Photo Clearance

Gonna be clearing out a lot of photos from my Shutterfly account, most of which were used on the Nausea & Bliss blog that I shut down a couple of months ago. I decided I'd throw a few of them up here as I go. Some are not too bad and halfway artistic. Others, like the one above, are just curiousities.

Aphex Twin I Care Becuse You Do

I have to confess that it took me a long, long time to appreciate Richard D. James (aka Aphex Twin). I had read many reviews of his music and they had almost unanimously agreed that his electronic music was "the next big thing" in that genre. Being a fan of "old school" electronica (such as Kraftwerk and Bill Nelson's electronic projects as well as the really pioneering stuff bu Iannis Xennakis and Charles Dodge), I was very interested in checking this Aphex Twin guy out...
If I recall correctly, that chance came in 1991, when I ordered a copy of I Care Because You Do from a record club.
I remember putting it on and trying to "get into" it, but alas, it was just TOO different for me (and that's saying something about how unique the album is, because I usually enjoy total originality)...
Or maybe I should say that it didn't sound like what I expected an "electronic" album to sound like...and it didn't. It was very percussion-heavy, much more so than the electronic music I'd championed previously. The instrumentation didn't sound like the synthesizers I had come to expect. In fact, they often didn't sound like anything I'd ever heard before in my life.
Time has passed and I've developed a true love for the genre known as "Braindance/IDM/Glitch". The credit for that goes to Autechre. From there I decided to give Aphex Twin another chance and ever since then I've been a hardcore fan of his music.
Even so, I Care Because You Do has remained a fairly difficult record for me to get into. That said, I do enjoy it tremendously these days.
I can't really proclaim any tracks as "favorites", as I like most all of them. The only one I don't really care for is the intentionally annoying "Ventolin (Video Version)".

Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music

Lou Reed Metal Machine Music

Rockets spiralling out of control, into the atmosphere from fiery blue planets. All communication dead at the very last second, too late to send the message..."We have penetrated the earth's pencil-thin membrane, our hopes rest on thunderheads".
And, of course, they do.
Lou Reed must have been shooting some mighty fine heroin during the sessions for Metal Machine Music.
A collection of 4 precisely timed (16:06, if your interested) vignettes of total cacophony that have been name-checked by noise-meisters Sonic Youth as well as several who reside in various mental asylums around the world.
The Sonic Youth tag is legitimate. You can almost conjure a mental picture of Thurston Moore zoning out to the whole Metal Machine Music album, trying to find ways to turn the pure noise into catchy , post-punk indie rock.
At any rate, there's nothing truly ground-breaking on the album, "musically" that is. Iannis Xannakis and Karlheinz Stockhausen are but two postmodern composers who have created material that's every bit as jarring as MMM (moreso in some cases)...
The "huh?" thing about this album is that it was released by a man who was on the verge of becoming every bit as popular as any rock star of his day (think David Bowie or, to a lesser degree, Iggy Pop). "Commercial Suicide" indeed, and no doubt the good folks at RCA were NOT pleased.
If you forget all of that and just listen to the music, you may be surprised. Indeed, it has aged very well (as so many of Reed's compositions tend to do) and the astute listener will hear lots of things going on beneath the surface veneer of chaotic chatter. Indeed, having become very familiar with the works of Aphex Twin and Autechre, I hear this album with "new ears", ones that are much more sensitive to Reed's electronic pioneering.

My "YouTube" Music Archive

With the advent of YouTube, I have taken the liberty of creating a BLOG that features all of the really cool vintage music videos from artists that I have much respect for.
It's well worth checking out, even if it is only in it's initial stages.
Thanks.

New Art

I haven't done much Photoshop art since dismantling the Nausea & Bliss blog, but I cobbled together three pieces this evening and figured I'd share them here.

Remembering JIMMY IDLE

The marvelous Self-Titled album, featuring such musical gems as "Hey, I Misplaced My Sun Glasses", "Rock-a-poppa Sinna", "Cooked in the Nog" and who can forget the classic, "Wang Dang Noodle Doodle Part 54" (considered in Brazil to be one of the most outrageous tracks ever recorded)?



Yeah, I'm a Bad Ass...This sophomore effort was panned by many critics...all of whom have grieving mothers and fathers now because Idle wasn't fuckin' around when he said he was a Bad Ass. What the album lacks in quality it more than makes up for with sheer noise. Thurston Moore once remarked that the lead-off track on this album, "Chatahoochie Dissection", was the inspiration for "The Diamond Sea" (from their epic Washing Machine release). Other "diamonds in the rough" on this remarkable album include "Gene Siskel, I Miss You (cuz Ebert's NOTHING Without You)", "Sour Cream and Onion Enema", "Rabid Rabbit Collection Part 36", "Cookin' Crack for Happy Jack", and "The Rough Guide to String Beans".



A Blood Sacrifice, My Friend...Idle's final effort, and many consider it a blessing that Idle put down his patented "Crusty Crunch Acoustic Guitar" after sales of this album plummeted the very same day it was released. Idle committed suicide not long after the release of this record, leaving behind a chilling coincidence, ie. "blood sacrifices". There are some who claim that Idle's death was accidental, not a suicide at all, but those who knew Idle well understood that "choking to death on a tuna salad sandwich" could be nothing else BUT a suicide (it was was a well known fact among Idle's small circle of friends that he despised tuna).
The standout tracks on this closer were few, but they were decent enough to make up for the rest of the filler: "Go-Cart Mozart Ride Yo Harley Part 12", "Ice Cubes in My Shorts (Got Me Feelin' Sorta Chilly)", "Chilly Willy's Dropped a Load", "You Make Me Wanna Buy a Thesaurus" and last but not least, "Last But Not Least".



NOTE: Sometimes I do foolish things. I have no idea why I deleted these Jimmy Idle photos from my flickr account. They were pretty funny, if I say so myself. Hopefully the text will stand up on it's own without the images.---JAC 02.05.08