My Awesome Mixtape Live@MagazzenoBis

I didn't think i'd be linking to video again so soon, but i just found out that tonight's concert of one of my favourite bands, My Awesome Mixtape, performed for one of my favourite radio programmes, Magazzeno Bis, will be filmed and shown live on MTV and on the Mogulus Player embedded below.


EDIT: player would rather annoyingly start playing on its own. Here's a link to the channel instead. And yes, the concert i was yapping about in this post still blocks 2 minutes in. The rest of the stuff is good though.

Concert begins at 22hrs GMT+1 of the date this post was created (which i can't be bothered to remember for the obvious reason that it is a saturday morning). There is an offhand chance you might catch a glimpse of myself+friends since we will also be attending the show.
In all other moments you will see reruns of previous concerts by the band, and The Lord only knows what else.

Sex, Sleep, Eat, Drink, Dream

As performed by Mariposa in September 2004 (and released last year), originally composed/performed by the mighty King Crimson back in 1994/95.
The video, on the other hand, was created this year by se_mm_ai, a trio of artists who then saw it refused from a videoart exposition held by Siena University because, in the words of the organizers, "no image must damage other people's ethical freedom" whatever that means. I just think it's a real pretty video and the song is real good too.

Plus i just realized this post is going to get quite a lot of rather unwanted visitors just because it has the words "sex" and "video" in it. Darn.

Links for 15/04/08

In lieu of blogging, here's a list of things i've been linking to on various social networks or instant messengers over the day.

-Elio e le Storie Tese on TRL, yesterday (no music, just talking. Sorry, non italian-speakers)

-Of my recent articles on Tracklist, the London one is i think the one that turned out best.

-Takeshi from YMCK interviewed. They're one of the best bands currently active worldwide, and that's not just a personal opinion, and deserve to be checked out. I particularly liked this passage:

Unlike the real 8bit consoles, you can have as much polyphony with my plug-in as you want, so always have to be aware not to overdub it too much, so that the cheapness isn’t spoiled.

(Via JeanSnow)

-Latest work from Banksy. He's been sort of repeating himself over the past five years or so and no longer thrills me like when i first found out about him, but the accomplishment on such a grand scale is still impressive. Perhaps we should stop considering his works only physically and rather also take in account the risk factor involved. Or even only consider him an artist who works with risk and efforts not to be caught, and stop considering the painted result altogether. (Tnx to Ceci)

-A new cure to cancer - featuring hot dogs! (via RStevens)

-BIGGEST KEBAB EVAR (Tnx to Pelo)

-Adult Swim soft vinyl blind assortment from KidRobot.

-Motionportrait: an example of what can be done with Flash. (What can't be done with Flash?)

-Massive 16giga will-eat-your-parents nineties eurodance torrent. Haddaway, Dr.Alban, Corona, the whole lot. (Raw torrent file in link - beware)

-Groovisions official website with work samples. Lots of them. I don't even know what most of this stuff is but i know i want all of it. Also, it's interesting how their Warhol exhibition design is so similar to certain work they've done for Pizzicato 5, like the International Playboy&Playgirl album boxed set (both are visible in the "Works" section). Ah, but i digress.

-Tostoini plugs Gato (Grazie Roberta!)

-Suggested listening: Neil Gaiman - instructions. (128kps 4.7Mb right-click to download) A poem about what to do if you find yourself in a fairy tale.

These are all things i discovered, linked to, was directed towards, read and/or enjoyed in one day, whilst desperately attempting not to think about the results of the italian elections, and what to do about them.

a sort of big sort of update

I've felt like blogging for ages - and still have plenty to tell - but haven't had the time for, well, about two weeks now.
Much has been going on, often with my involvement, sometimes even successfully.
So this is just a much-delayed what-i've-been-doing update, hoping to be able to post more of the usual amusing ephemera sometime later (maybe in an hour, maybe next month).

I've been working for a band called Mariposa for the past three or four months. I'm doing online publicity for them of some sort, helping them out with their myriads of projects such as Magazzeno Bis, the concert/talk show/radio show they host every two weeks, and Indipendulo, their minifestival held within the annual independent label meetup of Faenza (MEI).
I'd been aware of them for some time, a listener for about a year and when i finally managed to see their live show two weeks ago i realized it was the closest i'd ever seen to the original Mothers of Invention from the late sixties. Hopefully we'll have some video online soon to give further proof to that comparison.

I'm still working for Elio e le Storie Tese, doing various unmentionable and ultimately minimal background stuff including but not limited to pissing the fans off on their forum. With a new album out and a week-long high profile late night tv show in the past month, things have been rather hectic on that front but luckily for me it was my longtime associate Pelodia who had to do most of the actual work while the rest of us sat around on the sidelines, boasting about our involvement to our real-life friends.

In addition to all that, i've been busy with a third much more ambitious project which launched at th end of last month. I've been invited to co-edit and write for a new online magazine called Tracklist. It's about music, about different tracklists based on our various moods or past experiences(hoping not to get too nickhornby-ish), about cool music stuff found online, and just about anything else that meets our fancy. The rest of the team and myself have put a great deal of energy into the project, so it's a gigantic satisfaction to have things up and running smoothly, at least at the moment (fingers always crossed).


A snapshot of what the site looks like as of this blogpost.

Considering all this stuff i've been doing just over tha past month or so, it's time for an arguably well-deserved break. I'll be in London and Oxford for a week from tomorrow, chilling with friends and visiting what i refer to as the Three D's: Duchamp, Doctor Who and Derf.

As always, updates will be present if and when time and unashamedly stolen wifi connections are available, and when i'm back i will hopefully manage to update with more pictures of the cat, girls kissing computer screens and myself on stage with one of my favourite bands. In that order because cuteness has a priority ticket here.

A couple of very personal considerations which have nothing whatsoever to do with anything or anyone officer, now please put that freaking gun away.

1. If you think the answer to "what will students do now that we've removed any trace of entertainment from their everyday lives" is "study more", then i have the nagging sensation that you just might be utterly and absolutely wrong.
2. I can't wait for the time to come when we will no longer have to depend on energy sources that can essentially be described as "things that EXPLODE".

That's all for now, a bigger and stronger blogpost is coming soon (as soon as i'm done adding all the links).

Just like when you fold a piece in paper in two so many times that it just disappears into a tiny parallel dimension.

Half of the times i say i'm reading a book, i'm actually reading comics.
Half of the times i say i'm reading comics, i'm actually reading webcomics.

Friday Cat Blogging

When in doubt...

Sometime in august 2007.
I'll post a newer one, one of these days.

The webmaster loves his parents.

Lunchtime, yesterday.
My Father: I gave the cat a gigantic chicken wing, did he eat it?
My Mother: Yep, gobbled it up. I'm surprised he left the bone.
My Father: Well, that means your cooking must be improving.

Bonus links:
John Cleese Interviewed (Via NewsFromMe)
Stunningly beautiful site where children's drawings are recreated as photographs (Via Neil Gaiman's Journal)

Link of the day(s)

David Byrne's Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists — and Megastars

I've kept a tab this in an open tab for over two months, marked for "immediate reading". I haven't gotten around to reading it yet. All i know it's David Byrne, writing about new models for musical distribution. Which is more than worth a read.
Go along now and read it before i do.

Attention Italian Music Lovers

New Elio e le Storie Tese single/video:



New album on the 20th of February, sold mostly in unconventional places (newsagents and internets. Ok, record shops too).


Which is one of the reasons i haven't been able to keep up with my one-post-per-day project: work got in the way.
I don't usually post too much about work here on the blog, mainly because it would feel like selling out in a "have a look at the cool stuff i get paid for making you look at" way. But lately i've found myself in the unexpected position of working on projects so innovative and stimulating that i spend most of my time thinking about them even when i'm not working, and am just as surprised about how this actually feels quite good.
And of course when i say i'm "working on the projects" it goes without saying that my position in the project is slightly lower than "janitor's clumsy helper".

Another reason i haven't been posting is that in my previous post i broke one of the golden rules of blogging regularly: never announce a post for later that day, because if you do you'll be jinxed and will be lucky if you post again that month.

One of those little posts you don't really notice because it's between two bigger posts with images inside

So, you may have noticed i haven't very good at the updating-every-day thing lately. I have a good reason for this: i was mostly at home with a sore throat, and being home with a sore throat isn't the best environment for coming up with groundbreaking new blog material. Well, unless you're Neil Gaiman of course, in which case the tissue paper is made of fairy wings and the throat medicine is made of pure awesome. In my case, it would have just been a bunch of posts about "oh hell i feel terrible", "i feel like i woke up with two throats today and they're both blocked", "my voice makes me sound like i'm the bastard child of Tom Waits and Nick Cave (whom i don't want to know how he would exist, but would almost certainly have a tail)" and other such amenities. So thank me for not blogging, and you're welcome. What i did do was fix a couple of things on the sidebar which i wasn't too comfortable with, and the fact you can't really notice the difference is a great victory for me in the field of not-fucking-things-up-completely. So if you were paying attention there should be one or two new things, although of course i don't vouch for them being very interesting.

Later today: a weekend download. Yes, it's a tuesday. No, i don't care.

Now all i need is a good graphic designer and, um, some music i suppose.

Ripped off from Randy of SomethingPositive*:

Instructions:
1 - Go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2 - Go to Random quotations: http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3 - Go to flickr's "explore the last seven days" http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

Put it all together, that's your first album.

Our main inspirations are heartbreak and opossums.


*(which is my favourite webcomic by the way even if i don't mention it half enough here and even if when i show it to people nobody really gets it which is weird because it's one of those comics which deal with everyday people and situations instead of fermat's last theorem and retro videogames like 97% of other webcomics. I tend to reread the full archives once a year, last time it took me almost three months. Considering it updates every day, i'll achieve critical mass approximately by 2011)

Oh ok, here's a post

Had fun learning how to use last.fm tags today:



For reference:

(Sorry Wikipedia, never again will i go around saying you're useless. Not for the next eight-to-ten hours at least. Maybe.)

I then retraced the history of giant crabs on the internet:
-Telegraph Article, 28/2/2004
-Neil Gaiman Extremely Alarmed Blogpost, 3/3/2004
-Radio 4 BBC Science/Travel Report, 14/1/2008
-Extremely Whimsical Momus Post, 20/1/2008
Who knows if these inspired forms of mixed media will continue multiplying before we are all invaded and enslaved by large red stalin-moustached crustaceans.

And to end this completely random post with something of a vague continuity, here's a similarly themed image i came across last night and was waiting for an excuse to post (as if i needed one):

I think it was somebody's avatar.

The Blindfold Test.

Here's a little game you can do at home too. Ever read those articles in music magazines where they make someone listen to a bunch of random tracks and they have to guess what they ae and comment on them? Ok, in magazines they're usually unoriginal enough to include stuff by the interviewees themselves, or stuff they produced or played on, and the guy has to act surprised. Not here, ladies and gentlemen.
What we're presenting is Ye Olde Blindfold Test, est. 2007.
Rules:
1)You grab your WinAmp and put all your music folders in the playlist. All of them.
2)Then you set it on random and press play.
3)Then you turn the screen off or look the other way and try to identify what's playing, and write a couple of words' commentary about it if you feel it's necessary.
4)You post the results on your blog, or on your myspace profile, or as a Facebook note, or print them and nail them to the local church doors, whatever.

In my case, the playlist goes well over 30000 tracks (31352 to be precise), so setting that to random accounts for a rather satisfying level of unexpectedness. I did the test some time ago, and this is how i fared:

Ten songs - Blindfold test

1. Gilberto Gil - Domingou
Os Mutantes? The intro was a giveaway. Of course i like Os Mutantes but never found them all that focused - i appreciate their imaginative use of instruments and the wide and wild color they give to their songs, but only their best songs are actually going somewhere as a song and lyric. Plus, most of their best songs were actually by caetano, which doesn't really surprise anyone. (Is told what the song actually is) This one is a song with Gilberto Gil from one of his first albums. I need to listen to more Gil from that period!
2. PUSA - Shortwave
Presidents of the United States of America! God i love this band. They were important to me in the mid-nineties because they reminded us all that this kind of guitar music (i'm trying not to call it "grunge") could also be cheerful and joking, not just deep and angsty like Kurt made quite an extreme point in convincing us. This one's from one of their more recent albums - they had broken up at their peak, and reformed some years ago with a strong new repertoire. of course i know the old ones better.
3. Towa Tei - Technova
Technova, Towa Tei. Featuring Bebel Gilberto! I think this was the firt time Bebel got international exposure. The album itself is great, it has Arto in it, and Bebel of course, and even Maki Nomiya if i remember well! I remember once attending a videoart retrospective in Santiago, and being most surprised when the video for this song was shown. It was probably quite groundbreaking at the time, with the digital animation, the three arms...
It was Towa's first solo album, a special edition came out reently for the tenth anniversary. I first heard of Towa from his presence in Arto's O Corpo Sutil, which is one gem of an album. All-star participations, opened me to the work of so many geniuses: Bill Frisell, Marc Ribot, Vinicius Cantuaria of course, Yuka Honda, Amadeo Pace... plus Sakamoto and Eno! Going back to Technova, it seems to foreshadow so many things... coming from the NY dance scene, with bits of the london hip hop jazz, not yet exactly shibuya-kei...
4. Cassandra Wilson - Wichita Lineman
Wichita Lineman. Sounds like Cassandra Wilson! Yep, that's her. Beautiful song, i've developed a loving for Bacharach so strong i even went to see Dionne Warwick live this summer! This Cassandra album is my favourite (certain others i find, excuse me, rather boring), she covers some great songs: Only a Dream in Rio by James Taylor, Aguas de Março by Jobim, Hot Tamales by Robert Johnson...can't go wrong!
"i know he needs a short vacation"...that bit always stops me on my tracks!
5. Frank Zappa - Do it in C
Oooh, The Lost Episodes! The Blackouts! this is just a really short spoken track of Zappa's very first band. It says a lot that he published a spoken part but none of their playing... he had high standards and needed to live up to them! This one's off the Apocrypha bootleg, a precious and very elegantly designed affair. First time i heard it, it was as the first track on The Lost Episodes which is much, much easier to find. And legal, too!
Oh, this version also has some Studio Z muddling in it. There's Beefheart doing some of his trademark voices back before they were trademark. Before he was Beefheart as a matter of fact!
6. John Zorn - Avelut
Hmm. plenty of classical guitar, sounds chilean...Oops, couldn't have been wronger, it's John Zorn! it's a track from Masada Guitars. His Masada project is something wonderful, there's another double album i highly recommend but can't remember the title right now... this one's great too. It's funny, it does actually sound a bit like something played by John Williams with Horacio Salinas!
7. Flaming Lips - Thank You Jack White (For The Fiber Optic Jesus That You Gave Me)
Oh dear, what's.... OOOH! Flaming Lips! Thank You Jack White! It's a b-side, or rarity, but you really should track it down. The full title is indication enough! The first time i heard it i had it on loop for an hour... So simple, so spontaneous, so funny, so beautiful!
8. Arto Lindsay - Counting The Roses (self-remix)
Hmm, arto sounds involved... a remix perhaps? There's a sample and it's on loop, i'm waiting for something to happen... (peeks at screen) Counting The Roses. It's Arto! Lovely track from his remix album (ecomixes), only came out in japan... had to ebay for it! This track is apparently the soundtrack for some videogame. It says "self-remix", but i have no idea where to find the original, and actually doubt it's ever been released anywhere! But this is more than enough... lovely track. i'm glad we got Arto in this round of the game, after talking about him earlier!
9. Koop - Vuelvo al Sur
Vuelvo al Sur, probably by Gotan Project? plenty of background effects... it's not their beat...koop! I missed them when they played in trieste this autumn, I was in Faenza. I have very, very fond memories of their Summer Sun video (and the song of course!), always makes me feel a bit melancholy but happy at the same time. The first time i heard Piazzolla's Vuelvo Al Sur was when Caetano played it in Venice, back when he was touring for the Fina Estampa albums. Beautiful version his, but a tad too slow...i like this one better! How blasphemous!
10. Luis Alberto Spinetta y Fito Paez - Dejaste Ver Tu Corazon
Speaking of argentinians... this is Fito, from his album with Spinetta. A great, great, great album. the title is fairly simple to remember: La La La. I had this on a tape i'd copied from my cousin, it kept me company for so long... It's really hard to find on cd, i'd love to own a copy. I make do with the mp3s nowadays, but will probably pull the old tape out again one of these days.

That's it. Hopefully next time i won't be rambling insanely about Arto Lindsay. Now what i hope is that other bloggers i know see this and have a try, it's great fun despite being sort of self-centered. But then again, so is blogging.
Oh, almost forgot! There's also another rule:
5) If you have the time and the bandwidth, upload a track or two you've commented for all to hear!
Which, of course, i didn't.

Weekend Download: O Futebol

We're sort of staying in the same world as last week: after all there's not much of a distance between Vinicius Cantuaria and Arto Lindsay. Today's song is quite the rarity, a cover Arto recorded in 2006 of Chico Buarque's composition O Futebol, for a football-themed compilation called PlayUp.

Arto Lindsay - O Futebol (285kps VBR 7Mb 3:21 Mp3)
Credits here; lyrics here.

This song was sent to me by Guerolito, a very very kind reader, and i think this post shows how much i appreciated it! Incidentally, the original compilation seems like a rather interesting find for anyone who manages to get their hands on it: Besides Arto, it also features occasional collaborators Waldemar Bastos and Jun Miyake, plus italian reggae band Africa Unite (who once published a dvd where my presence in the audience is quite visible, or so i've heard) and a number of acts i've never heard from but seem to be worth looking into considering the top quality of the others. Keeping in line with the coincidences, Jun Miyake's thank you list includes Ramuntcho Matta, a name which is all too familiar to me in more than one way. Yet another thing i'll have to keep an eye on.

(Template color opinion update: blue was kind of bleah, grey slightly better but still bleah-ish.)

It could happen to You!

But you can relax, i won't tell anyone.
(via Coilhouse)

Cheating.

As you probably won't notice, there are still some slight changes going on in this here blog's appearance. I made some minimal changes to the template color and also didn't change the color of certain bits of the sidebar. I'm pointing this out because i had actually *tried* to make things look better but had ended up with one single big ugly mess and had to fight through the teeth to get things back how they were originally, which brought me to decide that hey, those particular bits didn't look that bad in the first place.

What you will see changing are the colors of the template: starting tomorrow, i'll be cycling them around to see how they fit better, which combination i like the most, and if i manage to not make a big ugly mess of things for a change. This you will notice, and please feel free to point out your preferences in the comments bin.

It would make no sense to make these changes if there were no updates, as it has been for quite a while in these whereabouts. Which is why in the past week i've forced myself to update every. single. day. and will try to keep going like this for as long as i can. I have a small backlog of posts for quieter/busier days and will concentrate my online thoughts and commentaries here instead of dispersing them here and there as profile updates, twitter updates or whatnots.
Except for today, of course. Today i'm just rambling about the template which does not at all count as an update. As a matter of fact, it counts as exactly what the title of this post is.

Happy Birthday Don.

It's the Captain's birthday, the 67th.
You can start by rereading his story.
Then you can listen to Black Snake Moan(Right-click to save).
And then you can go out and do your own thing, and make up the rules as you go along, because that's what the Captain taught me to do. And if you don't have a plan you can always pretend to have had one all along, because that's a little something i learnt from acting this way and let me tell you, it works.
But most of all, Happy Birthday Don, we miss you, thanks for giving us so much. Happy birthday planet earth, thanks for still giving us the music Don would be proud of.


Black Accountant (1989)
Oil on canvas
94 x 82.5 cm

Old and familiar faces 5 - Celeste

My good friend (and occasional presence from the first year or two of this blog) Celeste sent me these pictures the other day, and kindly agreed when i asked her if i could publish her here. The main reason she agreed is that i asked while she was busy watching a My Name Is Earl episode and would therefore have agreed even if i had asked "can i take all your personal possessions and grind them into breakfast goo for my pet truck".

The reason for these photos is that she was telling me she had so enjoyed a certain picture of me dancing at this september's electroblog, that she intended to set it as her desktop wallpaper. Of course i immediately prompted her to do so, and to send a picture as proof of this. Here is that picture:
(As always, click to enlarge in a new window)


I have to admit i look rather flattering in a mac. Then again, i suppose anything does.
To my surprise, she also sent the following one:


Sorry guys, she's taken. And in Switzerland. Where i've been promising to go visit for a number of years already but it's never really happened 'cause i'm a lazy bastard.

And finally, if anyone else is crazy enough to try out the desktop experience, here is the original unflattering pic of me shaking my booty to the 3rd hour of 2manyDJs' live set shortly before almost dying from dehydration. Special thanks to Daria for the hi-res pic!


If you want to follow Celeste's example, feel free to send in your photos too. If gracious enough, they too will be posted here for public mockery.

Fun with UbuWeb

Some links from the quintessential online archive, in case there's still someone i haven't forwarded these to personally. I usually visit ubu.com for the avantgarde audio and video archives, but occasionally come across unexpected gems like the following, which deserve greater diffusion.

Kenny G meets John Zorn (No, really)

The Gaylords sing american hits in italian (from the 2007 365 days project)

A visit to the Postojna Caves (Sadly, it makes no mention of the fantastic hot-dog stand outside - a favourite childhood memory of mine. However, may i suggest an expedition to accompany this soundtrack? Pino, ci sei?)

Telemundo - Dificultades tecnicas (probably the funkiest beat i've heard today)

The Most Wanted Song and The Most Unwanted Song (Featuring Vernon Reid on guitar, ladies and gentlemen!)