanis-ish. Though it's obvious that Ms. Shiina embraces all kinds of music -- her tunes vary wildly from the ornately orchestrated classical to slinky jazz to electro-dance to mainstream rock to grungey punk -- it's her vocal eccentricities (she's famous for rolling her "r"s gangsta style) and her thought-provoking, complex lyrics (which often feature sprinklings of archaic language and use of uncommon words/kanji characters) that have made her singularly famous. On top of all that, she's got wicked style, a style so influential that recent J pop starlets have fledged new careers by modeling themselves after Shiina Ringo. Vivienne Westwood has the trendsetting Ms. Shiina to thank for making her wares so sought after in Japan and Japanese culture mavins world wide have Shiina-san's recurring, totally "和" ("old Japan") fashion sensibilities to admire as she so frequently weaves the antiquated with the contemporary when it comes to her visual appearance whether it be in photos, music videos or live stage performances. There has even been a popular manga and film created with an admittedly Ringo-esque main character. Despite all this, my first impression of Shiina Ringo was a somewhat convoluted one given my inability to really "get" everything she was spitting, but --holy moly-- was the music fantastic! And that's all that really mattered at first. Since then I've grown into a comfort pocket with her music that, like so many other of my favorite artists, demands rummaging through on a regular basis. This time I decided to find out more about her; here are some basic facts and interesting nuggets of knowledge about Shiina Ringo -- J pop songstress extraordinaire:

Belgian artist Guy Peellaert, most famous for his album cover illustrations of David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs and The Rolling Stones’ It’s Only Rock 'n' Roll and his ground breaking art book Rock Dreams, died this past Monday of kidney cancer in Paris. He was 74.

Born in Brussels in 1934 into an aristocratic family, Peellaert broke with his family as a teenager, first by entering the military, then by choosing an art career over his father’s demands to pursue a career in medicine. Peellaert first major success was the comic strip, Les Aventures de Jodelle, published in 1966 in the French magazine Hara-Kiri. The central character, Jodelle, was modeled after Ye-Ye singer Sylvie Vartan. Peellart's second comic strip, Pravda, again modeled the heroine after a French singer, the iconic Françoise Hardy. In the 1970’s Peellaert went on to design movie posters for such films as Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver; Wim Wenders's Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire and Robert Altman's Short Cuts.

But Peellaert is best known for his rock album covers -- especially his controversial Diamond Dogs design from 1974. The gate-fold cover features Bowie as a half-man, half-dog grotesque. Peellaert painted in a photo-realistic style and the controversy stems from how well he flaunted the hybrid genitalia. I guess that was something of a no-no in the early 1970’s. A few copies of the original cover inexplicably survived, today they fetch upwards of a few thousand dollars each. The initial RCA release had the genitalia airbrushed out, but the recent reissue on Rykodisc/EMI revives the original artwork.

The globally popular Michael Franti and Spearhead may only have been back a short time from their recent successful tour of Australia, but already the Bay Area band is hella busy, back out on the road in the midst of an ongoing US tour which brings them to New York City this weekend where they play two nights at the 2,100 capacity Nokia Theater in Times Square. A couple of months ago Franti's ever-growing in magnitude Power To The Peaceful free festival in San Francisco attracted record numbers when approximately 70,000 folks descended upon Golden Gate Park to hear Franti and band along with a myriad of other artists, all of whom shared a passion for peace in the world.

With such wide popularity and such accessible music, you would think that their music would be a staple on the radio, but not so, "although at the moment the new album track 'Say Hey (I love you)' featuring Charlene Anderson is getting more radio play than anything we have done to date," Franti said recently. Anderson is the female vocalist joining Spearhead on the current tour and is featured on Spearhead's new Sly & Robbie produced album All Rebel Rockers (Anti). Despite this very recent bit of radio love, Franti stresses, "We are still far from being a staple of the radio. In some ways I wish we were, but over the years we have sort of taken it as a badge of courage. We go out and hit the road and [connect] through our website. We hear from our fans that way. So it is like we have this other network."  Does Franti think outlets (and individuals) will be more receptive to politically fueled rebel themed music like Spearhead's in the new Obamerica?  "Maybe there will be more of a spirit of adventure," he replied, speaking by phone from the current tour, adding that since election day he has noticed a definite difference in the American public. "Most people I see on the street seem happier. It's like a cloud, a radioactive cloud (laughs) has been lifted...but despite all that there is this huge mess facing the incoming administration to deal with: war, energy future, climate change, and the disastrous state of our economy."

"Carnival of Light," the long-rumored, almost mythical 14-minute experimental Beatles track, may soon see the light of day. Composed and performed only once for an electronic music festival in 1967, Sir Paul McCartney earlier this week confirmed that the recording exists, and the piece once thought to be too experimental for mainstream tastes might actually see a release date sometime in the near future.

 

In the 1990’s while preparing the Anthology collection, the Beatles plus producer George Martin vetoed its inclusion, deeming the track as being "too adventurous" for release. But McCartney feels the public is ready for the psychedelic/avant-garde inspired tune, which is said to include improvised distorted guitar, church organ, gargling, backwards tape sounds, random cacophony and band members shouting words or phrases like "Barcelona!" and "Are you all right?"

First though, approval from the estates of John Lennon and George Harrison, plus permission from Ringo Starr and George Martin would be required.

I found a video on YouTube that claims to contain actual  "Carnival of Light" music. Of course if this is a real Beatles tracks, it's brilliant! If this is in fact not a recording from he Beatle's, it  just  becomes ... more stuff.

For years one of my favorite posters in the back hallways at Amoeba SF has been a bright, colorful border surrounding a black and white image of young Alex Chilton, leaning against a wall in an argyle tank top with the number 1970 below. I smiled every time I saw it but for some reason never gave it much thought...

Chilton has always been something of a cult hero with not one but two fine bands, The Box Tops and Big Star, that largely flew under the radar/were forgotten, and he wrote some of my favorite songs of all time while in different mutations of Big Star including "Thirteen" and "The Ballad of El Goodo" (from #1 Record) and "Nighttime" (off Third/Sister Lovers). He's a master of sweet, low-key ballads, but can also turn out pop perfection -- a very satisfying combo since basically it means he is something of a melodic genius.

This week I happened upon a copy of an album by Alex Chilton entitled 1970! I had somehow never bothered to figure out what that poster stood for, and now here it was, right in front of me. As it turns out, the album is a post Box Tops solo record made by Chilton in, of course, 1970, in Memphis, which was promptly forgotten and left untitled by both artist and producer when Chilton moved on to Big Star. The original, unadorned tapes were later discovered and released in 1996 by Chilton's famous Memphis label, Ardent Records.

1) Q-Tip The Renaissance (Motown/Universal)

2) Jurassic 5 11th Anniversary Deluxe Reissue (Decon)

3) Jedi Mind Tricks A History Of Violence (Babygrande)

4)  88 Keys The Death of Adam (Decon)

5) Black Milk Tronic (Fat Beats Records)

Thanks to Luis at the San Francisco Amoeba Music store for this week's Top Five Hip-Hop chart with the number one slot occupied by Q-Tip with his great new album The Renaissance (far superior to his last solo effort), which includes one track produced by the late J-Dilla. Click here to check out Porkchop's review of the A Tribe Called Quest member's recent San Francisco performance at Mezzanine as part of the Bounce Tour last week. In the number two slot is the Jurassic 5 CD & DVD retrospective package on Decon, 11th Anniversary Deluxe Re-Issue, which includes J5's original self-titled album in its entirety plus fifteen unreleased tracks, as well as a DVD of the documentary The Jurassic Period which was directed by Jason Goldwatch.

Saturday November 22

Waxwork (1988)

dir. Anthony Hickox
starring Zach Galligan & Deborah Foreman

New Beverly Cinema
7165 W Beverly Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90036
Midnight, $7

Debby, the world's oldest polar bear has died. Suffering from multiple organ failure, she was euthanized earlier this week, just a month shy of her 42nd birthday. Some polar bears living in captivity make it into their 30s, but few in the wild reach 20 years of age. Earlier this year the Guinness Book of World Records certified she was the oldest polar bear on record and one of the three oldest bears ever documented from any of the eight bear species.

Born in 1966 at the height of the Cold War in the former Soviet Union’s Arctic Island’s Region, Debby was orphaned at a very young age, but was rescued by the Assiniboine Park Zoo in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In her years at the Canadian zoo she gave birth to six cubs with her mate of almost thirty years, Skipper, who died in 1999 at age 34. All of their offspring are still alive today.

As tributes pour in from around the world, a memorial is planned at the zoo this coming Saturday at noon at the zoo's Animal Tracks Café.

 

My good buddy Daz I Kue of London's pioneering Broken Beat crew Bugz In The Attic recently sent me this fantastic remix of James Brown's "Funky President" that he's done under his Bloodfire alias -- one he's applied to cheeky less-than-official reworks of other jams like Syl Johnson's "Is It Because I'm Black" and Syreeta's Stevie-penned "To Know You Is To Love You," both of which are fantastic and worth the tracking down, if you can find either out-of-print 12".

Recently married and residing in Atlanta, Daz channeled his emotions over the recent presidential election into this fantastic bit of dancefloor badness which juxtaposes the untouchable original with "Yes We Can" chants, putting the whole thing into glorious, evocative focus.

Many thanks to Daz for giving us permission to post the track here. No MP3 either, this is a full-spectrum AIFF CD-quality soundfile, suitable for club play. Play it loud!

Bloodfire V Funky President (Yes We Can Rehash) (sendshare link to 71mb AIFF)
and here's a 16MB MP3 in case you're balking at the file size!

This Saturday XY:XX is hosting a
release party for the new Psychic
TV album. "Psychic TV/ PTV3
returns with Mr. Alien Brain vs.
The Skinwalkers!, a collection of
ALL new material from various
sessions." Dias records head
Gibby will guest DJ. Last time I
was there, the Punch-Out game
was working fine. It should be a
fabulous nite out.

And since there's an extra Saturday this Nov., there's an extra XY:XX. A tribute to D.A.F. is in the works. Although, the competition is fierce as only blocks away, the New Beverly is running a Vanity triple feature...

Welcome to Amoeblogay Music Lists Part IV, in the ongoing five-part series that began last Tuesday and was inspired in great part by the recent Out Magazine Top 100 Gayest Albums list. This second to last installment includes two lists --  both from Amoebloggers. Brad Schelden has compiled a list, in no particular order, noting that, "I did agree with a lot of the albums they (Out Magazine) listed. Seems to be a lot of disco and dance music missing as well."

The other list below comes from Amoeblogger Job O Brother, who says his list includes, "Some records that deserve a spot in any comprehensive list of recordings significant to the LGBT community. Word." Job also added that, "Some of these are so obvious it baffles me they were missed by Out Magazine. In scrutinizing their list, it seems rushed, haphazard, and the work of a small pool of people who would never get a job at someplace like Amoeba Music! I didn’t bother to include Pansy Division – again, so obvious! – because I know that other people contributing to your project will include them." 

Special thanks to both Job O Brother (Another Witty and Unnecessary Blog) and Brad Schelden (Pen is mightier than the sword) for their time and insights in this series and check back here for the final Part V to be posted here in a few days. Meantime, be sure to check out the wonderful Latino Gay Music Icons Amoeblog immediately below this blog, compiled and posted by Gomez Comes Alive!

When Billy Jam asked me on my take on the 100 Top Gayest Albums Of All Time, I initially told him no because I felt I had no right to add to this list cause I’m not gay. I wouldn’t want to read a list on the 100 Best Things About East L.A. written by some hipster from Silver Lake, so why would someone want to hear about what I think?

It goes without saying that many gays shop at Amoeba and the Latin Rock & Pop section is no exception. In fact, we probably get more gays shopping in our section than most sections in the store. In the last four years I have worked in that section I have received quite the education on Latino gay icons.

So I decided to make a list. In the end I did not feel the list is a generalization on what gays like. I feel like our gay customers that shop at Amoeba Latin Music Sections helped shape this list.

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1) Q-Tip The Renaissance (Motown/Universal)

2) Jedi Mind Tricks A History Of Violence (Babygrande)

3) T.I. Paper Trail (Grand Hustle/Atlantic)

4) 88 Keys Death of Adam (Decon)

5) Little Brother Seperate But Equal (Traffic)

Special thanks to Scott at Amoeba Music Hollywood, where the Look Daggers (Ikey Owens of The Mars Volta & 2Mex of Visionaries and SonGodSuns) did a great free in-store performance on Thursday evening, for this week's Top Five Hip-Hop Albums. This chart, based on sales for the past week, includes some great new albums such as hip-hop trio Jedi Mind Tricks' sixth and latest full-length A History of Violence, and Little Brother's Separate But Equal (Drama Free Version) which should not be confused with the similar (including title) release by the group originally featured by DJ Drama on a hosted mixtape. The official DJ Drama-free version contains many extra previously unreleased tracks and bonus material.

And in the top slot on this week's Top Five is the great new release from Q-Tip of A Tribe Called Quest fame called The Renaissance. Q-Tip is currently riding high on rave reviews for both this album and his current headlining spot on the Bounce Tour. The video game tour, sponsored by 2K Sports, rolled through San Francisco two nights ago in a concert at the Mezzanine. Backing Q-Tip onstage for this show (and all of the tour) was both a full live band and a special DJ, DJ Scratch of EPMD fame. Music fanatic, Amoeba Music fan and self-described "jaded raver" Porkchop attended the SF show and was kind enough to write a review for the Amoeblog.

Born in Denver on Dec. 3, 1932 as Ralph Joseph Reynolds, his family soon moved to Oklahoma, where he grew up listening to country music and Western swing acts such as Eddy Arnold and Bob Wills, eventually picking up the guitar as a teenager. In 1956 while performing in Yuma, Arizona, Reynolds wrote the song “Endless Sleep” after listening to Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" five times in a row on a jukebox. Two years later Reynolds met a music publisher named Herb Montei who forwarded the demo version to the Los Angeles based label Demon Records. Demon liked the demo but executives insisted on Reynolds tacking on a more uplifting end to the song; the revised finale has the suicidal girl saved from drowning by her guilt ridden beau. Another peculiar bit of history about “Endless Sleep” -- writing credits for the song went to Jody Reynolds and Dolores Nance, but according to Reynolds, Nance was a fictitious person created by the Demon Records to make it appear that there was songwriting team.

By the summer of 1958 “Endless Sleep” became a huge national and international hit, peaking at No. 5 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart, no doubt opening the door for several other doomed tales of love-death tinged million selling pop hits including Mark Dinning's "Teen Angel," Ray Peterson's "Tell Laura I Love Her," Dickey Lee's "Patches" and the Shangri-Las' "Leader of the Pack," to name but a few. Reynolds' next single was not as successful. “Fire of Love” peaked at number 66 on the Billboard charts. It would be his last charting single. Still, he continued to record and tour into the 1970’s for several labels including Smash, Brent and Pulsar Records. His typically anomalous 1963 recording, and excellent single, on Titan Records, "Stranger in the Mirror" / "Requiem for Love" featured a very young Bobbie Gentry (“Ode to Billie Joe”) in her debut. Eventually Reynolds opened a music store in Palm Springs and worked as a real estate agent. He was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame in 1999.

Djosos Krost (DJ Pharfar and DJ Filip) are two dub-obsessed Danes who are better known for having produced the most popular mix of Junior Senior's dancefloor hit, "Move Your Feet." 

I was on board No Sign Of Bad from the first dub moog-fuzz chords of this album. Guests on vocals include Tuco, Jah Bobby, Little Tasha, EMO and Adrian. Tuco, featured on lead vocals for the opener "Straight Upfront" has that lover's reggae vibe pulled from the holy book of Hugh Mundell and Gregory Isaacs. Such a slinky, relaxed delivery as the little dub bleeps and blurps chase each other's tails around the tune.

A good while back (95-99), I was really into the Japanese electro-dub outfit Audio Active and their super-tripped take on bong-heavy dub. Their two classic releases Tokyo Space Cowboys and Happy Happer still satisfy that stony, space-travel urge instilled in all lovers of On-U era Lee 'Scratch' Perry masterpieces like Time Boom De Devil Dead and From the Secret Laboratory.

Here's a classic track from Audio Active.



And one from that particular era of On-u Sound Dub Syndicate 'Scratch!'

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Japanese director Takashi Miike is a freak. Based on ongoing discussions I've held with friends and co-workers I'd say his films seem very either/or; anyone who has seen even one of his films has undoubtedly come to the conclusion that they've either seen one Miike film too many or that they've become Miike movie addicts. I've seen only a few films of his that could be categorized as middling (my favorite is one of these: the wonderful musical-comedy-horror farce Happiness of the Katakuris (2001)), and plenty of others I had trouble watching or couldn't finish due to the shocking visual content his stories are often soaked in. Being highly prolific (he has directed over seventy theatrical, video and television productions since 1991 and is credited with directing fifteen productions from 2001 to 2002 alone) and internationally famous for making movies capable of churning stomachs and blowing minds with such outrageous depictions of extreme violence and bizarre sexual perversions in underworld or otherworldy settings that often involve gangsters, outsiders and general sickos, it is no surprise Miike's films caught Quentin Tarantino's eye. It is a surprise, however, to see Tarantino himself all gunslingin' and gussied up in the opening sequence of Miike's latest creation, made available this Tuesday on DVD, Sukiyaki Western Django. I was so not expecting his performance or much of what followed, but I can say that I had a good night of movie magic enjoyment.

So, now that we actually have something to look forward to in our President Elect, I feel that we'll see our first real nostalgia for the decade known as the 90's. I know that there's been club nites and VH1 shows centered around fond 90's remembrances. H