Syllabus: March (Jessica's void)

In pursuit of filling all of those gaps in your collections, sometimes you stumble.  More often than not, you pick yourself back up and keep moving.  Other times, you can't seem to shake that one missing piece.  In my recent memory, I can think of only a few records that have made me falter in lieu of skipping and marching on.  Otherwise, I've been trading up/down all kinds of shitty mixes, atonal underground hip hop singles, crazy avant-shit instrumentals, and less-than-unknown doo wop teams.  Anyways...these two records are mainly for my friend Jessica, a) because she asked for one of them and b) because I don't think your appreciation of a great big whole in your collection is complete without getting the redemption of that one great fucking record that changed everything can bring you.  Everything old is new again.  Everything new sounds like it's old (read: post-post-whatever you want to call it...I'm looking at you).

(mp3)   Voxtrot - Raised by Wolves EP [removed from site by request of Sparrow House management]

(mp3)    Velvet Underground & Nico - Velvet Underground & Nico (1966 Andy Warhol original acetate recordings)

1.    European Son

2.    Black Angel's Death Song

3.    All Tomorrow's Parties

4.    I'll Be Your Mirror

5.    Heroin

6.    Femme Fatale

7.    Venus In Furs

8.    Waiting For My Man

9.    Run, Run, Run

There you go.

Godspeed!

Syllabus: February

Now, I know that this may have been number 10 of 10 in their catalog of records and even though it's all relatively the same songs over and over and over again, I'm still putting it up here.  This is the Descendents' Cool to be You.  Released in 2004, well after the band had much of an influence on the current state of punk/hardcore (see: Boy, Fall Out), Milo Auckerman & company have nonetheless kept up with the usual thrash/melody/thrash that kids have been pogo-ing to for around twenty years.

So, there you go.  You can now own Cool to be You.  Just like me.  Go ahead.  Tell me how much you love that dude jeff.  Send me a comment I.O.U.

If music is so supposedly fun to listen to, this record is the absolute definition of euphoria.  Try not to laugh at any of the dick-and-fart jokes or the absurdity throughout.  Have fun.

Download it here.

Godspeed!

Syllabus: January

Okay kids.  Class in session.  Since a few of you (read: 2, maybe?) did NOT receive a complimentary copy of the annual end-of-the-year-mixtape-a-palooza, I have a surprise for you.  Yes sir.  You can, in fact, DIY your own copy.  Here's what you will need:

MATERIALS

1.    Polaroid

2.    Tracklisting

3.    Mix CD

4.    Blank CD

5.    Blank CD case (your choice, go crazy)

TO DO

1.    Download item #3

2.    Burn onto item #4

3.    Decorate item #4 as needed (imagination is crucial here, that's why it's DIY.)

4.    Combine Polaroid and Tracklisting into cover and slip into empty CD case.

5.    Destroy something after listening (obviously doing nothing else) for 78 minutes.

6.    Repeat if necessary or time and weather permitting.

Godspeed!

Syllabus: November (know your roots)

I shouldn't even have to do this, but...

Remember those mixtapes (or for those of you under the age of 20, mix CDs) you used to spend endless time procrastinating your trig homework to make for someone you felt so madly [insert your emotion here] about and all you wanted to do was figure out whether that Cheap Trick song you love would be something he/she would dig as well?

Remember all of those family car/plane/train rides to some relative's home where you couldn't stand one more minute of the silence or AM talk radio or cabin pressure?

Recall those moments at work when you considered how that tie and khakis are not truly the best representation of who you really want to project yourself to be?

Remember weekends with nothing to really do but figuring out that anything would be better than another night of watching other people have fun?

Remember?

Remember.

Godspeed!

Syllabus: CMJ 2006

Alas, dear readers, another music/film/culture festival has come and gone.  The CMJ (College Music Journal...see, now you can impress your stalwart friends) Music Marathon 2006 descended on New York City like a vulture before a meal.  Okay, maybe not so morbid of a simile, but you get the idea.  Here's a rundown of that dude jeff's happenings this week and the experiences therein.

Firstly, I took the week off work (!!!).  NOT simply because of CMJ, but because, for fuck's sakes, I haven't truly had a good couple of days off from my work in oh, say, 37689682423 days or so.  ANYWAYS, I've done almost nothing this week aside from CMJ, so I'll spare you the specific details of it all and just say this.  Wednesday, I hit up the Knitting Factory and caught The Slits, The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower, Genghis Tron, The Apes, Made in Mexico, DJ Thanksgiving Brown, Dynasty Handbag, Green Milk From the Planet Orange (Japan), Shellshag, Rah Bras, The Mall, Man In Gray, The Unsacred Hearts, Kickstart, The Octagon, DraculaZombieUSA and The Two Man Gentlemen Band.  Final verdict is basically that the Rah Bras, Genghis Tron, The Apes, TPTBUTET and Dynasty Handbag were awesome.  The Slits were only disappointing in that there are only 2 of the members left in the band, but there were about 8 (?) girls on stage for the performance.  PLUS, they really didn't sell the whole act at any point and Ari Up looked retarded in her outfit.

Thursday, I hit up Arlene's Grocery for the Dovecote showcase and caught Trevor Guiliani, The Late Greats, Mason Proper, Tim Williams, In-Flight Radio and The Churchills.  I wasn't really taken by any of the acts except for Mason Proper, but oh well.  I knew I shouldn't expect to be destroyed the entire festival, right?  Moving on.

Friday (the highlight reel night...read on) I attended the French Kiss Records showcase at Piano's downtown.  The line-up: Call Me Lightning, Fatal Flying Guilloteens, Rahim, The Plastic Constellations, The Big Sleep and headliners Thunderbirds Are Now!  I have to say that out of all of the "smaller" venues in NYC, Piano's is that dude jeff approved as THE best soundsystem for live acts in all 5 boroughs.  Officially bitches.  Every one of these bands destroyed and you could tell that the label had built up a cohesive unit for the showcase.  No frills.  No gimmicks.  Just rip-your-fucking-face-off live rock and roll.  Click the picture below for more shots from the show.

Also at the show, I happened to meet Tim and Syd from Les Savy Fav and I fucking lost it over the starfucking I had just done.  Tim was just as you'd expect him to be in person (not so much scary like horror or something, just scary as in holy fuck he'll kick my ass and intimidate the shit out of me), but he was way too nice and pleasant to really leave a negative impression.  Live on stage, though, he'll rip you to pieces.

Okay, so here's the final verdicts:

1.    No one who actually would kill to see the Shins, got in to see the Shins.

2.    A few bands to look out for: Foreign Islands, We Are Wolves, IV Thieves, Pink Noise, Archie Bronson Outfit, Run Run Run, Heavens, Mute Math, Beach House, Genghis Tron, Fatal Flying Guilloteens, Mixel Pixel, Get Him Eat Him, Daylight's for the Birds, CSS, Oxford Collapse, Viva Viva, White Whale.  Do the Google-ing yourself.

3.    CMJ truly is one of the only times in New York City that kids with giant backpacks and latchkey necklaces ever get respect.

4.    iTunes reps will kill you if you do not take one of their free handouts.

5.    CakeShop coffee = next to godliness.

6.    Everyone has a demo.  Proof that GarageBand and 4-tracking are alive and well.

7.    Disenchanted CMJ'ers will always say "this is totally nothing compared to South by Southwest..."

So there you have it.  My adventures at CMJ this year.  My thanks to the kids from Cake Shop, Bowery, Knitting Factory, Arlene's, iTunes, CMJ, The Deli Magazine, French Kiss, LIFEbeat, 31G, MisShapes, The L Magazine and all of the hilariously awesome people I met along the way this week.  Yr altogether awesome in that dude jeff's book.  Oh, and I've prepped a small playlist for you all, dear readers and loved ones of mine, to download and consume, go enjoy!

that dude jeff's "CMJ will eat you alive" sampler:

1.    The Big Sleep - Murder (mp3)

2.    The Slits - Heard It Through... (mp3)

3.    Voxtrot - Missing Pieces (mp3)

4.    Rahim - One At A Time (mp3)

5.    The Apes - How You Like Me Now (mp3)

6.    Genghis Tron - Arms (mp3)

7.    Rah Bras - As She Rah (mp3)

8.    Thunderbirds Are Now! - Enough About Me, Let's Talk About Me (mp3)

9.    Asobi Seksu - Taiyo (mp3)

10.  The Thermals - Let Your Earth Quake Baby (mp3)

Godspeed!

Syllabus: October

In these times of Capitol area confusion, scandals, and idiotic provocateurs, it's nice sometimes to look back in time to when "Bombs over Baghdad" was little more than the only words white kids knew of an Outkast tune (come on, admit it, you can only remember certain words in there).  With that in mind, that dude jeff brings you this addition of our monthly appreciation: Q and not U's "No Kill No Beep Beep".

Brought to us by Dischord (!), these nine tracks are immensely angular, at times sinister and at other moments divine.  If you listen to this record alone, in front of your stereo/computer/etc. (no headphones alowed) I guarantee you that you'll not be able to sit still for than a few seconds.  Like Bobby DeNiro in Awakenings, you'll find yourself in a post-catatonic compulsive jump-around sense of mood.

The secret word to remember during your listening experience: Spazz!  Go here for the record.

Syllabus: September

Girl Talk.  Night Ripper.  I really don't have to say anything else at all.  Just listen to the fucking record.  You will not be able to stop yourself from enjoying it.  Also, as a note, turn OFF the "shuffle" feature of whatever device or app (iTunes, WinAmp(?), Media Player, Quicktime, etc.) you happen to be favoring.  Okay, go here.

Godspeed!

Syllabus: August

Hey guys,

So, it's the first of the month, and I got the idea that it'd be really a cool thing if I were to start a monthly series where I would post (for free download and dissemination) one earth-shatteringly influential (and sometimes highly over/underrated) albums that none of you should have missed.  If in fact any of the artists that I'm making available to you drum up an interest into the artist or their compatriots and contemporaries, I urge you to go out and buy some of their material.  I'd suggest starting with an EP or 7", but if you feel overly compelled, buy a whole album (even iTunes allows this for a measly $10...how very Dischord of them).

Without any further ado, then, I present the inaugural album inducted into the vaults of The Culture of Me.com.  PLEASE NOTE: This album will only be available for 7 days (one week if you're using the metric system).  Also, if you are or have been part of any of the musicians that I'm posting your copyright-protected material up for free on the fabulous Internet and you have a problem with that, please email the staff of The Culture of Me.com immediately!  While I'm trying to spread some very necessary knowledge about your band and music, I fully understand if you disagree with my means.

Okay, enough of the covering of my proverbial tracks and protecting my ass from legal action (I hope!), I bring you Deserter's Songs by Mercury Rev.  Go forth and preach the gospel of The Culture of Me.com.

Godspeed!

In search of 2001 (seriously)

5 years ago I was turning twenty--sigh.  Now, I know that some of my "older" readers will say something like "twenty.  Sigh.  What the fuck.  I'm one of those older readers.  Fuck that dude jeff."  But let me finish.  I'm not waxing emotional about being 20 years old.  I'm merely giving some ground to start off on.  Okay?  Let's continue.

5 years ago I was turning twenty.  5 years ago, there were about 2% the amount of iPods around everywhere.  5 years ago, I didn't know that my lovely girlfriend Karen existed.  In fact, 5 years ago (I'm sorry for this Karen) I was dating someone else altogether.  In college, no less.  5 years ago.

Some other things that happened (not so that dude jeff-centric) 5 years ago: the Harry Potter movies debut, everyone's afraid of Arabs, the Yankees lost the world series, Bush was inaugurated, the towers fell down, Will Smith was Ali, Dale Earnhardt crashed hard, Vanilla Sky blew, Lord of the Rings destroyed, Joey Ramone died, the concert for New York was a better telethon than even Jerry Lewis could imagine, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.  Oh, and "the New York scene" is reborn.

The Strokes.  Interpol.  Yeah Yeah Yeahs.  The Walkmen.  French Kicks.  And the hundreds of bands-to-be brainstorm the next big hit while sitting in Williamsburg or the Lower East Side.  And here's where the point of this blog really kicks in.  5 years ago, no one could deny the power, prowess and artistic "turbulence" of popular music from New York City in 2001.  And neither could I.  I was a fan.  I bought all the records.  I went to as many shows as would have me.  I preached to my non-enlightened friends about how they were "missing out" and "you'll totally dig this", etc.  And they listened.  And then they bought all of the records.  And they went to some shows, too.  It was beautiful.  And I knew it couldn't last forever.

And this is the crux of my typing.  All of the bands I just listed up there have a special place in my musical mind.  They all brought me something that I could see.  Concretely.  I could go to a basement party off Lorimer and run into Carlos D. From Interpol spinning talking heads records.  I had the ability to see Nick Zinner chat up Vincent Gallo and Chloe Sevigny over a Pabst blue ribbon at Manitoba's, North Six, Sea, or 117A.  Anywhere.  I felt like that fucking kid in Almost Famous saying "it's all happening".  Because it was "all happening".

And then the year ended and I couldn't stay with just 1 record from these bands.  I figured that they owed me more.  More songs.  More anthems.  More emotion.  More.  And they didn't provide.  Deadbeats, I thought.  They don't care about that dude jeff.  I'm just another face in the concert-going crowd to them.  But I’m not.  I'm fucking not.  2002.  2003.  2004.  2005.  2006.  Take that in.  That's a lot of fucking time going by.

I want to go back to 2001 for the sole purpose of not being disappointed with how these bands have not lived up to anything they put out 5 years ago.  And you could make a case like "it was a certain time and place".  A certain something.  Anything.  But it's not just gone by in a flash.  It took the Yeah Yeah Yeahs 3 years to follow up 2003's "Fever to Tell".  And while you can read plenty of interviews about how Karen, Nick and Brian didn't want to make "Fever to Tell 2” for their next record, they were right.  They didn't make anything close to it.  The Walkmen's "Bows & Arrows" was good.  It was good.  It was not "everyone who pretended to like me is gone".

The only band (in my opinion, at least) that made more of an impression artistically and architecturally speaking was Interpol.  Yes, Interpol.  And while you can only read so far into Paul Banks sounding like Ian Curtis over and over again, nowhere can you find much about how big a leap "Antics" was from "Turn on the Bright Lights".  And it was a giant leap.  Paul Banks sounded a lot less like Ian Curtis and a lot more like Paul Banks.  Their sound evolved.  It didn't change, really.  It became their sound even more than was evident on their first release.

So, what am I really getting at here, huh?  Is it something more deep than my disapproval of the "New York scene" bands not sticking to the program of making shit-kicking-ly good music over and over again?  Yes.  Is it more than that?  Maybe.  I don't really know.  I wanted to write this after listening to the new YYYs record on the subway.  It kind of dawned on me that Brian, Karen and Nick maybe focused a little too much on three years of sheen and not 40 minutes of genius.  Maybe I’m wrong.  It's happened before.  But I don't think so.  Not now at least.

You tell me.  Is it better to progress and augment your sound to prove that you can make something different or should you just do what the strokes did from album 1 to album 2 and from album 2 to album 3?  They didn't change anything.  Not even my opinion of them.  And that's what's really important to me.  If a band makes me feel proud to listen to them for reasons other than it being deemed "cool" to do so, than I’m impressed and content with my decision.  God knows I’ve gone through enough albums that sucked ass to really know which ones I want to keep pressing play to.

Godspeed!

Refused: Alive is the new dead

okay, for those of you who don't know (and shame on you, you know who you are), refused was a band.  in fact, they looked a lot like this:

anyway, they destroyed themselves almost instantaneously after destroying every fucking crowd they played to.  and now, years after the scars have healed (mostly), a dvd that chronicles their final assault on the senses is finally ready for wide release.  here's a bit from the press release:

refused are dead. they spent their last year in existence touring godforsaken hellholes scattered around the western world. this is their testament.

in 1997, refused wrote and recorded their farewell record, the seminal "the shape of punk to come", hailed by many as an undisputed masterpiece of the genre.

years of intensive touring were finally paying off some and yet within the band there brooded a feeling of bitter fatigue. weary and tired, refused dutifully put on a series of uninspired peformances, grinding what little energy they still possessed down to nothing. when the police officers finally forced their way through the crowd at their very last show with the intention to shut it down, it seemed a fitting end to a story of revolutionary romanticism and merry rebellion.

however, the bandmembers felt liberated as well as conflicted by the intervention, far from the defiant emotions of their audience.

in this undaunted documentary, refused guitarist kristofer steen retraces the steps of how punk rock's brave new sound forged it's way throuch the swamps and swill on their last campaign in europe and america, rushing like mad dogs to meet with their inevitable doom.

view the trailer

if you're not thoroughly convinced that you fucked up by never seeing them live or you don't own any of their recordings, fear not, good citizens.  freedom from purchase is here at last.  one free download for whatever senses are left over from viewing the trailer.

get a taste of the mayhem:

refused - new noise (mp3)

godspeed!

-that dude jeff