TOMORROW
TUESDAY APRIL 22ND 10PM
Parkside Lounge, 317 E. Houston
Entrance Fee: No Dollars
CHRIS ALEX BILLY
CHROME EAGLE SOARING
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Showing posts with label Grift. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Grift. Show all posts
Endless Grift: Got Live If You Want It
ENDLESS GRIFT
TOMORROW
TUESDAY APRIL 22ND 10PM
Parkside Lounge, 317 E. Houston
Entrance Fee: No Dollars
CHRIS ALEX BILLY
CHROME EAGLE SOARING
TOMORROW
TUESDAY APRIL 22ND 10PM
Parkside Lounge, 317 E. Houston
Entrance Fee: No Dollars
CHRIS ALEX BILLY
CHROME EAGLE SOARING
Brutal Cuts and Digital Dust
AC proudly welcomes you to its 100th post
Feel free to add AC to your list of favorite blogs on your preferred social networking site
Boubacar Traore - 'Mariama'
Operating Theatre - 'Ah Love Ah Love'
I moved. Again. By my own count, that makes ten times in two years. Ever since I gave up that peaceful, sunny apartment where I lived with Ben the art critic and militant commie, a place where we organized a Lacan reading group, obsessed about 'Rasputin' by Boney M and 'Dragostea din tei' by O-Zone.
One of the great benefits of casting your entire material life into transition is the chance to explore the way things reveal themselves anew amidst the dusty upheaval of packing crates, masking tape and duffel bags. The volume of Walter Benjamin's essays Illuminations opens with his reflections on this phenomenon, entitled 'Unpacking My Library', where he writes that all obsessions are about chaos, but that the obsessions of a collector are full of the chaos of memories.
Walter in the library
You may find this helpful to remember when you stand surrounded by those oversized Kmart tupperware storage containers overflowing with heaps of those curious objects of all forms that will not allow themselves to be abandoned by you no matter how little they seem to have any immediate importance in your life whatsoever. "Ah..a chaos of memories..."
Making my way through the heap, old things become new again. A favorite worn shirt has surfaced, an old pair of shoes seems back in style, a book suddenly has something new to say. I have a particular problem with my old books in that they often seem to be in a state of indignant confrontation when I meet them, as if I'm returning after leaving a highly intimate conversation in mid-sentence.
Throwing things away is the best. Then one gets to feel like Andre Breton or Stalin, excommunicating and purging all that is interfering with the revolution. This kind of brutal cut, Alain Badiou writes, is paradigmatic for twentieth-century revolutionary movements:
"the real, conceived in its contingent absoluteness, is never real enough not to be suspected of semblance. The passion for the real is also, of necessity, suspicion. Nothing can attest that the real is the real, nothing but the system of fictions wherein it plays the role of the real. All the subjective categories of revolutionary, or absolute, politics - 'conviction', 'loyalty', 'virtue', 'class position', 'obeying the Party', 'revolutionary zeal' and so on - are tainted by the suspicion that the supposedly real point of the category is actually nothing but semblance. Therefore, the correlation between a category and its referent must always be publicly purged, purified.." (The Century, p.52-53)
Alain chillaxing
In other words, the 'passion for the real', which Badiou names as the driving revolutionary force of the last century, despite its drives, can never ultimately tell the real thing from the fake thing. It's the same obsessive, divisive force at play in more quotidian cultural engagements when trying to figure out who's punk, who's underground, who's a hipster, who's a faker. The only remaining strategy then seems to be keep cutting, keep amputating, keep sloughing off: because, and this is where a life of grift overlaps directly with critical philosophy, freedom in this game can only manifest itself negatively, by getting rid of something. That's its ultimate limit.
In honor of the upheaval of unpacking one's library, I offer the reader two tracks that recently emerged from the digital dust of my mp3 library. The first, 'Mariama' I literally have no recollection of acquiring, neither where it came from or where it thinks it's going. I have a steady habit of scouring the intanets for aural stimulus and most likely I downloaded this and forgot about it. Considering, however, the sheer beauty of this African blues song, its deep, mournful singing, it is equally likely that, in need of a chamber where its lament could ring out, it came looking for a pair of ears.
The second is a track by a group called Operating Theatre that I know nothing about. Recently, after a long night of hanging out with Craig, I came home and rifled through the digital-download section of a popular lower Manhattan record store. The late-night inebriated glee of wandering through sonic archives was followed by an aftermath of not knowing what I'd bought or where I'd stored the files. The glories of advanced capitalism. In any case, "Ah Love, Ah Love" is a very weird and singular track, sounding something like if Kurt Weill had collaborated on the Blade Runner soundtrack. Dirge-y kind of religious singing over spare, electronic strings. It is certain to satisfy all your urges for the minimal-synth-prog opera trend that is blowing up right now.
Feel free to add AC to your list of favorite blogs on your preferred social networking site
Boubacar Traore - 'Mariama'
Operating Theatre - 'Ah Love Ah Love'
I moved. Again. By my own count, that makes ten times in two years. Ever since I gave up that peaceful, sunny apartment where I lived with Ben the art critic and militant commie, a place where we organized a Lacan reading group, obsessed about 'Rasputin' by Boney M and 'Dragostea din tei' by O-Zone.
One of the great benefits of casting your entire material life into transition is the chance to explore the way things reveal themselves anew amidst the dusty upheaval of packing crates, masking tape and duffel bags. The volume of Walter Benjamin's essays Illuminations opens with his reflections on this phenomenon, entitled 'Unpacking My Library', where he writes that all obsessions are about chaos, but that the obsessions of a collector are full of the chaos of memories.
Walter in the library
You may find this helpful to remember when you stand surrounded by those oversized Kmart tupperware storage containers overflowing with heaps of those curious objects of all forms that will not allow themselves to be abandoned by you no matter how little they seem to have any immediate importance in your life whatsoever. "Ah..a chaos of memories..."
Making my way through the heap, old things become new again. A favorite worn shirt has surfaced, an old pair of shoes seems back in style, a book suddenly has something new to say. I have a particular problem with my old books in that they often seem to be in a state of indignant confrontation when I meet them, as if I'm returning after leaving a highly intimate conversation in mid-sentence.
Throwing things away is the best. Then one gets to feel like Andre Breton or Stalin, excommunicating and purging all that is interfering with the revolution. This kind of brutal cut, Alain Badiou writes, is paradigmatic for twentieth-century revolutionary movements:
"the real, conceived in its contingent absoluteness, is never real enough not to be suspected of semblance. The passion for the real is also, of necessity, suspicion. Nothing can attest that the real is the real, nothing but the system of fictions wherein it plays the role of the real. All the subjective categories of revolutionary, or absolute, politics - 'conviction', 'loyalty', 'virtue', 'class position', 'obeying the Party', 'revolutionary zeal' and so on - are tainted by the suspicion that the supposedly real point of the category is actually nothing but semblance. Therefore, the correlation between a category and its referent must always be publicly purged, purified.." (The Century, p.52-53)
Alain chillaxing
In other words, the 'passion for the real', which Badiou names as the driving revolutionary force of the last century, despite its drives, can never ultimately tell the real thing from the fake thing. It's the same obsessive, divisive force at play in more quotidian cultural engagements when trying to figure out who's punk, who's underground, who's a hipster, who's a faker. The only remaining strategy then seems to be keep cutting, keep amputating, keep sloughing off: because, and this is where a life of grift overlaps directly with critical philosophy, freedom in this game can only manifest itself negatively, by getting rid of something. That's its ultimate limit.
In honor of the upheaval of unpacking one's library, I offer the reader two tracks that recently emerged from the digital dust of my mp3 library. The first, 'Mariama' I literally have no recollection of acquiring, neither where it came from or where it thinks it's going. I have a steady habit of scouring the intanets for aural stimulus and most likely I downloaded this and forgot about it. Considering, however, the sheer beauty of this African blues song, its deep, mournful singing, it is equally likely that, in need of a chamber where its lament could ring out, it came looking for a pair of ears.
The second is a track by a group called Operating Theatre that I know nothing about. Recently, after a long night of hanging out with Craig, I came home and rifled through the digital-download section of a popular lower Manhattan record store. The late-night inebriated glee of wandering through sonic archives was followed by an aftermath of not knowing what I'd bought or where I'd stored the files. The glories of advanced capitalism. In any case, "Ah Love, Ah Love" is a very weird and singular track, sounding something like if Kurt Weill had collaborated on the Blade Runner soundtrack. Dirge-y kind of religious singing over spare, electronic strings. It is certain to satisfy all your urges for the minimal-synth-prog opera trend that is blowing up right now.
"THE HIRED HAND" By Bruce Langhorne.
Following the enormous financial success of “Easy Rider”, Peter Fonda was given full creative control with his directorial debut, “The Hired Hand”. Starring Fonda, Verna Bloom, and the ever-grizzled Warren Oates, the film rested on the dusty shelves of unsung classics for a few decades until Sundance released a DVD version a few years ago. The soundtrack, composed by 60’s folk musician, session guitarist, and one-time member of Dylan’s cortege (he is thought to be THE Mr. Tambourine Man) Bruce Langhorne, is sublime.
The album drifts along like a lethargic river-ride towards a dusty horizon that you’ll never return from. Spare, haunting, and elegant…
THE HIRED HAND by Bruce Langhorne
F*CK A RE-UP MIX
THIS IS RE-SUPPLY
The Wire's Lester Freamon
WEEKEND PRINCE - F*CK A RE-UP
Tracklist
Intro: The Wire, episode 59
Pylon – Danger
Ebony Bones – We Know All About You
Liquid Liquid – Optimo (JD Twitch Edit)
The Gossip - Standing in the Way of Control (Playgroup Mix)
Ghosttown DJ’s – My Boo
Kano – I’m Ready
Paradise – In Love With You
The Chemical Brothers – The Golden Path (Ewan Pearson Extended Vocal)
David Bowie - TVC15
Dondolo – Dragon (Shit Robot Remix)
Montell Jordan – Get It On Tonite
Gui Boratto – Like You (Supermayer Mix)
Supermax – Love Machine
Love & Rockets – So Alive
Playgroup – Number One
Lindstrom – Another Station (Todd Terje Mix)
Grinderman – Honey Bee
The Borgata hotel, Atlantic City, NJ
Why f*ck a re-up? Don't we like re-ups, because that's where the goods come from? Aren't re-ups necessary for life? If we diss the re-up, do we still get to listen to Clipse?
In episode 59, The Wire's police officials break out from simply catching drug dealers conducting re-ups. Had they remained in the re-up, it would have been like a grey, existential french drama. Re-up after re-up, with no end in sight.
On Friday night at the Borgata hotel in Atlantic City (AC), after having driven down with several close friends of mine for a long night of bro-ing down, I personally had to say f/ck a re-up, and I was all the better for it. Let me say here that if you are to visit the lovely Borgata hotel, and you want to know who there is not on your side, his name is Joe Vanderslice, the manager of crowd control. Mr. Vanderslice, a stocky, stoic man, refused, even after an extended well-argued and even-tempered plea from me, to admit my passport (issued to me abroad, at the US Embassy in Prague) as a valid form of ID, thus allowing me to drink alcohol and to gamble on the premises. While I respect the relatively unpleasant and joyless labor of maintaining order at a busy New Jersey casino, and the attendant lack of human sympathy that I imagine is an invaluable tool in such a career, I remain convinced that I suffered an injustice as a result of Vanderslice's painfully limited knowledge concerning legitimate forms of government-issued identification.
In a casino, while gambling, one's drinks are re-upped periodically gratis by the house. Denied the re-up, I went for re-supply: sympathetic to my situation, my friends agreed to retreat to our hotel room, where room service was entreated to produce a bottle of Absolut, the contents of which were then enjoyed with gusto, the remainder going into a clear plastic water bottle I had procured earlier from an in-hotel Starbucks. I treasured the fact that I would be the only one that night who could get in trouble for drinking, high-school style.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
On scanning the tracklist, the attentive reader will notice that several of the pieces do not make their debut appearances here, but have in fact been utilized in at least one, perhaps more than one, previous mix. It's possible that the reader will greet this observation with a twinge of disappointment. Why this persistent attention to these particular songs? Should today we not look forward, are we not, as it is said, in an era that craves and deserves change?
There is a kind of change associated with upheaval, radical disjunction, and the jolts of sudden difference. And then there is the change of modular repetition, of unfolding, of infinite permutation. The former is what is hungered for by an appetite trained by the rhythms and intensities of industrialized entertainment. In this context, technology is used to deliver the promise of the first change, while a deeper potential lies in its capacity for exploring the second.
The most intense exploration of this capacity in sound is in electronic dance music, and in language, the French postwar nouveau roman, exemplified by the repetitive narrative techniques of Alain Robbe-Grillet (who passed away less than a week ago) and others.
[read A R-G's obituary in the Guardian]
What R-G shares with techno is the engagement with modular repetition as a phenomenological lens on the world. A mental object, be it a condensed literary scene or a four-bar loop, is held, bound, suspended, rotated, its possibilities and potentials unfolded and ignited, again and again, without progress, without tragic arc, without end.
This world is marked everywhere by the permanent tension between possibility and determination. Each object or event carries in itself more possibilities than can ever be realized, all of which make equal claim to the right to be manifested. Modular repetition stages the interruption of the process of determination, holding the object up the light of potentiality and engaging in infinite inspection.
One of the benefits of a blog is that its disposable character, its off-handedness and comparative instantaneity give it a workbench-like atmosphere. The reader is not a tourist in a museum of finished masterpieces, but a casual visitor to a craftsman's studio during work hours. Hence the reworking, the investigations of alternate drafts, discarded revisions, and the compulsive return to old favorites.
final episode 60 of The Wire now available from HBO On Demand. As if you're not so deep in it right now.
The Wire's Lester Freamon
WEEKEND PRINCE - F*CK A RE-UP
Tracklist
Intro: The Wire, episode 59
Pylon – Danger
Ebony Bones – We Know All About You
Liquid Liquid – Optimo (JD Twitch Edit)
The Gossip - Standing in the Way of Control (Playgroup Mix)
Ghosttown DJ’s – My Boo
Kano – I’m Ready
Paradise – In Love With You
The Chemical Brothers – The Golden Path (Ewan Pearson Extended Vocal)
David Bowie - TVC15
Dondolo – Dragon (Shit Robot Remix)
Montell Jordan – Get It On Tonite
Gui Boratto – Like You (Supermayer Mix)
Supermax – Love Machine
Love & Rockets – So Alive
Playgroup – Number One
Lindstrom – Another Station (Todd Terje Mix)
Grinderman – Honey Bee
The Borgata hotel, Atlantic City, NJ
Why f*ck a re-up? Don't we like re-ups, because that's where the goods come from? Aren't re-ups necessary for life? If we diss the re-up, do we still get to listen to Clipse?
In episode 59, The Wire's police officials break out from simply catching drug dealers conducting re-ups. Had they remained in the re-up, it would have been like a grey, existential french drama. Re-up after re-up, with no end in sight.
On Friday night at the Borgata hotel in Atlantic City (AC), after having driven down with several close friends of mine for a long night of bro-ing down, I personally had to say f/ck a re-up, and I was all the better for it. Let me say here that if you are to visit the lovely Borgata hotel, and you want to know who there is not on your side, his name is Joe Vanderslice, the manager of crowd control. Mr. Vanderslice, a stocky, stoic man, refused, even after an extended well-argued and even-tempered plea from me, to admit my passport (issued to me abroad, at the US Embassy in Prague) as a valid form of ID, thus allowing me to drink alcohol and to gamble on the premises. While I respect the relatively unpleasant and joyless labor of maintaining order at a busy New Jersey casino, and the attendant lack of human sympathy that I imagine is an invaluable tool in such a career, I remain convinced that I suffered an injustice as a result of Vanderslice's painfully limited knowledge concerning legitimate forms of government-issued identification.
In a casino, while gambling, one's drinks are re-upped periodically gratis by the house. Denied the re-up, I went for re-supply: sympathetic to my situation, my friends agreed to retreat to our hotel room, where room service was entreated to produce a bottle of Absolut, the contents of which were then enjoyed with gusto, the remainder going into a clear plastic water bottle I had procured earlier from an in-hotel Starbucks. I treasured the fact that I would be the only one that night who could get in trouble for drinking, high-school style.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
On scanning the tracklist, the attentive reader will notice that several of the pieces do not make their debut appearances here, but have in fact been utilized in at least one, perhaps more than one, previous mix. It's possible that the reader will greet this observation with a twinge of disappointment. Why this persistent attention to these particular songs? Should today we not look forward, are we not, as it is said, in an era that craves and deserves change?
There is a kind of change associated with upheaval, radical disjunction, and the jolts of sudden difference. And then there is the change of modular repetition, of unfolding, of infinite permutation. The former is what is hungered for by an appetite trained by the rhythms and intensities of industrialized entertainment. In this context, technology is used to deliver the promise of the first change, while a deeper potential lies in its capacity for exploring the second.
The most intense exploration of this capacity in sound is in electronic dance music, and in language, the French postwar nouveau roman, exemplified by the repetitive narrative techniques of Alain Robbe-Grillet (who passed away less than a week ago) and others.
[read A R-G's obituary in the Guardian]
What R-G shares with techno is the engagement with modular repetition as a phenomenological lens on the world. A mental object, be it a condensed literary scene or a four-bar loop, is held, bound, suspended, rotated, its possibilities and potentials unfolded and ignited, again and again, without progress, without tragic arc, without end.
This world is marked everywhere by the permanent tension between possibility and determination. Each object or event carries in itself more possibilities than can ever be realized, all of which make equal claim to the right to be manifested. Modular repetition stages the interruption of the process of determination, holding the object up the light of potentiality and engaging in infinite inspection.
One of the benefits of a blog is that its disposable character, its off-handedness and comparative instantaneity give it a workbench-like atmosphere. The reader is not a tourist in a museum of finished masterpieces, but a casual visitor to a craftsman's studio during work hours. Hence the reworking, the investigations of alternate drafts, discarded revisions, and the compulsive return to old favorites.
final episode 60 of The Wire now available from HBO On Demand. As if you're not so deep in it right now.
Keep It Angry Geezer!
Basically, Birchville Cat Motel is the SHIT!!! BCM is New Zealand native Campbell Kneale, an uber-prolific creator of gorgeously wild drone / noise / music compositions. I'm not sure if listening to his stuff inspires me, excites me, or just plain freaks me out. "Her Anger Is Limitless" is a tour-only CD-R release from Late '06 / Early '07, and a good place to start. Aquarius Records says....
"A single half hour track, created out of what sounds like manipulated samples of voices, is transformed into a massive glistening technicolor shower of sound. You know how when it's crazy hot, kids open up the hydrants and just run around in the street as tons of cool water rains down on them. Imagine a similar situation, except when the hydrant is cracked, out comes thick torrents of billowy fuzz and grinding whir, all sparkling and dense and warm and thick, and you just close your eyes and let the sounds wash over you and fill your ears. It sounds like a million guitars, and guys outside cutting down trees and tossing them in the wood chipper and some sort of futuristic synth battle and thousands of little bells and chimes and a roomful of amps turned on and buzzing with no instruments plugged into them, all smeared into one gorgeous glimmering sonic deluge. "
BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL - HER ANGER IS LIMITLESS
I wrote Campbell Kneale a Myspace message (have you heard of Myspace?) to tell him how great the record is... Click on the photo below to read our correspondence.
Does anyone want to get together in some dark room and blast this as loud as possible... on weed ;)
Love,
"A single half hour track, created out of what sounds like manipulated samples of voices, is transformed into a massive glistening technicolor shower of sound. You know how when it's crazy hot, kids open up the hydrants and just run around in the street as tons of cool water rains down on them. Imagine a similar situation, except when the hydrant is cracked, out comes thick torrents of billowy fuzz and grinding whir, all sparkling and dense and warm and thick, and you just close your eyes and let the sounds wash over you and fill your ears. It sounds like a million guitars, and guys outside cutting down trees and tossing them in the wood chipper and some sort of futuristic synth battle and thousands of little bells and chimes and a roomful of amps turned on and buzzing with no instruments plugged into them, all smeared into one gorgeous glimmering sonic deluge. "
BIRCHVILLE CAT MOTEL - HER ANGER IS LIMITLESS
I wrote Campbell Kneale a Myspace message (have you heard of Myspace?) to tell him how great the record is... Click on the photo below to read our correspondence.
Does anyone want to get together in some dark room and blast this as loud as possible... on weed ;)
Love,
TOO MUCH INFORMATION (#1)
DOOMSDAY SEED VAULT OPENED IN ARCTIC NORWAY
ANALOG SPACE WIZARD
[1971] Deep synth adept Dan Sandin leads the viewer into a 'Five Minute Romp Through the IP" (Image Processor)
sent by analog adept Mike B
ART BRUT METH FIEND
from A&E's Intervention. Get to the part about her journals. Don't do drugs.
sent by visionary doodler Maya M
EROTIC FALCONRY
Soft-core Ornithology
STUFF WHITE PEOPLE LIKE
latest: #78: Multilingual Children
sent by white person XSTINA
>>In particular, the 10 Rap Songs That White People Love Best (from catsandbeer.com)
ARACHNID GRIFT
Male Spiders Play Dead for Poon
sent by natural grifter Alex B.
RAP ACHIEVES EUROCHEESE INTENSITY
Wiz Khalifa - Say Yeah / frontrunner for 2008's most ridiculous sample, unholy offspring of club music infusions in Timbaland, Timberlake, Outkast, Akon, T-Pain
sent by synth baller Jonathan F.
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