Nine Inch Nails “Mr. Self Destruct” (Live @ Webster Hall, NYC)

*Jaw drops*

-Chris Piercy

James Chance and The Contortions “I Can’t Stand Myself” (1978)

New York’s No Wave scene of the late ’70s is often portrayed as a lot of atonal and un-funky noise buggery, typified by such bands as Mars, DNA, and Teenage Jesus & The Jerks (all admittedly terrific atonal and un-funky noise buggers).  Yet, there was one lily white James Brown wannabe who danced through the puddles of piss and waves of feedback to bring the unsmiling art types a bit of groove: James Chance (a.k.a. James White).  Certainly, this was still not quite as accessible as the Talking Heads’ parallel forays into funk, but The Contortions’ music helped to bridge the aural divide between the two Eno-approved camps.  It should be noted that Chance was a bit more confrontational than David Byrne.  It’s hard to imagine Byrne physically challenging Robert Christgau during a concert. 

Of course, as much as I dig The Contortions, it would be pretty foolish to pretend that their version is better than James Browns’ original.  It’s not quite a fair fight.  So here is the mustachioed(!) sex machine performing a medley of his hits (including “I Can’t Stand Myself) on a 1974 episode of “Midnight Special”:

 

And, of course, here’s Eddie Murphy:

-Chris Piercy

Shit Vids: Michael Bolton “Said I Loved You But I Lied”

It seems that if enough time passes, just about any music can become ironically appreciated: Journey, Phil Collins, Christopher Cross, Mozart.  Yet, for some reason, Michael Bolton remains in the pop culture dog house.  For what?  His permamullet?  For soundtracking your wife’s third affair?  I call bullshit.  Sooner or later the hipsters will put down that ironic can of PBR and realize that The Bolt was The Man.  Did anyone ever call him “The Bolt”?  They should.  And the San Diego Chargers better make him their official mascot, pronto.  Maybe the power of that tenor will make up for L.T.’s lackluster play as of late.

When I ask myself what I expect from a decent music video, the first thing that pops into my mind is a group of horses running through superimposed fire.  You can’t go wrong with that and that is something that we get within the first 15 seconds of this video.  What could make this opening scene even better?  Cut to The Bolt holding the secrets of sex in his hands.  Then we get brief glimpses of some hot ass touching herself…IN BLACK AND WHITE!  After about a minute and a half, you may ask yourself: “Why is this video vaguely Native American?”  Probably because Native American culture is SEXXXY!  We also discover that The Bolt is waaaayyyy too sexy (Native American?) to be afraid of heights.

This video is a masterpiece of the editing room: Eagle! Fire! Sex! Chest hair! Mullet! Rocks! Horses! Perfect teeth! More mullet! Aerial shot of mullet!  Really the only part of this video that seems ridiculous is that someone would be standing on top of a mountain, in the desert, without any sunglasses.  That’s just eye damage waiting to happen.

Did I mention that this video was uploaded to YouTube by someone named “69solitarias”?  Obviously, they totally get Michael Bolton.

-Chris Piercy

New Music: Burial & Flying Lotus “Untitled”

Burial is hiding under the cap

Many moons ago a track popped up on the Flying Lotus MySpace page.  Then it vanished.  Well it’s time to get re-excited because it has popped up on a mysterious website called “YouTube”…and it is a confirmed collaboration between Burial and Flying Lotus.

It’s an understated track but it’s still a pretty interesting beating of the minds.  Hopefully this is a sign of more to come.  The music video is kind of lame tho (guffaw).

The untitled track uses elements of Dimlite’s “Ravemond’s Young Problems” (which has a pretty badazz video featuring some hawt female bench-pressin’, Tom Cruise, Johnny Depp, and a Smurf):

There’s also a snippet of V.I.C.’s “Get Silly”.  Forget a rubber band cuz you can’t put a rubber band around a milli-an:

-Chris Piercy

Daniel Johnston “Held the Hand” (1990)

This video is for anyone who is ever sad on cloudy days.

-Chris Piercy

New Music: Astro

I actually can’t tell  you too much about this band because I am not fluent in Spanish.  What I do know is that they are apparently based in Santiago, Chile, a beautiful and modern capital situated below the gaze of the Andes Mountains and Chilean Coastal Range.  I also know that America is a very fat country and Chile is a very skinny country.  At least geographically speaking.  Oh, and Astro make really fun music.

The band have a six-song digital EP that you can purchase on their MySpace page.  I guess you could call this Chilewave, if you wanted to be an idiot.

MP3s (Available for free on Last.fm):

“Maestro Distorsion“

“Hongo Atomic“

-Chris Piercy

New Music: Duck Sauce “aNYway”

Hyping videos that A Culture of Me posted three days ago is the digital age’s equivalent of givin’ a shout-out to Columbus in 2009.  Which we wouldn’t do, because Columbus was a total dick.  However, if you actually have a life outside of internet culture hunting/gathering, maybe you’ll be excited to see (for the first time!) this way-funky video by Duck Sauce:

Duck Sauce makes me think of Rick Dees cookin’ up some haute cuisine.  In reality, it’s a collaboration between A-Trak and Armand Van Helden.  An EP is supposed to be out before the end of the year.

-Chris Piercy

New Music: Death Knelly “DJ Lover”

Our dear friend Chase Jackson, a.k.a. Death Knelly, has posted a video for his brand new song “DJ Lover”.  Before anyone wants to start genre-branding, I’d like to throw out “kitchen-core”.  Only because that name came to me as I was typing that sentence.  AND since my brain is so awesome I post exactly what it gives me.  ANNNNDDDD because everyone loves kitchens.   Anywayz…this is maybe Death Knelly’s catchiest song yet.

The song samples Bumble Bee Unlimited’s “Lady Bug”, a classic disco jam from 1978.  For bonus credit, here’s a fan-made video of that tune:

Check out Death Knelly’s Myspace for more hott traxxx.

-Chris Piercy

Video: Das Racist – “Chicken and Meat” (2009)

“What’s really good? / What’s really food? / What’s really good?“

I’d venture to say that most people who keep up with “the blogs” are already familiar with the Wallpaper remix of this Brooklyn duo’s tribute to fast food ego death. After you’ve recovered from — well, whatever that is — you’d be well advised to check out this equally bizarre cut, “Chicken and Meat,” which finds the ethnically ambiguous duo spittin’ about everything from Hannah Montana to black Republicans:

[Das Racist's official MySpace page]

- Jezy

Christian Marclay (Live)

I apologize to my three readers for being so absent lately.  Organizing the Happyland Music Festival Part 2 took up much of my brain-space for awhile (I’ll post some of those pics here soon).

Here’s a video that should blow you away, and perhaps momentarily distract you from thinking I’m a wretched blogger.

-Chris