Santogold - Lights Out

Favourite new track of the week

Caring is Creepy

I really enjoyed James "The Shins" Mercer's answer to this

AVC: You have a song called "Caring Is Creepy." Do you really think caring is creepy?

JM: When I came up with that idea for the title, I was talking about how in my circle of friends—this was my circle of friends, especially in Albuquerque—you drink and you hang out and you talk and you make jokes and you do all that stuff, but as soon as you start talking about anything real, something that actually moves you or anything like that, it's just fucking awkward. You know, there's a lot of ways to kill a party—talking about politics and that shit—but I'm talking about anything that's heartfelt. That used to grump me out, so "Caring Is Creepy" is where that came from. The song itself is about a love of mine at the time that went south—it's fitting in that way.

The complete interview at the A.V. Club

The song

FNM Mixtape :)

Philip K. Dick on "the authentic human being"

"The authentic human being is one of us who instinctively knows what he should not do, and, in addition, he will balk at doing it. He will refuse to do it, even if this brings down dread consequences to him and to those whom he loves. This, to me, is the ultimately heroic trait of ordinary people; they say no to the tyrant and they calmly take the consequences of this resistance. Their deeds may be small, and almost always unnoticed, unmarked by history. Their names are not remembered, nor did these authentic humans expect their names to be remembered. I see their authenticity in an odd way: not in their willingness to perform great heroic deeds but in their quiet refusals. In essence, they cannot be compelled to be what they are not."  
Read here

The complete piece is a nice read.

Arthur C. Clarke (16/12/1917-19/03/2008 - R.I.P.

Cat DJ's

The always wonderful WFMU blog presents a collection of feline DJ's

Back from PC vacations

Hello no-readers.

Long time no see. I've been on vacation and most of my computer-time was dedicated to getting destroyed in Team Fortress II. No matter how good you play (and I don't) there's always some geek somwhere who just humiliates you, just like that. My wife wasn't too happy about my new addiction until I showed her how the controls went. The result was, after a few days, she broke all my (laughable) records. Not satisfied, she went out and bought herself a mic/earphone USB set and is now commanding her teams everynight. In retrospect, I can understand how this is the perfect game for her: collaborative and competitive at the same time. That's my dear wife for you.

I have been listening to a few of my older records again, especially Fugazi, one of my favourite bands of all time. I had not listened to them in a long time. We music lovers spend so much time craving for the new, listening to anything that the Internets are hyping around, sometimes we forget how great those older records of ours are.

I was introduced to the band when I lived in Iowa for a few months and a girl made me a mixtape with a song of theirs. I went out and bought "Steady Diet Of Nothing". I didn't like the sound of the record but the songs were all so good I forgot about that detail. I went on to buy several of their albums, "Red Medicine" being my favourite still.

A few years ago I managed to get an interview with Guy Picciotto. I mention this like it was hard but it was actually as difficult as sending an e-mail and I was very happy that he was kind enough to write me back and answer my questions. What a great guy !


This is the original interview, it's kind of old now (specially my dull questions) but I felt like posting it anyway, since the great songs have been with me the last weeks and made me feel so good.

Fugazi's sound is quite hard to define (you know journalists like to do that kind of stuff...) and has become even more so in the last albums. I'd like to know what drove you interest to music and what you liked to listen to growing up.

The thing that originally got me into music was really The Beatles. When I was a little kid I was completely obsessed with them. I had my haircut like them and I would not allow myself to buy any other records by any other bands until I had every song the Beatles ever recorded. I was totally devoted to their music and I listened to it with microscopic intensity. To this day their music is so ingrained into my brain that the songs feel like part of my anatomy and they are absolutely what initially drove me to want to learn how to play guitar.

I was not in a very musical family though my father had played harmonica in a band when he was growing up in Lebanon but that's about it - there was no piano in the house and none of us were especially musical. Still my parents did help me get a guitar when I was 12 and I started slowly learning chords and stuff as well as starting to listen to alot of the rock music that every other kid was listening to in the mid 70's : Kiss, Aerosmith, Led Zeppelin and Bob Dylan.

It wasn't till I found out about punk rock in 1978 that I really started thinking about being in a band myself. There was something about the all the music I was into before punk rock that functioned in my mind as an escapist dream - punk rock made music seem like a reality, a potentiality and one that I could be part of. Seeing bands in small rooms and not arenas - seeing other kids my age forming bands and putting out their own records - those were really pivotal changes and from about the age of 14 on I was always in a band of some kind or another.

I also realize you take an interest in filmmaking and I'd like to know how that is going and if you plan to work on the music of the films as well. Have you done music for films before (excluding Instrument video) ? How do you feel about it ? What are the other members up to ?

I do love films and I even tried to make a couple of short movies on Super 8 film about ten years ago - they were called "Silly Game" and "Please Cry" but they were pretty amateur attempts. Working on INSTRUMENT with director Jem Cohen was the first time I really got a chance to be involved with professional editing equipment and I really learned alot from that experience. Jem is an amazing filmmaker and both Ian and I have helped out a tiny bit on the editing and conceptualizing of his latest feature called CHAIN - which is his first full length narrative film about the homogenizing effect of modern global capitalism on the actual surface of the world we walk around in. As for doing soundtrack work on films myself - I haven't done much beyond helping to assemble the INSTRUMENT soundtrack but the other guys in the band have. Ian and Brendan worked on music for a documentary about the Weather Underground radicals of the 60's last year and Brendan in particular has done alot of work for a variety of cable television documentaries - its like a parallel career for him and he's really good at it.


How do you feel about the state of the music industry as it is right now ? Do you believe it's easier for independent bands who'd like to stay that way to show their work with the Internet ?

I honestly don't think or worry about the music industry at all....... I really don't give a shit about it. I think music will always be with us because its enters the soul so powerfully and its such a powerful expressive outlet - the industry that builds up around it is just a hitchhiking scab and how it fares is just not that important to me.

Bands always have the option of how much they want to operate within the industry - some bands feel it is indispensable to work within that system. Other bands just want to find a free space to be able to create.... it all depends on what is important to you. For Fugazi, autonomy was important so we protected ours and just did what we could to stay free. The Internet is just a tool - there is no doubt that it is a powerful way to spread information to wide numbers of people- it can be used in ways that are really cool no doubt - but the Internet isn't going to write a brilliant song for you - the Internet isn't going to supply you with the inspiration that determines a great creative statement or a great social movement. That stuff has to come from somewhere else - someplace human.


I realize you have been in Brazil. When was that and how was that experience ? Any other South American countries on that tour ?

We actually played in Brazil twice - the first time was in August in 1994 when we just did about a week of shows in towns like Belo Horizonte, Sao Paolo, Rio and Curitiba. The next time we came back was in August of 1997 when we did a more extensive tour of Brazil - playing towns like Brasilia and Santos as well - and we also did one show in Buenos Aires, Argentina and one show in Santiago, Chile. Both tours were life changing experiences for us - we totally fell in love with everything about Brazil - the people, the food, the music, the nature. It had a very deep impact on us. I really regret the fact that we haven't been able to make it back down to South America again - I think about it all the time. I sometimes deejay on a small community radio station here in DC and I always play alot of Brazilian music on the air - Capoeira stuff, the music of Os Mutantes, Milton Nascimento, Caetano Veloso, etc.

Bush vs. Kerry. Do you believe there's much difference between them ?

I am under no illusions about John Kerry and he is certainly not the person I would pick if I had the power to name the President of the USA - I would much rather have some kind of fusion of Ralph Nader and Patti Smith in the White House. But idle fantasy aside, given the situation at hand I think there is a world of difference between George Bush and his administration and John Kerry - Kerry, if he wins, will no doubt be a huge dissapointment but George Bush is a straight up pathological maniac who has fucked up the USA and the world in an astonishingly aggressive manner. The prospect of an additional 4 years with Bush in power is too terrifying to contemplate and I think everyone should do what they can to prevent that from happening.

At last, will we be hearing anything from Fugazi in the future ? Any plans ?

I wish I had some news to report about Fugazi resurfacing but there are currently no plans for that to happen. Right now everyone in the band is off doing other things. Both Brendan and Joe have kids and that priority has alot to do with the hiatus that we are on right now. But we are all still doing stuff. I mentioned Brendan's soundtrack work - he also produces bands and plays in a group called Garland of Hours. Joe has moved to Los Angeles and he has been working on a project called the Fugazi Live Series where he has made a bunch of Fugazi live tapes from our archives available for sale - check out www.fugaziliveseries.com for more information about that. He has also just finished a project with John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers - its called Ataxia and the CD is out now. Ian has a new band , a duo called the Evens and they have started playing shows as well as made some recordings that will probably come out at some point. I have been doing some production work ( with bands like Blonde Redhead and the Casual Dots) and I am slowly trying to put together a new group but still nothing definite to report. But whether Fugazi will ever play together again remains up in the air - we all remain friends and we still work on band related stuff all the time but whether we will actually play another show again or make a record - I just don't know. Stay posted for news about us at www.dischord.com

Jenner causes Braindamage

I met Jenner some years ago when I played my first gig with my electronic project at the time. He was playing on the same night with his own project: John Merrick Experience. We've been working on stuff here and there together since then, only limited by my unbelievable laziness to get over to his place and check out the studio he's always telling me about. J is a man full of love and rage and a passion for music that drives him to put together band after band. He knows what he wants and how he wants it done. Sometimes you're not sure if he wants to hug you or kick your ass. I've seen his "hate you" face once and, believe me, I don't ever want to see it again !

Besides all that he is also founder and CEO of Braindamage Productions, his own DIY enterprise where he manages all his 126 musical projects. His oldest child, John Merrick Experience has been active since 1994. During that period he has killed the band several times, only to raise it from the ashes again with some new release (apparently it's dead for good now, but I don't know...). Hence the title of one of JMX's songs "John Merrick Experience Is Over". Add to that all his other bands wich include punk rock mayhem, eletroclash goo and neo-new wave nonsense.

I'll let the man speak for himself

How did you get into this music thing, was there much music around the house ?

There was always music around the house, but there were no musicians. I was born in 1971, so about the time I was six or seven years old, disco music was the thing. My oldest brother, who is seven years older than me, was a strong musical influence in my life. Before I was introduced to punk rock (in 1981), I was more interested in creating other forms of art, such as drawing, poetry and all sorts of writing. I got to know what punk rock was about by the age of ten, and it obviously had a huge impact on my life. The idea of making music without having to study its theory seemed - and to this day, it still seems - very appealing to me. Around that time, my brother was learning how to play the acoustic guitar, and he had left the classic brazilian electric guitar Giannini Supersonic locked in his closet, completely forgotten and gathering dust. I had a blast when I found the key to the closet, and from that day on, I tried to play the instrument whenever I was left alone. So that was the beginning of everything, that is why I have been involved with music since 1985 without ever having studied all the theorical aspects (laughs). Ironically, m y brother became the vice-president of a big company. He has an amazing collection of CDs and videos, but in spite of having studied music for over three years, he never tried joining a band.

Is Braindamage your DIY manifesto ?

(Laughs) The idea of Braindamage came from a sticker which I saw in 1984. It was written "HOMEWORK CAUSES BRAINDAMAGE", just a classic 80's sticker like "Disco Sucks". In 1983 I almost bought a Flying V guitar with money stolen from my dad's wallet (laughs), but it was sold before I could get my hands on it. It wasn't easy to simply buy an instrument and go home with it, you know... It wouldn't have been well seen by the family, so I just spent the money elsewhere. The following year my dad gave me some cash, which he said should be used for my sexual pleasure such as pay a whore an loose my male virginity (laughs) it happens quite often those days. Nonetheless, I didnt. Instead I went home bragging about what I supposedly had "achieved", but saved the money and eventually so I bought my first bass, a shitty one that I still have somewhere in my apartment. By the end of 1985 I formed my first band, named Reação Química (Chemical Reaction), and by the next year we were playing gigs in school festivals, for which we were awarded (were four competitions). It was funny, carrying all that shit around, amps, instruments, effect pedals and even lightning equipment ! Mommy and daddy didn't want to know about it, maybe they hoped I would give up. Before we could ever know, my partner Ricardo "Rato" Garcia (who played the guitar), our autistic drummer Fred and I were three kids giving autographs away in the neighbourhoods of Leblon and Ipanema (in Rio de Janeiro). My first gig was at a public school named George Fischter and the audience consisted in over 800 people! After that, Rato's family moved away and I went on with my music, playing with tons of people around the city, always on bass, doing it Sid Vicious style (laughs). In January 1989 I went to Europe with my family and crashed right into the Acid/House Music scene. I came back with a 4-track, a mixer, a Roland TR-626 drum machine and some effect pedals. I had Bomb The Bass and Tim Simenon as great influences, and I was aware that the absence of my friend Rato would increase the challenge of being a non-musician among musicians. Nothing was more DIY than House Music, even Punk Rock... A band could be just one guy, conquering the world. That thought turned my head upside down, and that same year I managed to load my collection with tons of synths and to learn MIDI with Miguel Ratton's books. In 1990 I bought an AMIGA 500 and a 8-bit Ensoniq Mirage sampler. After that, you can realize my life was pretty much damned forever (laughs). In 1991 I did my first Live PA (I just found a video recording of that will put at Youtube soon), in 1993 I migrated to the PC, Cakewalk, etc. In February 1994 I produced the electronic elements on Planet Hemp's first demo and put together John Merrick Experience. Three months later Planet Hemp signed with Sony Music and I wasn't even invited to the recording sessions, which obviously pissed me off pretty much, and it even made me stay away from music for a few years. When I began working again, my girlfriend at the time saw a program about brazilian e-music and said I should promote my stuff around, since it was better than anything on the program. I watched that show (AMP on MTV) and had to agree with her. I was already working on my stuff with Tantão (member of Black Future), so we started to record, set up gigs, I created the logo, the website and distributed CDs. That's about how it happened!

So, how does JMX fit into this story? It's your longest standing project...

JMX officially died on December 2005, after a show we played on the release party of Edmundo Barreiros and Pedro Só's book. Some of our songs were still included in two compillations released in 2006 and I did some solo gigs afterwards. The idea behind JMX was always to confront what people got used to percepting as music. We never repeated a single show, there was always new material. We played anywhere, sometimes in the worst situations, which actually seemed to become some sort of curse. I was talking to Calbuque (a Braziliam journalist who's specialty is music) other day, and I asked him to erase the name John Merrick Experience from an article. His answer was quite surprising to me. He said "Why would you want that? People know JMX!" and I was like "Really?" (laughs).

I don't know... I released some material in 2007 and got some great responses from people like Cosmo Vitelii (french dj ), but I'm still not sure. It's hard for to me when people use music as a way to massage their egos. JMX was never about that, it was a faceless wall of sound, it never made any sense to me going up on stage by myself, but because there would eventually be trouble with Tantão (the other member of JMX), I sometimes had to. I confess that, musically, it didn't make any difference, but what I enjoy the most about playing live is chatting, looking at people and seeing their reactions. It's sad because putting a band together in this town - and by that, I mean a band that actually functions - is quite impossible.

What's happening in the indie/rock/eletro scene in Rio de Janeiro in 2007/2008 ?

There is a staleness about Rio, a revival thing going on, soap opera trendiness kind of bullshit. Even though some call it Brazil's cultural capital, it looks more like a tomb to me, filled with decomposing corpses. Musicians seem to be constantly waiting for something or someone's approval, like Caetano Veloso's or whatever...shit! And there is absolutely NO professionalism of contractors, who don't pay shit. Not to mention the artificial popularity of websites such as MySpace, Fotolog, Orkut and countless others. It's really pathetic, I'M OUT OF THIS WANNABE SHIT! The Internet helps you put your work out there and even if your neighbours don't get it, there will always be some guy in Belgium, Sweden or Trinidad and Tobago who digs what you're doing and gives you some cool feedback - not just empty appraisals. In 2008 (more mature, maybe) I'm building my own studio and will produce not only my own music, but also bands that want to shake it up.

You make fun on your site with videos made for people "too lazy to listen to music". Are you lazy ?

It's a sign of what's happening these days. By experience I know that people say they are going to listen to something that you put it online, but they don't. Nonetheless, humans are curious by nature. If you say you put a video online, they will check it out and listen to it (and watch, of course). It's very efficient, which I realized with videos that I did in a half hour for Private Dancers, a band I produced.

How do you feel about how some people talk about you, the controversy guy ?

(Laughs) Ok, I got this "fame" of a troublemaker who gets pissed off and I discuss severely for what I believe. The thing is we can't have a more professional enviroment without asking and forcing some rules or contract deals. That´s the only way possible when people don't respect their own words. Most people don't give much attention to that, always repeating "ok, take it easy, it was a misunderstanding" I don't bite that, in a scene with such low working conditions, if you want to succeed you should choose, ask and be a pain in the ass for what´s best for you – I don't care if people talk about me – they always do.

Any essential influences?

Too many to rememeber now... just to name a few: Devo, New Order, Bomb The Bass, Depeche Mode, Damião Experiência, Sex Pistols, Afrika Bambaata...

What are your projects for the near future ? I'm sure you have tons!

Near future? Naturally, I'd say "NO FUTURE", but right now I'm opening my studio "Wasabi Waffles Studios". I am also going back to working on a label project with Rodrigo Lariú, I am currently working on Klientsss (a solo project), some remix work that is already late, producing other bands, reworking my website and sweating towards world domination with my weekly podcast Misturinha that had over 800.000 listeners in 2007. I intend on making things more financially viable, of course, playing more music with my friends, playing in other cities, other countries, others worlds. In my heart, every second, beats the word from Public Enemy: "Don't Believe The Hype" !!!

Rick Falkvinge interview

Swedish Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge was asked if he thought that in the near future only a draconian control state could possibly enforce copyright in online communications.

"I do. The people who have been led to believe that file sharing can be stopped with minimal intrusion are basically smoking crack."

His complete interview is a good read

(via Boing Boing)

Songbird & Miro

Two "machines" must be recommended: Songbird and Miro. The first for your music delight and the second for your video pleasures .

Songbird is a mix of iTunes with Mozilla Firefox. You can browse through mp3 blogs and sites like Skreemr and Hype Machine and listen to the music posted there inside the application, bookmarking anything you like while you browse the sites, and also download them in most cases.Unfortunately,as far as I know, you can't burn CD's from it but then maybe I'm just old-fashioned. Anyway it's a great player/browser mutant.

Miro is a video-player with integrated RSS subscrition to a load of free channels and good content overall. You can also search popular video-streaming sites and download them videos, although I found the search feature sending me some strange results here and there. Overall the open-source and "still in development" feel of both programs can be noticed but I find that they are beautifully concepted and will depelop into something amazing.

Liz - "Lao no Hospício" - Menthe de Chat

The music made by Liz plays like a surreal movie where jazz divas meet the sound of rain and samples of movie lines meet broken beats and subtle noise. It's a perfect expression of her love for art, her desires and dreams.

When I first heard the music on Liz Christine's MySpace, I didn't quite know what to make of it. Maybe as all music that is worth your time, it also takes some time to get into it and this music is probably best appreciated through your headphones on a rainy and lazy weekend, far from everyday routine. A music made of dreams, wich are also the matter of her work.

"The dreams I use to make my music, the one's I dream when I'm asleep or even awake, they all relate to my past and present life...they mix together my long-time obsessions with present experiences, and maybe everybody is like that" she tells me through an e-mail interview."I write about a few of them in my blog and one of them inspired the title track of my new album...actually all the songs on this album are about a dream with a voice, much more about the dream itself than the original voice that inspired this dream. All my dreams are about love, sex and relationships."

'Lao no Hospício', the new album she is refering to, has just been released by Menthe de Chat, a brazilian label dedicated to electronic and experimental music." My first two records came out through Fronha Records, a kkfs remix album and Caterina Flavor. Everything else was released through Menthe de Chat". When Fernando created the label, he invited Liz to release the already finished Lizbox on his new enterprise. You can download the complete albums, with artwork through the labels website.

"One of my songs was also included in a collection of Japan's label Flau and they also invited me to release a vinil record there."

The use of sound samples from old jazz recordings is mixed on Lao no Hospício with beats provided by kkfs. Sounds nothing like nu-soul or hip-hop, in case you're wondering. Her music sounds very organic despite all the electronic elements and filtered beats. Liz turns her passions and obsessions into her own dreamy soundtrack. "If I could turn books into music, I'd do it. I love words, I love to read and write and I love screenplays. The sentences I take from movies have a lot of personal meaning to me, they are all related to the story that grows into the idea for each record. They are all a result of my experiences and fantasies or a mixture of these. I love cinema and I love literature, screenplays, theater, dreams and words...and music, of course".

She has once been a Tricky and Portishead admirer but what really got her was Billie Holiday, one of her eternal obsessions and wich led her to explore other jazz singers like Nina Simone. " I started to make mixtapes for myself and used records by Monika Enterprise, Isan, Dntel, Figurine and Styrofoam, stuff like that. I would insert vocal samples and sound recordings of rain and those were my first experiments with music software." And those mixtapes eventually led Fernando to invite Liz to contribute on an album, a collection of remixes of his own first record. "I made so many remixes he ended up turning my work into a record by itself and that was my first proper album."

Liz is not very optimistic on the perspective of modern day divas, like the one's from the past that seem to be her partners on her records and dreams. "Talent is not aprecciated as much these days and if divas exist today, they're certainly not in the media. I don't think there's a voice this days that could be compared to Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Etta James, Dinah Washington, Ella Fitzgerald, Edith Piaf...at least not that I know about. You don't see anyone like Greta Garbo (pictured here) or Marlene Dietrich or Marilyn Monroe or Audrey Hepburn. The thing is...I love jazz...contemporary music, with the exception of electronic music, doesn't really interest me" she explains. The first half of the 20th century seems to be what best identifies with Liz's desires as an artists."What fascinates me about music and films of the period is that women would live to love, they were dedicated to it, to a great love and I would really like to meet someone like that. My fondness for electronic music is really a personal matter, I can't imagine doing something else, I never really liked rock and other stuff. I'm also driven by the possibility to have my own take on all the vintage things that I love and bring them to present time."

Listen: