2MinuteMediaPDX-Bastardgeist

Last Spring my good friend Armando approached me about doing a short film on Bastardgeist for a series he was working on in conjunction with another Portland filmmaker. I, of course, ecstatically accepted. When they finally came to shoot, however, I was completely unprepared. I had been working long late night hours at the Portland Art Museum (which, ironically, is where I'm writing this post from), watching Shannon's unruly four year old during the day, and trying to figure out how in the hell I was going to make a three month tour through the EU work with no money in my pocket, much less the bank. Fortunately, this hectic lifestyle and my utter lack of planning for the shoot beforehand ended up working in my favor, as I feel I come across a bit like an eccentric genius.

It's also worth mentioning that while performing a stirring rendition of "Black, Blind, and Blonde" I got naked.

Many thanks for everyone at 2minutemedia for the opportunity.

my new favorite blogs:
jap rock, no wave, oddities at sector 2814
cleveland protopunk, japcore, general misanthropy at spending loud night
(you are required to check out the cleveland confidential comp and the mirrors album- they will greatly improve your life)

Id- Where are We Going (1976)

ultra-rare psychedelic texan weirdness... hyperactive speed fuzz guitar and lots of lo-fi phasing effects on this acid rock classic. obviously too many drugs were involved in the making of this record, if you don't like endless guitar wankery that doesn't really go anywhere you probably won't enjoy this. for those of us that love lost weird private press albums, this one's essential.

be sure to check out bravo juju for some cool eclectic stuff (like the derek baily & the ruins album!). and if you want to hear some acid fuzz rock with steel drum, check this one out.

although i am not a Sun City Girls fan, i have been enjoying Sir Richard Bishop's recent solo albums. lots of acoustic finger-pickin' goodness, sort of a mutant strain of John Fahey/Django Reinhardt acoustic adventures exploring the murky backwaters of folk musics with a hip flask of moonshine and a jimson weed cigarette.


Fingering the Devil

The Flower Corsano Duo-The Radiant Mirror





Remember that time when Chris Corsano and Paul Flaherty played at the church? Well if Mick Flower, a founding member of the Vibracathedral Orchestra, had been there wailing on his pedal enhanced "japanese banjo" we probably would all be walking around right now with melted faces. Such is the listening experience of The Flower Corsano Duo's latest release.
Immediate and mind-expanding The Radiant Mirror probably won't get the attention it deserves. But if you have even the slightest inkling of interest in improvisational music, it would behoove you to give this instant classic a couple of spins.

Serge Gainsbourg- Histoire de Melody Nelson

this is the essential album for when you're drunk and trying to seduce underage girls. seriously, no woman can resist the sleaziness of Serge Gainsbourg... (link fixed)

Wooden Shjips-s/t

It's not possible to communicate how much Radiohead means to me. Every album seems to shift the paradigm in such a way that I experience all other music differently. I'm trying to speak as conservatively as possible when really what I want to say is that this band is the greatest single accomplishment in human history. But that's obviously not totally fair.

However it goes, In Rainbows will end up being recorded in my own private history as a landmark album if for no other reason than that you aren't here to enjoy it with me.

Black Dice-Load Blown

I was reminded that I hadn't posted this yet when I noticed Ian's bulletin petitioning for someone to go see Henry Rollins in Ann Arbor with him.

Load Blown is fucking revelatory. On this record the boys in Black Dice dive ever further into the cracked rhythms, and day-glo collage orgies they started toying around with on Cone Toaster and before. Rock it on your stereo or in your headphones or on the little radios you put in your shower (P.S. Those things are dumb).

san ul lim is a korean garage psych band of three brothers and a sister. super fuzzy goofy psych music, very DIY, with lots of great vocal harmonies & fuzzed-out guitar riffs... their third album is apparently them trying to sound like ACDC but failing because they're a bunch of nerdy Korean kids. great stuff. if anyone's interested i also have a record rip of some of their demos, including a bitchin' cover of 'jingle bells'.

1.Ah! Already
2.As Laying Carpet on My Mind
3.My Heart

kim jung mi- songs of shin jung-hyun

kim's probably the best known Korean psych folk pop singer thanks to the internet's proliferation of her albums "Wind" and "Now". this is her debut album, it has some kinda funky pop songs with music by shin jung hyun himself. i really really like the track "i can't forget". if you downloaded the shin jung hyun albums you might recognize a song or two...

well, they did it. they finally killed music.

LIQUORBALL- HAULS ASS/FUCKS THE SKY LPS
LIQUORBALL- LIVE IN HITLER'S BUNKER/STERNKLANG I
BAD TRIPS- S/T

if you haven't been convinced to download these just by the titles, i can only begin to describe the sounds within as sounding like a black mass circle jerk between members of tivol and warmer milks, while hawkwind pounds whiskey in the corner and swears loudly. bad trips is newer and slightly more musical, or at least less holy-fuck-what-is-wrong-with-these-guys. but only slightly.

(thanks to the original posters of these monsters, i am indebted to you forever.)

shin joong-hyun is a major figure in South Korean music, his early bands were the first uniquely Korean pop bands in a time when Japanese-influenced pop ruled. by the late 60s, shin was getting in trouble with the authorities for his leftist politics and marijuana use, leading him to being banned from the radio until the 80s. this didn't stop shin from being influential, whether he was putting out amazing epic psych rock records under his own name or doing the producing and backing music for some of Korea's best pop and psych folk singers. he recently retired, so i'm going to give you a taste of some of my favorites. "it's a lie" is one of the best psychedelic albums ever, featuring great korean melodies stretching out into massive jams with shin's amazing guitar playing battling organ and electric oboe. "in-a-kadda-da-vida" is a live album, the first half of which is dedicated to mutilating the classic iron butterfly tune beyond recognition, plus the best garbled english this side of krautrock. side two features guest singers and a bizarre version of the wilson pickett classic "funky broadway". yes.

more korean psychedelia coming soon, including some more stuff with shin jung-hyun, probably some san ul lim too.

shin joong-hyun & the men- it's a lie
shin joong-hyun & the questions- in-a-kadda-da-vida

Ten days. Ten short days.