"I Get Wet" reassessed

Earlier today, the "33 1/3" series announced 18 new titles to be issued in 2013 and 2014, and at the very top of the list (benefiting from alphabetical placement) is the curious and exciting inclusion of Andrew WK's I Get Wet. http://www.33third.blogspot.com/2012/08/18-new-titles.html

Coincidentally, today is also the day Pitchfork posted their rating of the I Get Wet reissue. Ryan Schreiber's original rating of 0.6 issued 10 years ago has been reassessed with 8 ENTIRE POINTS added onto it, possibly the most drastic reassessment between two reviews of the same album ever issued on Pitchfork... (somewhat conjuring memories of Rolling Stone's fabled initial reviews of the first Black Sabbath records, later reassessed by the same magazine with 30 years hindsight as five-star records...)

Here's the original review: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/184-i-get-wet/

And here's what they're saying about it today: http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/16836-i-get-wet/

At one point, the reassessment would have bothered us... If this happened 5 or 6 years ago, we may have asked, "Why couldn't they have just been opened minded enough to realize this in the first place?!?!"

Pitchfork's various reassessments have proven bothersome in the past, such as in 1999 when their "90's album canon" was posted without any hiphop records, leaving them no choice but to reassess this list in 2003. While their hiphop inclusions were necessary, they were unfortunately forced to exclude several transcendent classics such as Blur's 13, Hum's Downward Is Heavenward and Sebadoh's Bakesale... As well as bands like Chavez, Polvo, Superchunk and Spoon whose 90's output seems to have grown in popularity significantly throughout the past three years of unexpectedly heightened 90's revivalism.

However, in the case of I Get Wet, we couldn't be happier... The reassessment also makes sense, seeing as how it's probably the most forward-thinking party record of the past 10 years... At the time, no one could have expected its effect on music, which has probably been most prevalent since 2009 with the emergence of Calvin Harris, Ke$ha, Brokencyde, Attack Attack, Skrillex, or even Rebecca Black's "Friday." To some extent, they've all benefited from Andrew WK laying down the "extreme party" blueprint.

We'll have to wait and see if these reassessments turn into a more common occurrence... (For example, Pitchfork has yet to acknowledge System Of A Down's Toxicity which is probably among the 10 best records of the 2000's.) As of right now, we fully support the fresh perspectives.

"crystal necklace"

badass video from late-2010...

"My Homies Still"

Structurally very similar (and by "very similar" we mean 99% identical) to "Dance (Ass) (Remix)" but why the fuck not... It's not like anything else is going on...

my wife

life is precious, without it you'd be dead

For some reason this is what we're watching right now...

david lee roth soundboard

lowt ide recently sampled the "runnin with the devil vox only" for their forthcoming album "Tag sale" unaware that it had become an internet meme type of thing...

so anyway the soundboard for this song was recently taken down, but we're happy to announce that it's back... if you click on a bunch of them really fast you can create a noise/experimental song out of david lee roth samples

http://geaky.com/262-David-Lee-Roth-SoundBoard.html

new fun edit:: Play this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAFqvrzoCak in the background while viewing the soundboard.. too much fun

the real deal with BEAK>>

This may be the best album of the decade so far.

Due to our insane summer schedule, we didn't get around to discussing Beak>'s new record just yet.. We had no clue they were working on anything new, and it suddenly dropped without much warning back in June. We're also suckers for the simplicity and mystery within their marketing.. At the moment, we're cautiously labeling this as (possibly) the first true candidate for classic albums released since Jan 1 2010.

Somehow we were convinced that Beak> contained a member of Electrelane, but that turns out to be untrue after quickly glancing at their wikipedia entry.. Instead, there's one member of Portishead and two bands we're not familiar with (Fuzz Against Junk and Team Brick).

Here's their press release:

From Invada: "Beak>, formed by Geoff Barrow (Portishead), Matt Williams and Billy Fuller in 2009 recorded their debut album, created out of 12 days of improvised sessions and then edited them into song form. Shortly after releasing it on Invada (UK) and Ipecac (US) the band went on a successful tour including festival dates across Europe and the U.S. Buzzing from the tour Beak> then returned to the studio to start work of the second album only to find that the time on the road had taken its toll on the band's delicately sensitive and creative nature. And, by consequence had turned them into a truly awful sounding pub prog-rock band. The magic had gone. It seemed that the band were thoroughly moribund. Until...one rainy afternoon in Bristol after many tortured, truly terrible recording sessions something changed. It may have been the diesel fumes from the bands tour splitter bus had worn off, others say that the band simply turned their amplifiers down. We will possibly never know the true events of that afternoon but the band began to play and once again their bleak wobbly anti-blue note sound had returned, but this time with added synthesizers. And so, recorded in one room live (with very few overdubs), Beak II is upon us." - Invada



The vinyl is priced somewhat unfairly at $41, although free digital streams are available at Bandcamp and Spotify...

squirt tv on youtube

theres seems to be a LOT of squirt TV on youtube... lots of hip mtv-friendly famous people were featured who were promoting stuff in 1996... we still have our doubts as to whether the show was actually shot in bedroom or if a set on mtv was built to resemble the bedroom of a 17-year-old...

beck, mike d, mike watt, les claypool, every 1996-era mtv vj...

kids in the hall...

fugees....

wesley willis fiasco...

runningout of time

its like nobody even can just

"It's Time To Party"

I got caught with no eegardanc oadgdf youfd been finding thosetalents an yo ooiddi hte algbra wront there waw nothing oleft to it. oso yo uhad to start from the intro again

In Limbo / Flying Bears

And here's our favorite Kid A blip from back in the day...

"Kid A" to Zzzzz

While the defunct column "Well Hung At Dawn" appears to have vanished from RollingStone.Com's archives, we still were able to recently uncover one of their most infamous moments (and possibly our favorite album review of all time) located just a few moments ago, tucked away after being copied and pasted onto a couple Y2K-era blogs. (We didn't even know blogs existed in those days.) We're unsure of the exact date (probably late-October 2000), but we're pretty sure this review either appeared in one of the Best Music Writing books or won some kind of journalism award or something...

Well Hung at Dawn
This Week: "Kid A" to Zzzzz -- A Radiohead Reaction-ary

Our beloved columnists find a fellow Radiohead hater at Reading

A is for arse, which Kid A is a load of.

B is for B-sides. Yes, we know there aren't going to be any singles -- that's because the whole album sounds like a bunch of half-baked leftovers usually relegated to Track 3 on Disc 2 of the third single.

C is for Capitol Records, who must've crapped themselves when they first heard Kid A. The list price, incidentally, for Kid A is $18.99.

D is for difficult. Those who think Kid A is difficult are really rather dim. If anything, it's deadly dull drivel.

E is for Eno. If people wanted to buy Eno records, they'd buy Eno records. Incidentally, we'd like to copyright our invention of the next hip new genre: Enocore. It's like, ambient punk with really, really sensitive lyrics. Kid A almost -- almost! -- qualifies, but there don't seem to be any words to speak of. Oh right, words are fascist.

F is for fartsy, as in artsy-fartsy. F is also for fans, but since Radiohead don't care about them, why should we?

G is for guitar, as in "Anyone Can Play . . ." Well, somebody had better, because Radiohead sure as fuck don't seem interested in it! Here's an idea for a direct action: Get up front at one of their shows and yell requests for the old tunes -- "Ed! Hey, Ed! Play fuckin' 'Ripcord'!"

H is for humor and the complete lack thereof. Radiohead's total absence of glee is what renders them excruciating. Pretentious is cool. We like pretentious. But pretentious requires a nudge, a wink, a crooked Mona Lisa smile, something!

I is for "Idioteque." That'd be the club where people go to listen to Kid A.

J is, of course, for jazz odyssey. J is also for Jacks, but only when A is for Apple.

K is for kvetching. It seems making Kid A was as hard to make as it is to listen to. Just ask Thom: "I felt like I was going crazy," he told Q, in an exclusive interview. "Every time I picked up a guitar I got the horrors. I would start writing a song, stop after sixteen bars, hide it away in drawer, look at it again, tear it up, destroy it . . . I was sinking down and down." And when it was over, and the sad bastard finally took stock of what he -- erm, sorry, they -- had created? "It made me cry sitting in the back of a car from start to finish," he said to Spin, in an exclusive interview. Good thing he wasn't driving!

L is for lemmings. Man, you've got to love rock critics. Does anyone else get off on listening to "an agitated bass-and-drum funk pattern played on a shotgun downbeat [that] abruptly mellows with the help of a murky, underwater echo effect?" Oh wait, sorry, that's actually the New York Times description of a Trans Am song. Our mistake. Anyway, the only thing worse than the legion of rock critics wringing their ink-stained hands over Kid A's supposed brilliance is the disturbing number of hacks dishing out mixed, murky three-star judgments when they clearly know the record is pants! Kee-rist, even a lunkheaded upscale stroke book like Maxim -- Maxim! -- felt compelled to give this sucker a good review. On the one hand, people are making a fuss over sounds that they wouldn't spare a column inch for if it came out under the name "Autechre," and on the other, because it was decided that Radiohead were Important and Significant last time around, no one can accept the album as the crackpot art project it so obviously is. C'mon, don't be such pussies -- Kid A is either a work of extraordinary genius or a steaming pile of dog turds. There is no middle ground to hide in on this one, and we're sure Thom would want it that way.

M is for Mark Morris, lead singer of the Bluetones. Believe it or not -- even we are still rather shocked -- but the fabulous Science and Nature appears to be closing in on 2000's oh-so-prestigious Well Hung Album of the Year Award (England's Grammy). Great tunes well played, sneaky smart lyrics, and a complete and total disregard for popular trends. Top!

N is for #1. #2 more like!

O is for opera. Having exhausted all prog-rock comparisons on OK Computer, the media has been comparing Kid A to The Wall. Erm, The Wall -- not to mention Radio Kaos -- actually has songs, and a story to boot! That fucking Roger Waters is rolling in his grave -- we wish!

P is for promotion. Radiohead -- by which we mean Thom -- hate promotion. In fact, the anti-pop tones of Kid A were directly inspired by the soul-sucking misery of publicizing OK Computer. Note: doing umpteen "exclusive" interviews, appearing on SNL and playing restrictively small gigs in New York and Los Angeles to elite crowds that include Sean Lennon and Winona Ryder is apparently not promotion.

Q is for quotas. We're against 'em.

R is for rock & roll. Remember rock & roll? We do. Kid A ain't it. R is also for Richard James, who, while he wouldn't be caught dead listening to it, is definitely rock & roll.

S is for Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!

T is for there, as in "There's no there there."

U is for U2, whose new album All That You Can't Leave Behind is out next Tuesday. We are very, very psyched, because there's a bunch of geezers who have learned the hard way that successful experimentation still requires songs. They also know that if you absolutely must inflict your self-indulgent claptrap upon the world, it's best to do it under another name -- y'know, like Passengers.

V is for vocals. We actually don't hate all of Kid A. Just when Thom is singing. In that exclusive Spin interview -- which was conducted largely by e-mail, presumably because Our Yorkie is very considerate and didn't want the nice journalists to be freaked out by his lazy eye and club foot -- Thom wondered: "Am I simply in the business of creating the wallpaper to emptiness?" Yes. Yes, you are.

W is for wank. Nuff said.

X is for XFL. Go Hitmen Go!

Y is for Yes. The album art on Kid A reminds us of the embryonic Yes logo Roger Dean did before he perfected his craft. Unsurprisingly, there isn't much by way of liner notes here, just page after page of amateurish scribbling, much of it on tracing paper -- kinda like the album itself, actually. Lift out the black CD tray and you'll find a second secret booklet -- that explains the high list price! -- but it doesn't say a whole hell of a lot either.

Z is for Zzzzz, which is what you'll be doing if you try to listen to Kid A all the way through. We did!

ICP Sues the FBI !!

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2012/08/insane_clown_posse_sue_fbi.php

boycott drake

These are sad times when record labels and the music business are so caught up in money-making opportunities that no one is able to step in front of Drake's decision to go against Aaliyah family's wishes and co-produce a posthumous album with no support from any of her previous collaborators. Fans are outraged, and several editorials in the Village Voice have expressed disdain...

"... if Drake had any iota of an inkling how to act, he would not have offered that piece of shit of a megalomaniacal verse on a track with a new sketch from Babygirl. I've been disdainful of the concept of him sharing songspace with her vocals because his narcissistic manipulative emotions are the antithesis of the deep pathos her reticent presence represented. But this is worse than I could have ever anticipated. F U Drake and while we're at it, RIP Static Major. Respect to the Haughton family, Diane, Michael, Rashad."

http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/2012/08/aaliyah_enough_said_drake.php

Nowhere (1997)

One of our favorite movies ever just happens to be on Youtube in full. There is currently no DVD release of this movie, and the VHS is out of print. It features the first appearances of at least a dozen young people who later became enormous too-cool-for-school Hollywood superstars during the Gen Y era (1998-2002). Plus Gibby from Butthole Surfers and that dude Jeremy Jordan who sang "It's The Right Kind Of Love" on the Melrose Place soundtrack... And of course John Ritter. (For whatever reason, there are lots of cameos from 70's and 80's sitcom stars. See if you can spot them all...) Lots of fun stuff.

butcher cover commentary

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