Dead Flowers

2008-09-11T14:36:00.002+05:30

What the fuck do you call this? Sonic Youth- Sister, JAMC- Automatic & Wedding Present- Bizzaro.

Sonic Youth 10" on a blue vinyl. Fuck me.

Dear Science

2008-09-06T11:51:00.001+05:30

This one is going to be a BOMB.

2008-08-30T18:40:00.001+05:30

Fuck Young and Oldham comparisons. Molina is Molina. And he is pretty damn good.

A new turntable too

2008-08-26T17:29:00.003+05:30

Classy vintage Cosmic turntable. Time to throw away my rickety Sony too.

Time to brag

2008-08-26T16:54:00.004+05:30

Few Lp's (from Milan and Brussels flea markets) to add to my collection. Finally I can throw away my shitty Indian copy of Diamond Dogs.

Nusrat (died August 16, 1997)

2008-08-21T14:25:00.009+05:30

Remembering one of the greatest voices ever; a genius. Man, it has been 11 years since he passed away. I have not seen a lot of my favourite musicians live. But watching Nusrat on stage was a big possibility. Only if he would not have died so young.

2008-08-10T11:29:00.000+05:30

Best show on Indian telly.

This turns me on

2008-08-08T10:38:00.011+05:30

A dream come true: owning this album on vinyl. Was pretty sure the record would get fucked while in transit (first vinyl purchase). Reached in perfect condition. Long live e-bay.

Only if someone would now sell a t-shirt with the artwork.

P.S: Another very strong contender for the "Top 10 Devirgination Albums".

Ah! Heather, what a voice.

BRAINIAC

2008-08-07T12:39:00.002+05:30

What a fucking shame. I heard this band for the first time yesterday.

Very good shit

2008-08-02T10:16:00.002+05:30

Good shit

2008-08-02T10:13:00.001+05:30

The Dark Knight

2008-07-21T16:39:00.008+05:30

TOTALLY worth the hype (probably surpasses it), Dark Knight is truly an awesome film (and it's a summer release!). One of the best films I have seen in recent times. Batman Begins was killer stuff. But this one tops even that. Hands down.

Fantastic work Mr. Nolan.

A must read

2008-07-07T15:41:00.001+05:30

Mark E Smith/The Fall and almost 50 different members.

Looks good

2008-06-16T11:38:00.003+05:30

Took a long time coming. Although Apologies was grade A stuff, I’m glad this is not Apologies Pt.2. Early stages but At Mount Zoomer sounds pretty neat.

Year of the veterans

2008-06-05T11:38:00.002+05:30

2008 has seen some good records by some good new bands. But it seems the veterans will kick ass this year. Some of the best music of the year so far:

1. Nick Cave and the bad Seeds- Dig Lazarus Dig
2. The Fall- Imperial wax Solvent (Man, the band is on a roll)
3. Portishead- Third
4. Spiritualized- Songs in A&E

Spiritualized

2008-06-03T17:44:00.001+05:30

This one is beautiful.

YSL (August 1, 1936 – June 1, 2008)

2008-06-02T14:18:00.002+05:30

A rock-star, indeed.

Sydney Pollock

2008-05-28T12:19:00.001+05:30

RIP

2008-05-24T11:28:00.002+05:30

What a brilliant album.

Such a tragedy that the man has completely destroyed his fabulous musical legacy.

white v black

2008-05-20T14:23:00.003+05:30

The White Stripes or The Black Keys....................a tough call indeed.

Mouse on Mars + MES

2008-05-17T09:34:00.014+05:30

Mark E. Smith is a dickhead. There is absolutely no doubt about it. But he is a musical genius. And there is absolutely no doubt about that too. Lot of people say MES should kill the Fall. The band is not what it used to be. It is just a caricature, a travesty, a joke. I just do not agree. Fall made some really shitty albums during their "prime" (Bend Sinister, Dragnet and Room to live). Fall have made some really, really stunning albums in the last ten years (The Unutterable, Country on the Click and Fall Heads Roll). Anyone who is a Fall fan knows that the band is anything but consistent.

An example of MES’s brilliance. This album shows the man’s still got shit loads of stuff left in him.

As it is MES + your granny = The Fall

BTW, anyone heard Imperial Wax Solvent? Brilliant that is what the verdict is.

“Imperial Wax Solvent” is the best Fall album in a number of years.

Aaaaah! Has the world been duped again by this nut-case?

Hofmann

2008-05-09T11:50:00.001+05:30

Albert Hofmann
May 8th 2008
From The Economist print edition

Albert Hofmann, chemist, died on April 29th, aged 102

HIS first experience was “rather agreeable”. As he worked in the Sandoz research laboratory in Basel in Switzerland on April 16th 1943, isolating and synthesising the unstable alkaloids of the ergot fungus, Albert Hofmann began to feel a slight lightheadedness. He could not think why. His lab was shared with two other chemists; frugality and company had taught him careful habits. And this was a man whose doctoral thesis had revolved around the gastrointestinal juices of the vineyard snail.
Perhaps, he supposed, he had inhaled the fumes of the solvent he was using. In any event, he took himself home and lay down on the sofa. There the world exploded, dissolving into a kaleidoscope of colours, shapes, spirals and light. It seemed to have something to do with lysergic acid diethylamide, LSD-25, the substance he had been working on. He had synthesised it five years before, but had found it “uninteresting” and stopped. Now, like some prince in faery, he had got the stuff on his fingertips, rubbed it into his eyes and seen the secrets of the universe.

The next Monday, ever the good scientist, he deliberately took 0.25 milligrams of LSD diluted with 10cc of water. It tasted of nothing. But by 5 o'clock the lab was distorting, and his limbs were stiffening. The last words he managed to scrawl in his lab journal were “desire to laugh”. That desire soon left him. As he cycled home with a companion, perhaps the most famous bike ride in history, he had no idea he was moving. But in his house the furniture was ghoulishly mutating and spinning, and the neighbour who brought him milk as an antidote was “a witch with a coloured mask”. He realised now that LSD was the devil he couldn't shake off, though in his senseless body he screamed and writhed on the sofa, certain that he was dying.

After six hours it left him. The last hour was wonderful again, with images “opening and then closing themselves in circles and spirals, exploding in coloured fountains.” Each sound made colours. His doctor found nothing physically wrong with him, except for extremely dilated pupils. The substance evidently left the body quickly, and caused no hangover. But the mind it flung apart, reassembled and profoundly changed, leaving him the next morning as fresh as a newborn child.

Over the next decades, Mr Hofmann took an awful lot of LSD. He ingested it listening to Mozart and looking at red roses. He learned not to take it when tired, or with amphetamines (a very bad trip). As head of the natural products division at Sandoz, he revelled in its potential for psychiatry. Though he also developed derivatives of ergot that helped circulation and respiration, and had a drawerful of useful pharmaceuticals to his name, it was LSD that filled him with “the joy of fatherhood”. And the sense it had given him, of union with nature and of the spiritual basis of all creation, convinced him that he had found a sacrament for the modern age: the antidote to the ennui caused by consumerism, industrialisation and the vanishing of the divine from human life.

Yellow and purple and green

It proved disastrous for him that Timothy Leary at Harvard had the same idea. When the professor told his students in the 1960s that LSD was the route to the divine, the true self and (not least) great sex, use of the drug became an epidemic. People ingested it, in impure forms, from sugar cubes and blotting paper. They blamed it for accidents, murders and wild attempts to fly. The media flowered in psychedelic shades of orange, purple, yellow and green, and in the melting shapes and dizzying circles of a world gone almost mad. Mr Hofmann in 1971 met Leary in the snack bar at Lausanne station; he found him a charmer, but because of his carelessness LSD had by then been banned in most countries, and production and research had been stopped. They never resumed.

Mr Hofmann turned his chemist's attention to other things: the Mexican magic mushroom, whose active compounds he synthesised into little white pills, and the LSD-like properties of the seeds of the blue morning-glory flower. He continued his self-experiments with both of them—noting that on his mushroom trip his very German doctor became an Aztec priest who seemed about to slice his chest open with an obsidian knife. He loved his work, but still mourned the disappearance of his “problem child”. LSD, treated with respect, could have powerfully instructed men and women in the glories of the spiritual dimension of life. But they had abused it, so it had given them terrors instead.

Without it, however, Mr Hofmann knew it was still possible to get to the same place. As a child, wandering in May on a forest path above Baden in a year he had forgotten, he had suddenly been filled with such a sense of the radiance and oneness of creation that he thought the vision would last for ever. “Miraculous, powerful, unfathomable reality” had ambushed him elsewhere, too: the wind in a field of yellow chrysanthemums, leaves in the sunlit garden after a shower of rain. When he had drunk LSD in solution on that fateful April afternoon he had recovered those insights, but had not surpassed them. His advice to would-be trippers, therefore, was simple. “Go to the meadow, go to the garden, go to the woods. Open your eyes!”

2008-05-07T15:30:00.002+05:30

BUY turntable/vinyl. Because no hipster is complete without a record collection.

Revisit

2008-05-07T11:06:00.001+05:30

Class act.

Nick the stripper

2008-04-23T14:20:00.007+05:30

Bat-fuck insanity, primal screams, Zoo music girl, devils make love, bass that sticks, guitar that shreds, Nick the stripper...........what a glorious mind fuck.

Gang of Four: The most influential band of 2005

2008-04-22T10:24:00.012+05:30

"The most influential band of 2005". A BBC Radio 1 documentary about Gang of Four. Presented by Anthony Roman of Radio 4.

Gang of Four were always going to be too politically abrasive and musically off-kilter for mainstream assimilation, and yet, two decades later there is no hipper name to drop than these legends in subversive art-pop. The Futureheads, the Liars, Ladytron and the Departure contribute.

Hehe....so fucking right. Really no hipper name than GO4.

Download (27 MB)

1977-1984

2008-04-12T14:02:00.003+05:30

1977-1984, the most fertile period in the history of modern music. The so called "post-punk/new wave" era. There were few great American new wave bands but again nothing like the British scene.

My favourite "post-punk" albums:

The Fall- Grotesque
This Heat- Deceit
Echo & the Bunnymen- Ocean rain
Wire- Pink Flag
The Birthday Party- Prayers on Fire
PIL- Second Edition
Devo- Freedom of Choice
Pere Ubu-Modern dance
The Pop Group- Y
New Order- Power, Corruption & Lies
The Cure- Pornography
Gang of Four- Entertainment
PIL- Flowers of Romance
This Heat- Health & Efficiency
Suicide- S/T

Live at the Gymnasium

2008-04-09T16:10:00.014+05:30

(Click image to enlarge)

Finding a Velvet Underground live bootleg is mighty tough. Finding a Velvet Underground live bootleg with great sound quality is almost impossible (few that I have are truly shitty when it comes to sound, with only the Legendary Guitar Amp Tapes making the cut). Little wonder this particular boot has been making waves lately (surfaced sometime in February 2008). In addition to the great sound quality and superb performance, Live at the Gymnasium is the only place where you can hear ‘I’m not a young man anymore’. This is also the show where ‘Sister Ray’ was played for the very first time (this version is a total speaker buster, man). And this is supposedly the only available show from 1967.

You haven’t heard the real Velvet Underground if you haven’t heard few of their live shows: crazy guitar distortions, Mo’s thumping drums, and since it is 1967 you also get John Cale’s heavily twisted viola.

Download

P.S: My Mediafire account shows seven downloads against Peel’s Punk special. Show some love. Say thanks if you download.

Klaus Dinger (1946-2008)

2008-04-07T09:32:00.015+05:30

Founding member of Kraftwerk, co-founder of Neu!, one of the greatest sonic visionaries of all time, inventor of the Motorik beat, and without a doubt one of the best rock drummers ever (do not take my word for it, just listen to Neu!).

"There were three great beats in the 70s. Fela Kuti's Afrobeat, James Brown's funk, and Klaus Dinger's Neu! beat." --- Brian Eno

RIP

Neil Aspinall

2008-04-04T15:35:00.005+05:30

The Economist makes obituaries so much fun. In fact it is one the best sections of the magazine. This week it is Neil Aspinall.

Knock out

2008-04-03T19:34:00.003+05:30

No matter what you say, Planet M has this tendency to dish out pretty awesome surprises every few months. And that is why I keep visiting. A few months back I picked up three Galaxie 500 albums. But finding The Fall Complete Peel Sessions was a total knock out. This is probably my best purchase ever from that place.

At almost 3000 rupees, the box set is definitely not cheap. But it is worth every last rupee and more. Looks like someone in the import section of Planet M was on a Peel trip too. Tucked in the corner were Peel sessions by Pulp and PJ Harvey. Wanted to buy those too, but did not have the money.

John Peel's punk special

2008-03-28T23:50:00.013+05:30

Another Peel centric post

John Peel did a Punk Special in December of 1976. One look at the track list and you are sure that if this is released as a compilation today, majority of music publications/critics would give it a 10/10 rating. Almost every track is now considered a classic. But the great John Peel knew it almost 32 years ago.

Peel is in superb form as he talks about what exactly constitutes punk rock, the pathetic state of music in the mid 70’s and how these bands were injecting some excitement, Stooges’ Metallic KO, etc.

The Damned were in session that night. One of the most awesome moments is when Peels tells the band: “Off you go and play boys.” And someone from the band says: “Alright, DAD.”

There surely can't be another John Peel.

Tracklisting:

Peel intro
The Damned - So Messed Up (Peel Session)
The Seeds - Pushing Too Hard
Iggy and the Stooges - Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell
Eddie and the Hotrods - Horseplay (Wearier of the Schmaltz)
The Damned - Neat Neat Neat (Peel Session)
Richard Hell and the Voidoids - Blank Generation (E.P. version)
Television - Little Johnny Jewel Pt. 1
Tuff Darts - Slash
Pere Ubu - Final Solution
The Damned - New Rose (Peel Session)
Sex Pistols - Anarchy in the U.K.
The Fast - Boys Will Be Boys
New York Dolls - Personality Crisis
The Saints - I'm Stranded
The Damned - Stab Your Back (Peel Session)
Shadows of Knight - Light Bulb Blues
Ramones - California Sun
Ramones - I Don't Want to Walk Around With You
Peel wraps up

Download

Third

2008-03-27T18:19:00.001+05:30

Completely stripped down and primitive, Portishead sound fucking awesome.

Dub Housing

2008-03-24T14:46:00.001+05:30

Can we call this the greatest American rock record?!!!

Fuck Buttons

2008-03-20T14:34:00.005+05:30

Was a bit late one this one. Got it last night. Heard it this morning while commuting to work. I must say Street Horrrsing will be on my 'year end best of' list for sure. This monster is the best album of the first quarter of 2008. Brilliant work. As the reviews have been saying: Boredoms + Sunn O))) + Animal Collective. Definitely not a bad mix. Influences and comparisons aside, Fuck Buttons hold their own.

RIP

2008-03-19T20:34:00.004+05:30

Neon Neon

2008-03-17T15:03:00.001+05:30

On Repeat

Atlas Sound

2008-03-03T14:45:00.005+05:30

Cryptograms probably slipped through the cracks. But gave a few listens to this one. And liked it a lot.

I'm now forced to download Deerhunter.

Real Emotional Trash

2008-02-29T10:00:00.005+05:30

A beautiful album. Will make you want to play your old Pavement records. And watch out for Janet Weiss' thumping drums, especially on the title track (and revisit Moe Tucker's drum banging on Sister Ray).

2008-02-26T12:28:00.003+05:30

What a film. During the past 14 years I have watched this movie at least 30 times. And every time it felt as fresh as the first.

Dance your ass off

2008-02-22T15:34:00.000+05:30

Funkiest bass lines after Dark Magus. Put your dancing shoes on.

2008-01-17T09:52:00.001+05:30

Yeasayer- All hour cymbals

Criminally underrated

Panda Bear- Person Pitch

Grossly overrated

2008-01-11T13:20:00.000+05:30

Now Pitchfork talks about The Wire; through a record review.

In the past few months, it's been virtually impossible to open any mass-market magazine without seeing some scribe's rapturous doodles about "The Wire", HBO's Baltimore street opera, now revving up its fifth and final season. So allow Pitchfork to join the deafening hype-tsunami: "The Wire" is the best thing to happen to television since the remote control; it weaves a dizzying multiplicity of storylines together, never letting its edge-of-seat suspensefulness eclipse its all-consuming empathy, hardly ever presenting an altogether unsympathetic character on either side of the drug war or within the machinery of politics or education. It's a great show, and its greatness rarely, if ever, has anything to do with music. [Warning: Sone DVD viewers may find slight plot spoilers below.].........[ ]

Menomena

2008-01-04T13:25:00.000+05:30

Year-end lists do not mean anything. However, there is one up side: you find a few gems you’ve missed. For me Menomena’s Friend & Foe is that album.

Fabulous music.

SuuuupeeeeerBad

2008-01-03T14:13:00.000+05:30

Superbad got some amazing press; made it to Stylus Magazine’s top 10 films of the year list. The fact is: Superbad is worth the hype and more. An example of fresh and creative cinema. I’ve seen many high school teen sex comedies (who does not), but this one raises the bar altogether. Brilliant stuff.

Eastern Promises

2007-12-28T14:59:00.000+05:30

London is the new playground for North American masters. Allen left New York to set that spectacular Match Point in the city. Now, David Cronenberg creates Eastern Promises with London as the backdrop.

Eastern Promises’ sudden and extreme violence reminds me of an equally brilliant film: Takeshi Kitano’s Hana Bi.

The Wire Season 4

2007-11-24T23:32:00.000+05:30

I wrote about the Wire some months back. I write about it again. The show is a fucking masterpiece. This shit elevates TV to a different level altogether. it is a freaking novel. I watched the complete season 4 today. I have seen few seasons of the Sopranos. That shit is pretty neat too. But this damn thing is something special.

IMDB:9.7
Metacritic:98

And a lot of people call it the best television series ever created (better that the Sopranos). I do not disagree.

Burial- Untrue

2007-11-18T00:54:00.000+05:30

GET THIS SHIT. IT IS STUNNING.

BullShit

2007-11-15T13:17:00.000+05:30

Blender's list of 100 greatest indie albums

100 The Shaggs - Philosophy Of The World
99 Dream Syndicate - The Days Of Wine And Roses
98 Palace Music - Viva Last Blues
97 The Mekons - Rock 'N' Roll
96 TV On The Radio - Return To Cookie Mountain
95 The Dismemberment Plan - Emergency & I
94 Half Japanese - Greatest Hits
93 Big Black - Atomizer
92 Dead Kennedys - Fresh Fruit For Rotting Vegetables
91 The Chills - Kaleidoscope World
90 Animal Collective - Strawberry Jam
89 Art Brut - Bang Bang Rock & Roll
88 Daniel Johnston - Yip/Jump Music
87 Wolf Parade - Apologies To The Queen Mary
86 Flipper - Album - Generic Flipper
85 The Clean - Anthology
84 Beat Happening - You Turn Me On
83 The Misfits - Walk Among Us
82 The Embarrassment - Heyday 1979-83
81 The Vaselines - The Way Of The Vaselines
80 Feist - The Reminder
79 Clap Your Hands Say Yeah - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
78 The 13th Floor Elevators - The Psychedelic Sounds Of The 13th Floor Elevators
77 Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
76 Le Tigre - Le Tigre
75 Galaxie 500 - Today
74 The Fall - 50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong
73 Meat Puppets - Up On The Sun
72 The Mountain Goats - We Shall All Be Healed
71 Stereolab - Refried Ectoplasm
70 Mudhoney - Superfruzz Bigmuff Plus Early Singles
69 Nick Drake - Pink Moon
68 Descendents - Milo Goes To College
67 Hüsker Dü - New Day Rising
66 Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth
65 Various Artists - No New York
64 Cat Power - The Greatest
63 Nirvana - Bleach
62 The Feelies - Crazy Rhythms
61 LCD Soundsystem - LCD Soundsystem
60 Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
59 Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine
58 Built To Spill - There's Nothing Wrong With Love
57 Bikini Kill - Pussy Whipped
56 Archers Of Loaf - Icky Mettle
55 Bad Brains - Bad Brains
54 Unrest - Imperial F.F.R.R.
53 Smashing Pumpkins - Gish
52 Bright Eyes - Lifted Or The Story Is In The Soil, Keep Your Ear To The Ground
51 Interpol - Turn On The Bright Lights
50 Rilo Kiley - More Adventurous

49 Spoon - Kill The Moonlight
48 Mission Of Burma - Vs.
47 Green Day - Kerplunk
46 Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
45 Fugazi - Repeater
44 Various Artists - Wanna Buy A Bridge?
43 Black Flag - Damaged
42 Brian Eno - Another Green World
41 Modest Mouse - The Lonesome Crowded West
40 New Order - Power Corruption & Lies
39 Pavement - Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain
38 The Strokes - Is This It
37 Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Fever To Tell
36 Elliott Smith - Either/Or
35 Liz Phair - Exile In Guyville
34 Superchunk - On The Mouth
33 The Shins - Oh, Inverted World
32 Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea
31 Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand
30 Wilco - Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
29 Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes
28 The Magnetic Fields - 69 Love Songs
27 M.I.A. - Arular
26 Belle And Sebastian - If You're Feeling Sinister
25 Sebadoh - III
24 The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic
23 Yo La Tengo - Painful
22 Meat Puppets - Meat Puppets II
21 The Modern Lovers - The Modern Lovers
20 The Hold Steady - Separation Sunday
19 Sleater-Kinney - Dig Me Out
18 Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
17 The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
16 Slint - Spiderland
15 X - Wild Gift
14 De La Soul - 3 Feet High And Rising
13 Hüsker Dü - Zen Arcade
12 Dinosaur Jr - You're Living All Over Me
11 Minutemen - Double Nickels On The Dime
10 The Smiths - The Smiths
09 Big Star - Third/Sister Lovers
08 My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
07 The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground
06 Arcade Fire - Funeral
05 Pixies - Surfer Rosa
04 R.E.M. - Murmur
03 The Replacements - Let It Be
02 Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
01 Pavement - Slanted And Enchanted

YHF # 30?

2007-11-14T14:10:00.000+05:30

The Economist

Stylus Magazine, RIP

2007-10-29T13:53:00.000+05:30

A beautiful, beautiful publication shuts down on October 31, 2007.[Stylus]

2007-09-10T13:47:00.000+05:30

Best of 2007 (expect bias)

1.The National- Boxer
2.Sonic Youth- Rather Ripped (highly underrated, can easily be #1)
3.LCD Soundsystem- Sound of Silver
4.Animal Collective- Strawberry Jam
5.Dinosaur Jr- Beyond

Astral Weeks

2007-08-28T17:24:00.000+05:30

Astral Weeks

Recorded: 1968
No of copies sold till date: Barely half a million

TRULY, TRULY UNBELIEVABLE????!!!!!?????

Cap n Jazz

2007-08-24T09:59:00.000+05:30

Such a great band. Just one album. Such a great tragedy.

DAMN.

Seijun Suzuki

2007-08-21T18:04:00.000+05:30

The man was fired by his studio because his movies "made no sense and no money"

I do not know about the money part but today they surely make a lot of sense.

P.S: Bobo, I finally got Pistol Opera. Let us see how it turns out. Can't expect another Youth of the Beast.

Animal Collective-Strawberry Jam

2007-08-17T17:50:00.000+05:30

Strawberry Jam: What the fuck is this cover?!?

Nevermind, the album is going to end up in the year end 'best of' lists for sure. A tad more accessible than previous albums but very, very good. This one leaked in parts, three songs at a time.

Out September 11, 2007.

2007-08-16T15:49:00.000+05:30

Takeshi Kitano+Yohji Yamamoto

Costumes: Yamamoto's genius

Okkervil River-The Stage Names

2007-08-14T14:26:00.000+05:30

Second successive ace.

Japanese avant-garde: Boredoms

2007-08-08T16:21:00.001+05:30

Takashi Miike, manga, Boredoms (and Melt Banana) and Yohji Yamamoto, examples of avant-garde, from cinema to fashion. All Japanese, bit weird and super awesome.

Picture this:

07.07.07: Boredoms free show at Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York called 77Boadrums.

Boredoms played with 74 other drummers from bands like of Modest Mouse, Gang Gang Dance, Unwound, and many, many more.

"It was a beautiful, hot-and-sunny summer afternoon, and Dumbo was lousy with hipsters and hippies, rollers and stoners and euphoria seekers and experimental music heads, friendly faces and free-show freaks, the sweaty, the scenesters, the nearly-naked, the curious, and me, all of us willing to stand for hours among the warehouses and cobblestones on the longest line of year* for a chance to hear what it would sound like if 77 drummers played 77 drum kits for 77 minutes on 7.7.twenty-oh-7."

Details and more pictures of this stunning event.

And download the full show
http://www.mediafire.com/?4bj3eprz15t

Unlike many drum circles, this drum spiral had a clear hierarchy. Along with the four Boredoms, there were drum leaders, including Hisham Bharoocha (the musical director of this temporary troupe), Brian Chippendale (from Lightning Bolt) and Kid Millions (from Oneida). The full group didn’t practice until Saturday, which meant complicated synchronization was out of the question. The batterers followed the leaders, bashing out simple rhythms while Eye used his guitar necks and electronics to push the music toward a series of climaxes.

Review by NYT

On a good day, it's about a four hour drive from Baltimore to Brooklyn, and a soundtrack of James Brown's Star Time box set seemed like the perfect prelude to 77 Boadrum. Brown's endless, yelping variations on "give the drummer some" felt like prep work for absorbing the spectacle of 77 drummers, whatever they might end up playing. And "spectacle" proved an insufficient noun, with the nearly two hour performance that mystically celebrated 7/7/07 quickly becoming the stuff of dropped jaws, stolen breath, and "damn, you shoulda been there" urban legend.

Pitchfork review

Come to Daddy

2007-08-07T14:44:00.001+05:30

Last post was about The Dillinger Escape Plan and their fantastic EP called Irony is a Dead Scene. The EP has a pretty good cover of Aphex Twin’s Come to Daddy. I thought I should now write about the original thing.

In 1997, the year Come to Daddy EP came out, I was totally clueless about many groundbreaking British electronic outfits of the 90’s (heh, barring Prodigy, and the trip-hop bunch, if you can call them electro). I first encountered Aphex Twin around the start of this decade. Went back to this EP yesterday and wondered how this sort of music existed in the pop-culture vacuum that was the "backstreet boys era”.

The man who always supported Richard D. James (the man behind Aphex Twin) was none other than John Peel.

Aphex Twin- 1st Peel Session (1992)
http://www.mediafire.com/?1bn30njmmia

The Dillinger Escape Plan-Irony Is a Dead Scene(with Mike Patton)

2007-08-06T09:44:00.000+05:30

Dillinger Escape Plan

Recent discovery. A fantastic metal outfit. What a superb EP.
Download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?82mw0ytxygi(21 mb)

Dinosaur Jr-Been There all The Time

2007-08-02T13:40:00.000+05:30

A cameo by Thurston Moore and his daughter Coco. Shot at Moore's house(check out his vinyl collection). Directed by Matt Dillon, who's supposedly a huge Dino Jr fan.

Can-Complete Peel Sessions 1973-75

2007-08-01T17:24:00.001+05:30

Talk of Krautrock and hell, you have to talk once again about John Peel.

“Krautrock, also known as kosmische musik, is a generic name for the experimental music that appeared in Germany in the late 1960s and gained popularity throughout the 1970s. It is based on the ethnic slur "Kraut", which refers to "a German person" (derived from the name of the pickled cabbage dish sauerkraut, often attributed to Germany), and was coined by the music press in Great Britain, where "Krautrock" found an early and enthusiastic underground following. BBC DJ John Peel in particular is largely credited with spreading the reputation of krautrock outside of the German-speaking world.”-Wikipedia

Can’s status as musical pioneers is very well documented. And I have written enough about John Peel. You mix Can and John Peel, you get stunning music. Can did four sessions for Peel between 1973 and 1975.

Tracklisting:
1.Up The Bakerloo Line With Anne
2.Return To BB City
3.Tape Kebab
4.Tony Wanna Go
5.Geheim (Half Past One)
6.Mighty Girl

Stand out track-"Up The Bakerloo Line With Anne". Damo Suzuki sings in a language only he can understand, but any damn person can enjoy.

Download and enjoy.

Michelangelo Antonioni

2007-08-01T15:40:00.000+05:30

July 30, 2007....What a day

Tall, cerebral and resolutely serious, Mr. Antonioni harkens back to a time in the middle of the last century when cinema-going was an intellectual pursuit, when purposely opaque passages in famously difficult films spurred long nights of smoky argument at sidewalk cafes, and when fashionable directors like Mr. Antonioni, Alain Resnais and Jean-Luc Godard were chased down the Cannes waterfront by camera-wielding cinephiles demanding to know what on earth they meant by their latest outrage................New York Times

RIP, Michelangelo Antonioni.

Ingmar Bergman

2007-07-31T09:43:00.000+05:30

"Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls."

Mr. Bergman dealt with pain and torment, desire and religion, evil and love. In his films, “this world is a place where faith is tenuous; communication, elusive; and self-knowledge, illusory at best,” Michiko Kakutani wrote in The New York Times Magazine in a 1983 profile of the director. God is either silent or malevolent; men and women are creatures and prisoners of their desires............New York Times

RIP, Ingmar Bergman.

The Go! Team-Proof of Youth

2007-07-30T18:50:00.000+05:30

Leaked........ But mass deletion in progress. Can't find it anywhere.

The Boss

2007-07-17T17:13:00.000+05:30

Bruce Springsteen: An indie hero.

It is not surprising at all. Taking off from ‘Asbury Park’ and finishing at ‘Nebraska’, he churned out five absolutely arty and radio unfriendly albums. Little wonder even Thurston Moore is so proud of these five rock n roll gems.

Prince- Sign 'O' the Times

2007-07-16T13:37:00.000+05:30

No matter how great the band/musician, double albums invariable end up with a few fillers. There exist just a few absolutely flawless double LPs. And Sign 'O’ the Times is surely one of them.

Marc Richardson (of Pitchfork) said this about Purple Rain
“The great accomplishments of Prince are very great indeed, and this is his greatest.”

Purple Rain is indeed a great album (my fave too), but Sign 'O’ the Times is his moment of glory. The album was written, produced, played and sung by Prince and only Prince. Not a single bum track. In fact every song is flat out awesome. No wonder he was known as the “biggest quadruple threat ever”.

Miles Davis- Dark Magus

2007-07-14T15:16:00.000+05:30

Miles Davis performs live at the Carnegie Hall. It was 1974, prime of his electric years. In addition to his monstrous trumpet, there were three guitars, one fucking huge bass and I don't know what all (guess there was a drum machine too!). No wonder people call this Miles' thickest, darkest and most exhaustive shit. And it is mighty brilliant too.

Feels more like HELL than Carnegie Hall.

Someone said,

"Needless to say, this music will not serve as a pleasurable ambience for classing up your next dinner party. It is a bitterly defiant expression of nihilism from the most proteanly brilliant musical mind of the 20th century. "

No wait, give me that pussy called Kenny G. He plays "smooth jazz". FUCK ME.

----------------------------------

Download Wili Part 1 & Part 2 from disc 1. Michael Henderson's bass lines are way too FAT, FUNKY, GROOVY and HUGE.

Note: Please listen to this on headphones. The music will drill a hole right through your skull.

Led Zeppelin Bootleg Artwork

2007-07-11T14:43:00.000+05:30

One of the most extensively bootlegged bands. Got hold of some fantastic early live bootlegs. Beautiful cover art.

John Peel

2007-07-09T11:31:00.000+05:30

John Peel, his greatness can never be overstated. From 1967 until 2004, Peel remained Britain’s (and also the world’s) most respected (and coolest) DJ, playing some of the most awesome, obscure and challenging music on national radio: BBC Radio 1. Post 1975, he became a figurehead for the “underground” scene. Featuring bands from the punk scene, post-punk, heavy metal, electronic, you name it.

Bands/musicians like Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, King Crimson, David Bowie, Roxy Music, Tyrannosaurus Rex, The Fall and Pulp were some of the bands that first played for John Peel. Recording sessions even before cutting their first LP. In fact Roxy Music’s first ever live performance was a session for the John Peel show. Pulp recorded their first ever Peel Session ten years before (Jarvis Cocker was just 13 then!) their debut came out (now this is what you call vision). The Fall, probably Peel’s favourite band, recorded 24 sessions between 1977 and 2004. Some people consider Floyd’s 1970 gig for the John Peel show to be one of their finest ever. And believe me it is a cracker of a show (unfortunately still remains unreleased and is only available as a bootleg).

An example of his unconventional style is this 1973 session by Brian Eno and Robert Fripp (thoroughly unconventional musicians themselves) for the John Peel Top Gear radio show.
This is a two-track, electronic/ambient music session, each nearly 18 minutes long. And this was played live on the national radio in 1973!???! DOWNLOAD

Some info about the session :

The money on the table is that this "session" never existed and that John Peel was in on the joke. Apparently, someone thought it would be a lark to just reverse the flow of the No Pussyfooting album and have Peel introduce them as the "tracks" from the said album. Some Eno fans swear that this session was just the LP played backwards. If that's true it's still worth listening as Eno and Fripp were trying to get the three-minute pop music fan to think deeper into sound and the ambience it created. It takes an open mind to allow for such experiments on national radio. You just won't hear anything like this today. There's still NOTHING ON THE RADIO.

Check this out.

J Mascis appreciation day

2007-07-05T12:07:00.001+05:30

P Townshend + J Mascis: Two guitar GODS = Dynamite. Live@ Joe's Pub, NY Feb 20, 2007
J Mascis' music has totally freaked me out. This man is SOMETHING (His solo acoustic shows are just jaw-dropping).
It is just super how effortlessly Dinosaur Jr/J Mascis broke into my top favourite band/musician list. Many more Dinosaur Jr/J Mascis posts to follow, for sure.

Live JAMC

2007-07-02T16:37:00.000+05:30

The Jesus and Mary Chain Live at the U4 Club - Vienna, Austria(10-4-1987)

The Jesus and Mary Chain:
1. Brit alt-rock giants,
2. Genesis of the whole shoegazing movement and
3. One of my all-time favourite bands.

It is pretty tough to find JAMC live boots on the net. Sometimes if you get lucky, the audio turns out be fuck all. But this one is super clean shit. Set-list is made up of songs from Psychocandy and Darklands (what a gem).

Track list

01 Trip You Up

02 Happy When It Rains

03 Cherry Came Too

04 Everything's Alright When You're Down

05 Just Like Honey

06 The Hardest Walk

07 April Skies

08 The Living End

09 Taste Of Cindy

10 Nine Million Rainy Days

11 Down On Me

12 Kill Surf City

13 Never Understand

Correction: The other link was for some show in Scotland (horrendous audio). The aforementioned Vienna show can be found here.

Live Spoon

2007-06-28T14:01:00.000+05:30

Fantastic Spoon bootleg. Gorgeous sound. Soundboard recording. Awesome set list (click on image to view).

Get it.

The Replacements- Tim

2007-06-25T18:21:00.000+05:30

Fixation with the 80’s continues. Dug up some more 'have-not-heard-in-a-very-long-time' favourites: Flipper- Generic (this one's a freaking mind-number, Funhouse lovers just can't miss this), The Replacements- Tim and Husker Du- New Day Rising.

Trying to figure out if 80’s "alternative", pre- Nirvana scene had more innovation/power/soul/freshness, or the post- 2000-Napster-mp3-blogger "indie".

What a band!

2007-06-20T10:06:00.000+05:30

It’s a strange and funny feeling. Falling so in love with Dinosaur Jr, a band that REALLY did not matter just a few weeks ago.

What a freakin band!

Where You Been

2007-06-18T11:46:00.000+05:30

Band like this should never slip through the cracks. Sadly it did. You're Living All Over Me and Bug are familiar albums, but I did not spend much time with them the first time around. I really don’t know why I got Where You Been recently. Maybe because I read somewhere that the album was greatly influenced by the Crazy Horse sound; those huge guitar solos.

Although You're Living All Over Me and Bug are considered to be their two best albums (now they sound good too), Where You Been is the album for me. But now I think I’ll spend some more time with their first three albums too.

Download Dinosaur Jr Peel Sessions

2007-06-16T14:45:00.000+05:30

Stones may not have recorded any legendary album after Tattoo You. But cull out two best songs from every album released after that. What you’ll end up with would be one of the best albums of the 1980-2005 period.

The Walkmen- Bows+Arrows

2007-06-14T09:44:00.000+05:30

The Walkmen are a classic New York outfit, Bows + Arrows a classic New York album. The sound is dense, thoroughly under-produced and live in studio. Feels straight out of some fucked up, pissed out Brooklyn club.

Pure New York indie lo-fi gem.

Dig these

1. The Rat

2. Little house of savages

3. Thinking of a dream I had

Note: A post on NYC band/music was needed. SY's Daydream Nation Deluxe Edition reissue hit the stores yesterday.

2007-06-11T15:54:00.001+05:30

Enough of Blur, Miles, Thailand, electronica, etc. For next couple of days, it's going to be just noise.

No wonder I love Grohl.

2007-06-11T11:29:00.000+05:30

I'm a vinyl junkie. And here's a part of my stash.

Blur- Live at Peel Acres (1997)

2007-06-08T19:15:00.001+05:30

Finally found what I was so desperately looking for: Blur Live at Peel Acres.

It is said that John Peel was so impressed by Blur, primarily because of the direction in which these guys were moving around mid 1990’s, that he invited the band to perform at his home- Peel Acres.

We all know Peel. He was always looking for something different. And boy, he would not have been disappointed by this show. Hell, you need to check Coxon out. He is just great. Never heard Blur sound so heavy and distorted.

Download

A really pissed JW

2007-06-08T14:09:00.001+05:30

First there was this radio rip. Audio quality was pretty fucked up. Now the original album itself has leaked. However, none of the links work.

JW is really pissed it seems.

Vote

2007-06-06T09:49:00.000+05:30

GBV- Propeller

2007-06-05T12:38:00.000+05:30

Guided by Voices have made some fantastic albums. Sadly I have heard just one (and a couple of Peel Sessions……Download)- PROPELLER. Everything that’s possible has been written about this album. I would not say more. Just that it’s brilliant.

PS: Ten downloads for GBV Peel Sessions in two days!!!!!! What the fuck?????!!!!! Who's downloading?

Thailand-Motorcade

2007-06-02T11:17:00.001+05:30

A lot of shit is being written (on numerous blogs) about this band called Thailand and their debut album Motorcade.

Another CYHSY in the making? I have not been able to get hold of the album. Just a track called 'Ocean of Fire'. Highly, highly, highly recommended.

Power of Internet. Democratization of music. Let me contribute too.

Download Ocean of Fire

Couple more

Valley Vista & Come on, tiger

Somebody, anybody get me this album.

PS: My Mediafire download tracker shows that 'Ocean of Fire' has been downloaded four times already.

2007-06-02T11:07:00.001+05:30

What exactly is indie rock? Pretty tough to define. But if you got a fair idea. This chick is one of the most influential in that area.

Sony Pix Director's Scope: Scorsese & Allen

2007-06-01T16:25:00.000+05:30

May was a good month on Sony Pix. Two awesome New Yorkers.

Martin Scorsese may be the glamorous one. But this dude kicks ass equally hard.

Bob Dylan vs. Straight Outta Compton

2007-05-30T16:05:00.000+05:30

Bob Dylan is considered to be a great social commentator. His songs are like poetry. In the 1960’s he wrote some of the most famous protest songs. And they used to sting. People say he’s peerless when it comes to songwriting.

But in 1988 came an album out of nowhere, which took Dylan head on (and almost succeeded). In terms of both apt social commentary and lethality of sting. The competition came from ‘Straight Outta Compton’.

Like Dylan’s protest songs, ‘Straight Outta Compton’ did not come out of the intellectual environs of New York’s Greenwich Village. As the title says, it came straight out of the blood splattered, drug infested streets of Compton, Los Angeles.

Just like Compton’s streets, the language used is utterly filthy. The songs may lack Dylan’s “sophistication”. But hell, they are as poetic, if not more.

Download Fuck Tha Police
Get the album here

Mind Splattering

2007-05-28T11:33:00.000+05:30

I generally do not drop any out-n-out recommendations on this blog (you know stuff like “must buy”, “not to be missed”, “go get it”, etc). One reason is that few people who drop in, know about the stuff already. But today I’ll use phrases exactly like these for an album I heard this Saturday for the very first time in my life (I don’t care if I’m years behind). And that album is Miles Davis’ On the Corner.

I am pretty familiar with other Miles/McLaughlin albums. Some of the most kick-ass stuff one can come across. On albums like ‘In a silent Way’, ‘Bitches Brew’, and ‘Tribute to Jack Johnson’ , McLaughlin was just way too sophisticated, structured and brilliantly subtle. He would pop out of nowhere with an absolutely mind-numbing riff. But on ‘On the Corner’, he plays like a motherfucker. As if this was going to be his last album. This stuff is nothing like the other three. This album is not Jazz. NO FUCKING WAY. This is a full-on electronic album. An album for people who love distorted stuff. Every fucking instrument is twisted to the fucking core, especially the master’s trumpet.

Wikipedia says that critics hammered this album. Panned even by those who hailed his electric albums. I can fully understand why. It was 1972, for fuck's sake. This album sounds like stuff right out of the 1990’s. Believe me it does. To use a cliche – an album at least 20 years ahead of its time. No wonder people just could not get it back then.

Go get this album. Go get your mind blown to pieces.

P.S: First listen will knock out even those who think they have heard enough 90’s electronica.

Damn, did this guy ever go wrong?!

R.E.M vs. U2

2007-05-27T20:05:00.000+05:30

One of the best U2 albums. Some of the best guitar chops by The Edge.

A given. This is a classic.

Few months back I read an article discussing which of the two was better. Going by the kind of albums they made in the 1980's, it's a pretty tough call. But a much tougher question is:

Which band sucked more after 1991-92?

Maggot Brain

2007-05-24T14:55:00.000+05:30

"Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time, for y'all have knocked her up. I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe - I was not offended, for I knew I had to rise above it all, or drown in my own shit."

Think Tank

2007-05-23T17:14:00.000+05:30

Now this is what you call innovation.

In all probability, Think Tank was the last chapter in the Blur book. Because Blur as a musical outfit is breathing its last (or maybe its dead already). Boy, if a band ends its phenomenal journey with something as glorious as this. It becomes immortal.

2007-05-23T13:41:00.000+05:30

We expected something, something better than before. We expected something more
You were always weird but I never had to hold you by the edges like I do now
Walk away now and you’re gonna start a war

Read this in a review:

If Boxer is not the record that propels them to stardom, it's unlikely that they'll ever make a record that will.

So fucking true.

Maroon 5: We suck less than Creed

2007-05-21T12:46:00.000+05:30

Awwwww! Someone is unhappy.

Adam Levine: "People hated Creed. They don't hate us. At worst, they just don't really like us. Creed ... had that attitude, they pontificated about how great they were, they had a horribly generic band. They were easy to hate and we're just, you know, easy to disregard."

Ah! Look who the guy compares his band with. The fact is he can’t do much better either. Rip Prince in the worst possible way. So much for risk taking.

The National-Black Sessions

2007-05-19T17:38:00.000+05:30

The National's best album yet, Boxer, comes out on May 22. To mark the occasion, here is an awesome show by the band.

A thoroughly self-indulgent post

2007-05-19T13:51:00.000+05:30

My favourite albums list is always in a state of flux. But for the moment these are my 15 favourite albums from 1965-1985

1. The Rolling Stones-Sticky Fingers
2. Bob Dylan-Blood on the Tracks
3. The Who-Who’s Next
4. Prince-Purple Rain
5. The Velvet Underground- VU & Nico
6. The Stooges-Funhouse
7. The Beatles-Abbey Road
8. The Clash- London Calling
9. Bruce Springsteen- Darkness on the edge of Town
10. Roxy Music- For your pleasure
11. David Bowie-Diamond Dogs
12. Ac/Dc-Back in Black
13. Miles Davis-Bitches Brew
14. Television-Marquee Moon
15. The Cure- Seventeen Seconds

Wait is Over

2007-05-18T14:50:00.000+05:30

Album has finally leaked.

And this one too. Haven't got it though.

(Sorry, this has not leaked yet).

My Blueberry Nights

2007-05-16T09:55:00.000+05:30

Another Asian enters the big league (or does he?). Awesome Wong Kar Wai’s English language debut, My Blueberry Nights, comes out soon. The movie features two women from the world of music: Norah Jones and Chan Marshall a.k.a Cat Power. It will open the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, which begins today.

Film's title is the last thing that would tell you anything about the movie. But ‘My Blueberry Nights’ surely gives out a typical Kar Wai feel.

Look at the colours. This is exactly what I was expecting. Feels more like Hong Kong than America.

A Haunted School

2007-05-15T17:02:00.000+05:30

Jerry, in his latest post, writes that he used to see ghosts in school. The thing that surprised me was not the presence of ghosts in his school, but Jerry’s ability to spot them. And the reason why I was not surprised by the fact that his school is infested with spirits- I know that school way too well. I went to the same “old fashioned/heritage” school.

The building in the picture is the ‘house’ where I lived for three years. Imagine this building after nightfall. The corridor on the first floor had just two night bulbs. Even they used to struggle to stay lit whole night. The toilets were at the very end of the corridor. I generally don’t get spooked so easily. But for the first few months, crossing this corridor in the middle of night, to get to the loo used to scare me absolutely shitless. It felt just like the Overlook Hotel during off-season.

With more than a dozen buildings this huge and ancient, little wonder the school is a favourite resting place for the spirits of Rajasthan.