Jill Riley

Thank you. Been meaning to tell you.

Earl Greyhound, again

I'm never right when it comes to predicting the Next Big Thing. Everything I really love is usually niche stuff that finds a devoted but small (sometimes very small) following. With that in mind, I'm going to go out on a limb and say Earl Greyhound is going to be huge. Whatever it is, they have it, and in my parallel universe they're already enormous.

Local goodness

Venus DeMars. His/Her gender ambiguity reminds me of an interview with Dee Dee Ramone; he said his cat didn't have a name because in the wild there are no names for animals, so he didn't feel compelled to give his one. Names are a foreign concept except to humans, as is gender identification. So in the end, if the music touches you, let it happen.

Supraluxe Presents

Episode I: The Future Of Computing:

"Intellectuals" predict "Internet" will connect computers one day.

XLII

David Bash at Rock and Roll Report puts us at #42 on the Top 100 LPs of 2006.

Bands that will Turn You Gay

Update - 1/29 - "Donnie Davis" has removed Supraluxe! Afraid of being outed?

Update - 1/29 - Hoax? Hoax! Supraluxe regrets the error but hope you consider turning gay anyway.

Update - 1/27 - We made the list! Very cool, we couldn't be prouder.



We didn't make the list, which is disappointing since we wrote Boyfriend specifically to get on it.

The guy who compiled the list is a musician and obviously has issues with his, um, "feelings".

Wait til the Midnight Hour

Run Rabbit Run at 12:19 AM.

Videos

The Current videotapes many (all?) their in-studio guests and streams them from their website. What a fantastic find. I especially enjoyed watching Earl Greyhound, Emily Haines, Zero 7, and Dosh.

Earl Greyhound

Man, you have to hear these guys. Their entire album is available for streaming from their website, www.earlgreyhound.com. To read reviews of their sound and influences you would totally expect them to suck, and if I tried to describe them I don't think you'd even want to give them a try. So all I'll say is these guys are the idealized cool the 70's could have been, which is to say a lot cooler than they actually were.

Temporary Visual Art

Video projection art, actually. There are moments in this video that convincingly trick the eye into seeing things that aren't there. The first time I saw this I was unable to really enjoy it because I spent the whole time scratching my head wondering how it was done.

http://www.easyweb.fr/videoprojection/


H/T Jim. Thanks!

Pugwash

Update and correction, 1/23/07: Thomas Walsh sings lead on This Could Be Good, which makes me feel even more sheepish, if that's possible. No one should take it to mean I think these guys are anything short of incredible....

I've put off writing about this for too long. I've been listening to Jollity by Pugwash a lot lately. A. Lot. I don't know a whole lot about them yet, but they're an Irish band, basically Thomas Walsh and a rotating cast of friends. They sound like a mashup of some of my favorite bands: XTC, High Llamas, Beach Boys, Jason Falkner, Eric Matthews, etc. I don't understand their complete anonymity, though, this is music on par with Jellyfish or XTC or 10cc.

One of my immediate faves was This Could Be Good, which I'm pretty sure Jason Falkner sings. If you listen to the three verses, the second chord apparently remains unchanged but the bass plays a different root each time. The effect is subtle and amazing, and it sounds fresh but you're not sure why at first. It's just a brilliant detail. My only (minor) complaint is Jason sounds a little flat and unemotional. And I feel sheepish saying that because I really love the guy and think he's a great singer.

Andy Partridge guests on it too, as does Dave Gregory. Dave's string arrangements are all over, and hearing them here makes you realize how much he added to the XTC sound, esp on Skylarking.

I could write a book on these guys but I'll let the music do the talking for me instead.

Minnesota Podsafe Music Awards

I mentioned before that we won the MPMA Song of the Year for Sugar Chalet - the MPMA people made us a cool graphic of the award.

Slippery People

This is hilarious. Knowledge is power, friends, and ice is slippery. You would do well to remember this.

The Winner and New Champeen.......

Sugar Chalet, Song o' the Year 2006, Minnesota Podsafe Music Awards.

Airplay

The Current played Flower, 1:22 AM. I had just gone to bed so I missed it. Dang.

The Art of Mr Clean

AJ at the Bald Guy Show made a Supraluxe logo, and it's really cool.

Nag Champa

Supraluxe uses and endorses Nag Champa, the skateboarder's choice. No, we're not trying to cover anything up.

Michael Brecker

I'm a little sad today. Michael Brecker died yesterday, 1/13/06 - he was 57. He was diagnosed with MDS (myelodysplastic syndrome) in 2005. Michael was a giant in the jazz world, and has always been my favorite saxophonist. I first heard the Brecker Brothers in 1978, the year their album Heavy Metal Be-Bop was released, and it has remained one of my favorite and most prized records to this day. I own every Brecker Brothers release, and they have not been terribly consistent, but each is good. I consider HMBB the peak of their output. My brother and I were like a little Brecker Brothers fan club, no one else I knew had even heard of them. As I moved on to bigger cities, I found more and more musicians who loved them and cited HMBB as one of their favorites, especially Some Skunk Funk. Randy Brecker started out as the primary songwriter but Michael contributed more and more as time went on, and I generally liked his compositions better. They petered out in the earlier 80's then went their separate ways for while. Michael went on to work in Steps Ahead and he played with many others, but I was never as big a fan of his non-Brecker Bros stuff. They reunited for a couple of CDs in the 90's. .

Some links for this story:

CBC
Bloomberg
All About Jazz
CNN - New link - Updated 01.15.07

SYWAWYWAKBWNATC

Installment #1 of Stuff You Wondered About When You Were a Kid But Were Never Able To Confirm, from Myth Busters:


Is it possible to do a chain-straight 360° loop on a swingset?

No. Under one's own power it is impossible to do a chain-straight 360° loop on a school yard swingset. With help of other pushers, it is possible, although highly difficult, to do a full circle without the chain being straight. A person would need a rocket strapped to himself to do it. A dummy was set up in such a manner; the rocket was able to propel it in a chain-straight 360° loop, but the setup would be too dangerous with a real person.

Closure. I am complete.

Dumb Names

I was doing some USB research and typed in www.usb.com to see who owns it, and I end up at the website for "Fifth Third Bank". What the hell kind of dumb name is that? That's like "Ruth's Chris Steak House".

Pick Me, I'm Clean

If elected we promise to eradicate cancer, outlaw puppy branding, and guarantee nuclear superiority over Wisconsin.

VOTE

.

Album of the Day

Pat Metheny - Zero Tolerance for Silence

This is album of the day lots of days. This is what paranoia sounds like. Slightly organized noise. It's perfect sound to work to. I guess some people think the album was a bad joke or a statement against his record company. Pat said it was something he just had to get out or he was going to go crazy. Tim Griggs at Allmusic hates it. Whoever edited the album page at Wikipedia is a little more even handed. My favorite review at Amazon: "Let me begin by saying that I hold three music degrees, one of them a doctorate. I've studied and appreciated lots of modern music/electronic/experimental/acid jazz/you name it. And I'm a huge Pat Metheny fan. But this is the worst damn thing I've ever heard." I do not want to have a beer with that guy. I hate arguing over what constitutes "music". Maybe I have a more liberal definition? All I know is this is the most simultaneously agitating and soothing CD I own.

Guitars are multi-purpose

Get a load of this video - the Stones are performing and some guy runs up on stage. Keith takes off his Tele and SMASHES the guy with it then puts it back on and continues playing like nothing happened.

Aaaaahhh

This guy took the time to say it better than I could. Apparently 50% of people think forward thrust on airplanes is generated from their wheels and not from engines mounted on the wings.

This is a dumb thing to even contemplate, I know. I kinda wish I had the 10 minutes I spent thinking about it back.

Local Music

After the Dismemberment Plan split in '03 they opened their music to others to cut up and remix. They picked the best submissions and those became A People's History of the Dismemberment Plan. It's an interesting but kind of uneven set of songs. One track stands above the others though, local guy Ev's (12 Rods, Halloween Alaska) remix of The City. Apparently he had never heard the original version before doing his remix.

Where to buy

Here's a list of online digital music retailers that sell Supraluxe:

Apple iTunes
Emusic
USEN
Interia
Sony Connect
Ruckus
GreatIndieMusic

Supposedly over the last year our music was submitted to 42 digital retailers / distributors, but these are the only sites where I could find our stuff.

Fellow Americans

...Canadians, Japanese, Brits, Spaniards, North Dakota expats, etc.

Hope you're having a smashing new year. As 2006 came to a close, the Best Of lists came out, and we appeared in a couple, as we've mentioned previously. The most recent (and undoubtedly final) year-end list of 2006 at Absolute Powerpop is the list of best songs. Blue Sky and Love Sweet Love both make the grade.

Happy New Year

Happy New Year